Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What is happening is that the honourable Member for Great Slave was talking about formula financing, and that is some of the similar arrangements that our government has with the communities. What has been happening is that it has been reduced quite drastically from $1.4 million in 2002 to where it is today. I think we are running at $800,000, and the village cannot run with those drastic cuts in a skeleton budget. I am just wondering how the Minister sees the village capitalizing on the new one-third/one-third/one-third financing deal that is so good for the communities. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the last little while, we have had very good success in negotiating new pools of money for the communities to deal with some of the infrastructure deficit that we are facing. We have had an agreement or we received assurance that the money for the gas taxes is going to be rolled out in a certain way. That formula has been shared with us. We know we are going to get $37.5 million over the next five years under that program. We also heard today the Finance Minister announce that we will be looking at a base funding for capital for communities of $25 million. That is going to be starting to roll out the year after. We also have some money being allocated to us through the municipal rural infrastructure funding. This is the only program that requires matching funding at this point. We are looking at ways that we can accommodate some of the need to match the funding through our capital programs. We are trying to make our programs flexible enough so that we can accommodate the requests from the tax-based as well as the non-tax-based. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I would like to go back to see where the department stands on reverting the Village of Fort Simpson back to a hamlet. Recently I was made aware that Fort Simpson will not have the financial capabilities in 10 years to at least increase their tax assessment roll. This growth won't be a factor. I would like to ask the Minister is it his department resisting changing the Village of Fort Simpson to a hamlet? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, Mr. Speaker, we are not resisting. We have entered into discussions. We have initiated a study to look at the pros and cons of hamlet versus village. We want to be able to assure the community that the funding formula is calculated fairly and also that the money is factored in. All of the components that have to be factored in are also fair. This year, 2005-06, we are reviewing our community government funding policy, and we will be looking at all of the different communities to see how this rolls out and see which communities are being affected negatively. We also have committed to the Village of Fort Simpson, and I have had this discussion with the mayor, that we will take the time it requires to look at the formula. We will have a discussion. We will bring in resources to see where there may be a shortfall. If the formula is actually indeed flawed, then we should have a discussion about it and

look at rectifying that. I have made that commitment to the community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe I know where the flaw in the formula is. It is the line that says village or hamlet, Mr. Speaker. I understand that current legislation does not include a process for cities, towns and villages to change their status to hamlet. Would the Minister be prepared to introduce a bill in this sitting that would amend the legislation to allow Fort Simpson to become a hamlet? Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think we would have all our review completed before the end of this session. I would point out, however, to the honourable Member, that the village was operating in the capacity of a village for some time. It has only been in the last while that they have been experiencing some problems. There have been programs to provide subsidy to a number of communities. This community has been one of them. We want to take a good look at it. Let's find out where the problem is. If there is a problem, is it how the village spends its money? Is it the formula? What is causing the shortfall? Then we can move on to the next step from there. I can't say with any certainty right now what that next step is going to be until we take a good look at it. We have a study that has been underway. We have been working at it. We have looked at it. We have seen the first draft. We have provided our input and our comments on it. It has gone back. We are expecting to have the final draft come forward by probably the end of February. I would appreciate if we could just take the time to look at it fairly and make our judgment call from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, since he is on a roll here.

---Laughter

I guess it says here in the budget address that the interim measure beginning April 1, 2005, the new deal is going to be rolled out with Municipal and Community Affairs with regard to property tax, revenues collected within the general taxation area of the NWT, which includes 27 communities, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask the Minister how the new deal that the Minister is going to be bringing out April 1st is going to address the issues that we have in numerous communities of the NWT with regard to outstanding property taxes among a lot of the community members and any accuracy of a lot of the GTA's current assessment rolls. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, the Honourable Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I said the new initiative was a good idea, I didn't say it was going to solve all our problems.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a number of communities like Fort Resolution, Fort Liard and Fort Providence where we have concerns raised by the community regarding property taxes and aboriginal rights. A number of things are factored in there. We have offered to these communities to go in, do an assessment; have a team of people go in and do the assessment. Up to now we've been told by the community of Fort Providence not to bother doing that. They don't want our property tax assessment team in that community. We've also been informed by the community of Fort Resolution not to come in and do an assessment there, either. They're not ready to talk about that. They would like to talk about some of the other issues around property tax assessments that MACA is not in a position to discuss. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess just like what the Minister has stated that a lot of the communities are not all in tune with this new deal and I'm not sure if they know whether it's a good deal or a bad deal yet. I guess with the inaccuracy of the assessment rolls to date, because there is a nine-year gap between the new roll and the old roll, and the resources to manage these assessment rolls are tasks that the communities are going to require, like the assessors, the administrative staff, the tax collectors, the equipment to print the assessment rolls, the tax notices, the property notices, the appeal processes. All these things are going to be rolled out to the community governments which they say they have to take on themselves. With this additional $350,000 in operating revenues that they're expecting with these 27 communities -- which equates to about $13,000 extra per community, Mr. Speaker -- if this government could tell me how these communities are going to manage all of these tasks with the extra $13,000 that they're supposedly going to be collecting, then I think maybe it's a plan that we should implement in this government as opposed to pouring it on with the community governments and making them figure it out.

I just want to ask the Minister how the Municipal and Community Affairs department plans on assisting and providing resources to the communities so that they will be able to take on this new deal initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is quite right; there are a number of different components to this whole initiative that we have to work out over the next while. The issue of property taxes being transferred or reverted to the communities in terms of a grant is something that we plan to do in this next fiscal year. We are not planning to change how we collect those fees at this point. The Department of Finance will continue to collect them and we will provide those monies to the communities that they're collected in, in the form of a grant. So we're planning to use our own forces, our own resources that we currently use today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That satisfies my question on the resources required for this gigantic task for each community. I just want to ask the Minister what plans the government has for the communities that do not want to take this new deal that has been offered to them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I'm trying to figure out which community would turn down money. If the community does not want to take the grant that we provide, that we collected in terms of property taxes, they don't have to. We're not forcing it on anybody. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.