Thank you, Mr. Chair. With lands administration, just looking at the operations budget of $2.5 million, I think that the lands administration here in the NWT is probably one of the more important sections of this whole department. I don't know why there's not more money put into the administration of land, because a lot of the issues that we deal with in this government come
directly from issues surrounding land tenure or squatters or land claims or land transfers or government transfers, resource revenue sharing, devolution, everything. It all has to do with land. So I don't know why land administration in this government is given such a small budget with such a large mandate. I know their mandate is the Territorial Lands Act and the PATA and whatnot.
I would have liked to see more money being put into lands administration because I know you get a lot of feedback from communities saying it takes months or it takes a year to get a lease for property in the NWT. That is just way too long; if it's a federal government lease, it will take even longer. It has to go to the feds, to the GNWT, or to whoever is applying for the lease and depending on whose land it is. With property tax issues now that have become community issues, I think the lands administration is really lacking the resources and the manpower to efficiently manage the land, because there is so much of it and there are so many issues that are directly related to land.
That said, with the whole department's view of land administration; the budget is really not going up too significantly. By the looks of it, it looks like it dropped.
I just wanted to let the Minister know that, in their review of the business plans, the next go-around, we really have to put more money and more dollars into lands administration in this government. The staff that are there now, I know, are just flooded with requests and proposals and trying to straighten out this land mismanagement of the NWT. I just wanted to put that point forward to the Minister for consideration. Maybe he can offer some insight or some recommendations that the department is going to undertake in the future for land admin. Thank you.