Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly appreciate the compliment from both the Members. I want to point out, first of all, that the land issue and the shortage of land is not an issue that is restricted to the City of Yellowknife. There are many communities across the Northwest Territories that are experiencing land shortage. There are a number of areas that have a settled land claim and are now working on a self-government process and are proceeding very cautiously about the transfer of land over to the municipalities.

However, the need for land is probably more obvious and more an issue in the south end of the Northwest Territories in the areas of the Dehcho and the Akaitcho. As the Member has indicated, the City of Yellowknife has been under some significant pressure for lands. When we looked at transferring over the lands, we took into consideration the infrastructure, the land requests from the city, and we also took into consideration the needs or the areas where the Akaitcho people have indicated they have an interest in lands. There were a lot of areas where there was an overlap. Some areas were areas we thought we could transfer over that were not too much in dispute. We tried to look at how long and measure how long of a time frame we would need for the governments

of Canada and the Northwest Territories and the people of Akaitcho to do their land withdrawal and land identification. We have included Aboriginal Affairs in our discussions. Our best estimate is that there will be some kind of conclusion within a two-year period. The people of the Akaitcho, I think, are probably more optimistic than that. They feel that they should be able to settle it earlier.

We tried to set a time frame that was giving enough time to the Akaitcho to work out their land selection, but also to set it long enough so that there would be enough time to resolve some of these issues. We have presented this to the city. We have shared this information with Akaitcho. Of course, in the Akaitcho's eyes, it would be that there is too much land transferred over to the city, and the city is taking the position, of course, that they need more land. We have just set this as part of the process on an interim basis. In two years, if there is no resolution to the land issue, the government may have to consider another land acquisition request because what we have transferred over is just a small portion of what they have asked for and need over a longer period. We figure the city can live within a two-year period with this amount. The amount that we estimated should be enough for at least two-and-a-half years. It is not everything that the city needed. It is not what the Akaitcho wanted, but we are hoping that it is a balance and will keep everybody fairly happy and allow the process to move on. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do mean my appreciation for the Minister's effort when I say that, but I think that there is a very clear understanding here that the move on the Minister's part is just above the minimum that we need to do at the moment. It might be the minimum for the city and for the Akaitcho. I am sure there are a lot of elements there that they are not happy with, but I am hoping that they will see it as a means of moving the process along. My positive opinion on this move is that we have some kind of a process going right now. The process is clear to me. It is really incumbent on all parties to move the process along.

I have another question actually. I am going to have to put my name up for another round for the land administration issue, but just as a last question on this one, I am wondering if the Minister has given thoughts to having some representation of the city council or the city government to the land selection and land negotiation process for Akaitcho. It is something that the city has asked for. We know that the negotiations are between the Akaitcho Government and the Government of Canada. That is traditionally the case. But I am wondering, as a third and very much interested party, if there is any movement on seeing these people having some kind of place in their negotiations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you are next on the list. Mr. Minister, just for a reply and then, Ms. Lee, you are next on the list. Your time is up is the bad news.

Mr. Chair, the Member is asking if we would consider having the City of Yellowknife at the negotiating table for lands. That is not something I can answer. The responsibility for negotiations lies with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. In the case of land issues in the City of Yellowknife and other municipalities, for that matter, we do involve the municipality. In this case, we have asked the city to participate by identifying five years' worth of land and bringing it forward. They have done so. They have also been working with the Akaitcho, the Yellowknives. They have brought forward their lands that they have identified they have interest in. Our job, of course, was trying to find that delicate balance. We know it is a small amount of land in terms of what the city sees their needs are. We are very careful that we are not infringing on the negotiations or tripping up the negotiations with the Akaitcho. There was not significant overlap in some of these areas that we transferred over. We are hoping that the process is going to continue and that we are not going to end up in litigation for the next five years or so.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have general comments to a few issues that I wanted to ask about. In the area of land administration when our committee makes reference to it, could you broaden your mandate to take care of land administration for other GNWT or on behalf of all Government of the Northwest Territories departments? I guess what precipitated that, to some extent, were the units that the NWT Housing Corporation is preparing to build over the next few years and the issue that they have, as well, with access to land and land administration. Rather than ramping the land administration function up in a number of departments, we were wondering what role MACA could play in working with the Housing Corporation to ensure that they do have land in order to meet the needs of the public and social housing, homeownership programs and things that they would like to implement. I would like to ask the Minister what MACA could offer in that regard. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have been doing a lot of work with MACA, especially in the area of transferring over what is now Commissioner's land in the municipalities where the NWT Housing Corporation has buildings or houses. We are in the process of transferring the title or the leases over to them. There is roughly close to 400 leases that we are working on transferring over and then there is another 269 parcels where they have houses located and we have to establish tenure. There is a lot of work that we are doing. We also have a land development program. It has a small budget, a budget that is oversubscribed on an annual basis. We have $300,000 that we allocate to the communities to help them offset some of their costs. The community governments have the responsibility to develop properties in the communities to deal with some of these land issues. We do have a budget that we try to assist them with. But our budget is mostly geared towards the creation of subdivisions towards drainage studies, surveys, and those types of things. We expect the developer of the property to pay for the driveway, power pole, the gravel pad and everything that is required to put a house on there. That includes Housing. Housing is a housing developer. We expect them to pay for those costs.

Whether we would take over the land responsibilities of the Housing Corporation, I guess if they were willing to transfer their money over to us for us to administer, we

would certainly consider it, but it is difficult to deal with the land issues that we have in front of us as it is. We have a very limited budget to help the communities with.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. If I could, I would just like to recognize a group that we have in the gallery with us today. It is the North Slave Young Offender Facility, some of the folks from the facility. I see some staff there, as well. Welcome to the proceedings this afternoon.

---Applause

We are going through the main estimates for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. We are in Committee of the Whole this afternoon. I have Mrs. Groenewegen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is difficult to exactly know. I guess I am not too familiar with the inner workings of what land administration folks do in the departments. I guess I am concerned about duplication of efforts. We have seen, over the years, the centralization of certain functions of government to one department or to one administration or another just in order to streamline things. I guess what I am hearing from the Minister is that the NWT Housing Corporation looks after their own land administration issues at this time and what you actually do is something quite different than that. So that is not a function that could be easily absorbed by MACA. Is that correct? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, the responsibility of land development lies with the municipality first and foremost. We do have a budget of $300,000 where we assist the communities. Our lands people do most...Our responsibility is in the area of establishing tenure leases, fee-simple title where available. We also help with the planning and developing of subdivisions, drainage studies, surveys, and we expect the developer, whoever that may be -- it may include Housing -- to develop the gravel path, the driveways, do the survey and the developer is expected to pay for their own costs.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just move on to something else. The additional sources of revenue for communities' gas tax, the $250,000 you referred to which is property taxes, which the municipalities, a number of them have been able to retain the community capacity funding, the municipal and rural infrastructure fund, IBAs industry, the socio-economic impact money that will filter to communities. All of these potential additional sources of revenue for communities lead me to the question of whether or not Municipal and Community Affairs envisions or foresees diminishing their contributions for functions that they have traditionally supported communities in view of all of these additional pots of money that are out there. Say, for example, with the gas tax. There is a reference to it on the dust control program. Are there any of these monies which would see Municipal and Community Affairs have less, or diminished, responsibility to communities in terms of funding? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, I think the general answer is no. In fact, with some of these funding agreements, especially in the area of more specifically the gas tax, we had to sign, as part of the agreement, a condition that we would not claw back any of the money to communities. We don't anticipate our role to be reduced. We still have a role to play, except that we will now have the decisions for how the money is going to be spent in the municipality made by the municipality. We haven't put together all of the ingredients needed to present a formula of how some of this money will be disbursed to the community yet. We are hoping to have funding, especially the capital funding formula, ready to present to the NWT Association of Communities this June. I think the meeting is...The dates have changed to mid-May and it was supposed to be in Liard but it is now reassigned to be held here in Yellowknife. We will not be clawing back any of the dollars or expecting to diminish any of our responsibilities.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. That is good news for the municipalities. I just listed off all those different sources because a lot of them are new and emerging sources of money for communities that they can tap into. It would just be unfortunate if that money was actually having to go towards things that traditionally, historically, have been provided by the territorial government. I know there is not a lot of connection between those sources of funding. I just mentioned them because there are a lot of them out there right now. With them comes a lot more autonomy for the communities to sort of make decisions about their own priorities. I know our government will have to grapple with how we work with communities to ensure that there isn't overlap and duplication and actually maybe even, in some instances, competing interest in the community with respect to certain programs and services. We want to make sure that we are still getting value for money regardless of what the source of it is. With that, my time is up and that is all the comments I have right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, in the last while, as we moved forward to try to work towards giving communities more autonomy, we have recognized that there are a lot of needs out there in the communities. There are the capacity needs and, of course, the need to be able to deal with all the resource development that is happening. There is also the need to deal with some of the infrastructure requirements that exist in the communities, tax-based and the non-tax-based.

So, in fact, in the last while, I think our responsibility, at least I feel has increased. We've tried to put more people on the ground. We've tried to bring in more programs that will increase capacity to try to move forward towards the communities delivering their own programs and making their own decisions. I tell you, it's a real challenge in some communities. Other communities are basically ready to do a lot of this stuff, but it also means that we have to address that there is a lot of need out there. We don't plan to reduce our staffing levels for the next while. We have

some new positions in our budget, including our budget, but those positions we've all brought in as term positions. Some of them are for two years and some of them are for three years. We expect to have a lot of this stuff in place and work through some of the complications and some of the challenges that are going to be coming up as we move forward and give them more authority and more responsibility.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. I have Ms. Lee next and then Mr. Braden. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. Just to follow up on the land administration question that I wanted to ask, about four or five years ago MACA undertook, I thought, quite a massive project on land administration, and I haven't been sitting in GED committee so I don't really know what the latest is on that. From hearing from some of the answers prior to this, I'm not sure if I'm getting a clear picture there. Separate from land selection and the shortage of land question, we have a whole new area of the need for land administration in the previous debates we had in this House in the last few days. For example, the housing projects coming out of conversion of pipeline workforce. That could create the need for massive amounts of land and I'd like to think that somewhere in this government or somewhere in the Territories, somebody's keeping tabs on what sort of capacity we have for land, where and what the need is, and somebody's working on developing them and doing planning. I'm just wondering if the Minister is saying that all that is within the control of community governments and if we were to engage in a massive project that would require 14 or 15 hundred lots, it would take a mobilization of all the communities, bring them together and take inventory. What role does MACA play in that area of land administration? Maybe I should just start there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.