I think times have changed. Historically, the NWT Housing Corporation was dropping houses fairly ad hoc and even on lands that we didn’t have clear title to or we had the rules that were quite broad. Three years ago we had the Auditor General lay down the law for us that require us to have, through the homeownership, a land tenure. Now they can either get that on IAB lands through the federal government or they can have their band acquire a lease from the federal government and sublease.
We thought we had a solution and we are not too sure if it is a workable one anymore, by having another third-party entity, maybe a trust corporation, to hold the land. That doesn’t seem to be realistic anymore.
Mr. Chairman, for us to have tenure, we need to have aboriginal governments agree to a federal lease. We have jurisdictions in the NWT that do not have a settled claim and are not willing to
acknowledge that the federal government owns the land and, therefore, not willing to subscribe to a lease. Now that really puts us in a difficult situation, because the rules that we have to follow require us to see land tenure.