Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to have this opportunity again to comment on the Municipal and Community Affairs program. Thanks to the Minister for his opening remarks. Just going through them, I’m curious, in support of the 17th Assembly goals, MACA will provide technical

advice and assistance related to the implementation of integrated community sustainability plans in the areas of energy, capital and human resources. I appreciate that. That is the role of MACA. Typically, we do provide advice. I’m wondering what the assistance is in this case.

Moving on to public service capacity initiatives mentioned three times in disparate places throughout the document, obviously getting some emphasis, which I appreciate. We did put exceptional dedicated funds into these initiatives, but I have not heard what those dollars have gained us in terms of results. And, you know, ongoing monitoring and evaluation assessment of the effectiveness of our dollars is an important role and responsibility, so I would like to hear what we are gaining with those dollars.

The Recreational Leasing Policy Framework has been more than adequately addressed by my colleague. This is important work. I’ve appreciated the department putting active leasing on hold until we get this policy firmed up and in place. That seems like a fair way to approach it. I know that

new problems in terms of trespassing or squatting have continued to develop and may be exacerbated as people off of Commissioner’s land and onto federal land, something we will hopefully inherit soon. Recognizing the current limitations, which I think have been well demonstrated through this process of developing this policy, we need to be building our land management capacity and our enforcement capacity, especially as this other deadline approaches. I will look forward to any comments from the Minister on that.

The financial management in communities, it’s a huge capacity issue, and a very important one. It seems like we might be making some progress there and perhaps resulting from the Public Service Capacity Initiative. We have, as the Minister reported, more communities, we don’t know how many, but at least some have accumulated surpluses as opposed to deficits. That can also be seen in two ways. One is a capacity for delivering and spending the dollars. I have also seen that in communities. Maybe the Minister can assure me or provide some more information on that.

On the sports issue, I know there have been a couple of different comments on that. I fall into the area where we’re not there yet. These are huge programs, important programs for the development of our children and the health of our adult people, as well. They’re very important but I do see a large degree, I see, as do many people from across the NWT, as my colleague mentioned, expensive duplication and particularly in the area of administration. I think, especially for the top-heavy Sports and Recreation Council. I think we’re not there yet. There’s some work to be done there.

I guess my last one, and it will be no surprise to the Minister: Where is the NWT building standards act? Clearly, it’s needed. The communities are calling for it. It used to be that the GNWT delivered that service and now we have this New Deal, or we’ve shrugged off those responsibilities onto communities, so I will be speaking to that during the detail, of course. I won’t go on about it, but it’s long overdue and more and more professionals in the field are calling for it and so on. I’ll be talking to that later.

I’ll stop there. Thank you.