The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Generally speaking, there is constant review and monitoring of services that we need in the Northwest Territories, especially in specialist services. Often they are sent out if the services are not available. If there’s a possibility that benefits could be had by having the specialists come up, then that is also done. So that’s an ongoing, day-to-day business that the Stanton Territorial Hospital and the medical professionals and the administrators engage in.

I appreciate the Minister trying to stay away from specifics as well, only to avoid identifying the individual constituents, because there are only a few. She says there’s an ongoing day-to-day process. What type of strategy does the Department of Health and Social Services have, say, for example, if we’re always sending people to

Edmonton to get an ear checked, a specialized service? Or for example, if we’re always sending people to get an eye specialization. Those type of things. What type of monitoring process do we have set up and organized that someone tracks this and says, well, we’ve sent 23 people out to 23 different individual medical travel processes and all to one doctor. Does the department make recommendations up through the system and say maybe it’s time we start bringing this doctor here to the Northwest Territories and providing that service? Do they have that type of process? If they do, would she provide me with some information as to the layout of that?

I’d be happy to make that commitment to provide the Member with what process is followed in reviewing special services.

The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d just like to conclude my questions on the Joint Review Panel report to the Minister. We’ve heard some of the questions that my colleague Ms. Bisaro has raised and so on; the 3 percent cap in the future. Many of the items in the recommendations are costly to the government: establish landscape thresholds and limits of change, arrange management plans and monitoring for Barren Land caribou, grizzly bear, polar bear and so on, land use plans, timber feasibility studies, training programs, drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs and facilities, et cetera. Often very tight time frames to respond and get these things in place. Very costly. So I’m wondering if this government has initiated discussions with the federal government to start nailing down some of those extra resources. The 3 percent cap we’ve got for next year and on into the future, how does that relate? Related to all this is, will this be part of the discussions with Minister Strahl this weekend?

The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those are all good questions that need to be answered and that we’re going to be considering. No, we’re not anywhere near ready to have talks outside of government. The work is barely a couple weeks old and we have a lot more to do.

I understand that. They have a very aggressive time schedule and I’m hoping we’re able to meet that. These are big questions and

we’re going to have to be light on our feet here. Thank you for that information.

Does our government intend to participate in the National Energy Board final argument public hearing on the Mackenzie Gas Project scheduled for April 2010 in Yellowknife and Inuvik? If so, again I’m wondering how we will be involved.

The reason I’m asking these questions beyond the time frame is the order of events that happen is critical through transparency. I think the final deadline for government response is something like June, whereas the public has final arguments in April. So it’s essential that we give the public the opportunity to participate in our response or perhaps request that the public have another opportunity to participate and respond after government responses have been submitted. For now, though, do we anticipate participating in those public hearings in April?

The government was involved in the process up to this point and will continue to be involved fully in the process as we bring it forward to conclude the regulatory process.

So I will anticipate that the government is planning to present their positions in the final arguments at the April public hearings. I’d just like confirmation on that. Thank you.

Yes, the Member can anticipate that.

The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a couple questions for the Minister of MACA regarding the freezing of the issuing of leases out in the area of Banting and Walsh lakes. This is an issue that the Minister is quite familiar with. He had met with several members of Yellowknife to hear the concerns of our constituents about squatters out there causing problems with people with legitimate leases who have applied for them properly, waited for the approval process, and then built their recreational properties. The freezing of any potential lease applications I think is a good step. I know several Members had brought that concern to the Minister and at the time the department wasn’t interested. I’m certainly glad to see that they are following that certain request to help develop a plan out there for recreation saturation, et cetera. At the time several people, there were a few incidents of squatters out there and I thought the government’s policy was that if you had a squatter out there who was not an approved lease, I think is the proper term, they had to remove their cabin or establishment and then

apply. But as I understood it, they were either waived or told to just apply and don’t worry about removing your temporary recreational property. In the freezing process of issuing leases, has the Minister caused the squatters to go back, remove their recreational camp or cabin, and have them apply for the process fairly like everyone else did and then build after that?

The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was an opportunity for those who were out there squatting to legitimize their leases. That was the Interim Trespass Enforcement Strategy. But we’ve withdrawn that now and we are taking measures to deal with the squatters out on Commissioner’s land.

If I heard the Minister correctly, he’s suggesting that the government is enforcing that the squatters now remove their recreational facility, if I may define it -- I don’t know what they put out there -- and had them go through the normal channels like everyone else. Is that the case? Because that is the concern from constituents in Yellowknife Centre who have cabins out there.

They were given an opportunity to legitimize their leases. We had a lot of people come forward and do that. The ones that didn’t, we are taking action now to deal with them. These are folks that don’t have the land tenure and were just putting their buildings anywhere out there. We are taking steps to deal with that. This is part of the new recreation policy framework that we’re working on that should take steps to address all these issues.

It sounds like good news. I just wanted to be clear on the squatter problem. Does the department have a zero tolerance policy on the squatter problem? So in other words, if someone builds a cabin out there, the stance from the department is consistent and clear, which is that person or family has to remove that cabin then apply and then see where the application goes at that time. Or do they just let it sit there and say, apply, we’ll figure it out and if your application approves, we’ll leave you alone?

Our primary goal here is to have all the folks who are considering putting buildings out there to have land tenure and then that would not be an issue. Those that do not have land tenure we are taking steps to address that and deal with the situation.

Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

I appreciate the answer not to my question, but it was an interesting answer which

speaks to the long-term problem. I’m glad we heard that that’s the long-term focus. But the question really comes down to is there a zero tolerance policy that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs adheres to, which is if someone’s a squatter, they have to remove their cabin or whatever it may be and then they must apply in that process.

We do deal with those out there that do not have the proper land tenure for occupation on Commissioner’s land and we’ll take the steps necessary. If it means having them remove their buildings, then I think that’s been done before. We are taking steps now to deal with those without proper land tenure.

The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.