Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try to stick to the topic here, which is in general comments. I have a couple of questions that are for the relevant page when we get to it. An area that I and others have talked about in the past and still keeps coming up is the issue of squatters and land availability at least in the Yellowknife area, Madam Chair. The long standing lack of resolution on land claims is, of course, the main barrier to being able to provide access for people to recreational properties. There is a significant demand. I think that is what is causing the increase in squatting and unauthorized land use. I know from my own experience, Madam Chair, my family has had a cabin at the Cassidy Point area on Prosperous Lake for many years now. We have noticed on that lake growing encroachment of people building structures of some kind. Some of them are quite sophisticated. They are not just temporary shelters, these are substantive properties. I know that it is also happening on other lakes on the Ingraham Trail and along Highway No. 3 between here and Rae. The committee's report refers to some action that the department is taking: a database of who may be or where incidents of unauthorized use are happening. It seems to be an extremely conservative approach to this. My understanding is that we do have laws, regulations and policies that give our government ample latitude to enforce policies that should not allow unauthorized use, for obvious reasons. For some time now, MACA and the Department of Transportation have been very reluctant to act on situations where there have been encroachments on their land.

It is a bit of a saw-off here, Madam Chair, to sit here and demand that we would use our enforcement authority to the maximum, remove these people and that is it. Be done with it. The government has done its job. Really, the solution, of course, lies in some kind of resolution with the First Nations and claimant organizations to permit this kind of access. There have been virtually no leases authorized for about 15 years or maybe more along the Ingraham Trail area. There is a bit of demand and, as I have said, I think that is what is causing the encroachment.

One of the reasons that people would choose to live in the Northwest Territories is the image we project of a vast, clean land accessible to all, a beautiful place to live and enjoy recreation and nature, but we just can't seem to find a way to make that a reality. I think this would be a new advantage to be able to put out there and say we have good policies that allow reasonable access and controlled access to our recreational areas.

This is a plea, Madam Chair, to get far more innovative with this whole area of access to land for recreation purposes, I am not going to advocate that we should go out and start throwing people off their properties. As I understand it, in some jurisdictions an unauthorized cabin or land is posted and, 30 days later the government could move in and burn it down. It is really simple and very easy for everybody to understand. There tends to be very little problem with squatters in some areas. I think we could do better than that. It doesn't seem that we are going to see a land claim settlement in the Yellowknife area for some time. But we do have interim land use protocols, I believe, with First Nations. Isn't it time we engaged and took a look at what could be done to everyone's advantage and benefit? I will leave it at that, Madam Chair, as a comment. If the Minister would like to respond, I would certainly like to hear about it. Thank you.