Mr. Chairman, MACA is the lead in land administration in the Northwest Territories. We work closely with the municipalities. We do the processing of leases and fee-simple title. The strategy that the Member is talking about that took place several years ago was an attempt to move some of these properties over to the municipalities in fee-simple title. Some of that has taken place in some of the larger centres where there is a settled land claim. There have been problems with the process. A lot of communities have raised concerns. A lot of the aboriginal governments have raised concerns that there is still land involved through the self-government process that has to take place. In some cases, they've asked us to stop the transfer of land to the municipalities. The communities of Deline and Norman Wells are two that come to mind. So this has not worked all that well. We have not been able to transfer all the lands over to the municipalities as we had hoped. Part of the other package of the land administration strategy was to incorporate and set up a GIS system. It's available for the communities to do quick reference checks to see the land available in the community, who owns what lands, or the different identifications.
If we were to be required to process a large amount of land in the case of, I think the Member used the number of 1,400 lots, we would probably need to get additional resources in the community that they're required in and at the headquarters level. It's not something we are resourced right at this point to do, unless it was over a larger time period.
We also have to recognize that with some of the resource development, the municipal governments are going to be responsible for processing permits and that's something we're also working on. That's going to be another challenge. I think we would have to require additional resources to process a large amount of land applications.