Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I, too, would like to begin by congratulating the Minister for having women deputy minister and assistant deputy minister on his side. Now I know why he is doing such a great job, Mr. Chair, not only because he is getting good advice from the women, but also because he is wise enough to know to take those.
Mr. Chair, let me just make some comments on two things. One is the land issue around the city of Yellowknife, and the second thing I want to address a little bit is about the department's plan on land administration issue. I would like to just, first of all, comment that I think that all observers on that issue on Yellowknife land selection and what the city has been requesting, as well as the requirements and demands by Akaitcho, has not been an easy issue. I do appreciate that the announcement that the Minister has made might not be one that is satisfying to everybody, but it does meet the requirements of...It goes in some lengths to address this issue for the time being. I do want to congratulate the Minister for really concentrating on the issue. I know that he has really been working to see what is the best way that he could handle this, and the government could handle this, at this time. I do believe that this is the project in progress. We are making a baby step progress. I think that everyone recognizes a need for more land for the city to grow into. It is a very economically vibrant community. There is no question that we need to be able to find more land in order to meet the growth and housing needs. One of the biggest cost drivers for the city right now are the housing prices that are mostly driven because of lack of land and the high cost of land that follows from it.
I also do understand and I think a lot of us in this House have had meetings with Akaitcho leaders and the elders. I can appreciate how this might look like sitting in Ndilo and Detah and many of the elders watch the city grow for 50 or 60 years where there were traditional homelands and doing their traditional things, and then all of a sudden these gold prospectors fly in and start a gold mine. Next thing they know, the city becomes a capital. Now it has grown into a 20,000 people metropolitan with Tim Horton's and McDonald's. We have laws in Canada and policies that compensate and address those. I think that all of the parties involved understand that the original inhabitants of this land have to be compensated, and we do that by way of going through land claims negotiations and sometimes combined with self-government agreements and such. I think the interest and the impetus right now is to get the process moving and to make sure that the city does have room to grow in the interim. I think, if anything, this is a way to get the process focussed and moving along. I want to tell the Minister that I do appreciate his effort thus far. I do know that we collectively all have a lot more room to go.
On that issue, where does the Minister see this issue going? He has given some parts of land to the city, but differently. It is only a part of what the city needs not only in the long term, but in the short and medium term, as well; probably for a medium term. The land freeze for two years will expire in two years from now when we will have a different Minister. I don't know if we are going to have the same Minister. This is a new process that the Minister...I give credit to the Minister and this government for really focussing on it. Obviously, it is part of his plan. The good plan should be such that, as a player leaves, the plan still survives. If he could just add more to where does he see this going and what is the outcome he is looking at. Thank you.