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.