Thank you. Ms. Heder.

Thank you, Ms. Heder. Next, I have general comments on Bill 9. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question on this enabling community governments to transfer charges for unpaid municipal services to properties. Maybe the Minister could just give me some clarification on how that would work or how this would enable communities to transfer charges for community services for squatters, for instance. Would this apply the same as the PATA act applies today as far as municipal property taxes in all the NWT communities that have squatters? Is this any different from what we have in place today?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure if anybody would have the title or label of squatters if they were paying taxes. I'm not clear on exactly what the Member is getting at. If he's asking if services being provided to squatters would be transferred over to property taxes, unless they had land tenure, there's no ability to do that. It doesn't apply to all the communities, it applies only to the municipal taxation authorities which currently are only the tax-based municipalities.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess in Yellowknife, for example, there are quite a few squatters out on the Ingraham Trail and squatters do pay property taxes, as a matter of fact. But they just don't have any legal title to their property, whether a lease or what have you.

I guess just to get away from that, it's not so much the squatter issue, but I'm more or less concerned about the issue we have today about property taxes and outstanding arrears in the communities that haven't been properly assessed and all that. Are we just giving these responsibilities that the government had to fix the situation of the property tax situation that we have in the NWT? Are we just handing ITI down to the community level now without really giving them any direction of what the situation is with the property assessment section, why communities aren't assessed and what negotiations are going on with getting them assessed and correcting all the inadequacies that have been done in the past? How are the communities going to be able to fix something that the government hasn't fixed yet? This is basically what I'm asking.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the comments may be a little outside of what we're talking about in terms of amendments here. We're not asking for an amendment so the government can start collecting water bills and sewer bills. The municipalities already do that. The municipalities already collect property taxes. In the case of transferring the unpaid charges, it only applies to tax-based municipalities. If the Member is saying how can we fix something we couldn't fix, the responsibility has always been with the taxation body that collects it. This procedure was in place since the 1970s. There was an error when the new legislation was drafted up. Somehow it was left out, and the communities have asked us to put it back in place. So we're not transferring any responsibility over to the City or to the municipal taxation authorities. We're trying to rectify a problem that has occurred as a result of drafting new legislation, and we want them to have the ability to be able to collect unpaid service bills without having to go through the expense of hiring a collection agency or going to the courts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm confused a little bit here. The Minister is telling us this amendment only applies to municipal taxation authorities, yet the amendment applies to the Charter Communities Act and the Hamlets Act and the municipalities act. As far as I'm concerned, that includes all the communities of the NWT. I just don't see. Are the MTAs only under the municipal taxation act? These amendments go right across the board to the Charter Communities Act and the Hamlets Act. Why is it that these amendments are only applicable, I guess, to the MTAs? Why do we have these other amendments in front of us? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I apologize if we weren't clear. There are three amendments we're talking about today. The amendment referring to the unpaid charges and transferring them to property taxes applies only to municipal taxation authorities, and if you look at the three different acts or three different classifications of communities, you'll see the wording is different. There is the opportunity. So it only applies to the municipal taxation authority. Right now there are only the tax-based communities that are part of that. This will apply to the hamlets and the charter communities once, and if, they decide to become taxation authorities, but they're not at that level yet. So it only applies to the tax-based municipalities, and only this portion is different for the three different categories of communities.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Next I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to clarify that provision again. Could I ask legal information about why we have to...If somebody doesn't give notice of an event or doesn't give it to the right person, would that then mean that he or she would be deprived of a chance to launch an action later on? Is there that direct correlation? Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

We'll have our legal counsel answer.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Heder.

Thank you, Ms. Heder. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I think that is sufficient for me. By this amendment, we're giving powers to the municipalities and municipal governments to enforce this, and I have to respect that. If they choose to do that and implement that, we're just simply giving that power for them to do it.

I have another question about the questions about being able to transfer outstanding debts to...Sorry, I'm looking at the opening statement. You know the section that I'm talking about. The Minister mentioned earlier that the outstanding debts relate only to real property charges. So I'm interpreting that to say that real property charges would not include parking fees or library fees, but it would include something like water and sewer charges, I would think. So real property charges, meaning it has to be cost related to the land. Now I'm wondering, what other kinds of charges would there be that would go into that category other than property taxes and water and sewer charges? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I guess we should read it out. We offered to read it out earlier, what actually falls under that category. We could do so.