You do indeed have a duty to consult. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You are choosing to fund only half the people of the Northwest Territories.

I brought this up during early discussions on this department and got the agreement of people at the table that this needs to be recognized. This government is dividing people by not recognizing this need. This has been brought up repeatedly and recognized as a legitimate point. Nothing is happening. We’re at the birthing of a new department and a new approach by this government. Where is this recognition? I mean, let’s put our money where our mouth is.

Mr. Chair, I believe we have put our money where our mouth is. Again I’ll say we have a duty to consult with the Aboriginal governments. I don’t believe we have duty to consult, but we do consult with everybody that may have some interest. Again, as we go through the business planning process next year, if the Members feel strongly that that needs to be included, then it’s a discussion I think we will have to have at the time, but we do recognize that we do try to consult with all interested stakeholders. If the Member feels that we need to fund them all, then let’s have that discussion during the business planning process.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on page 14-18, activity summary, planning and coordination, grants and contributions, $680,000.

Page 14-19, information item, planning and coordination, active positions. Questions?

Page 14-21, activity summary, operations, operations expenditure summary, $10.486 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question here is about securities. I see it’s mentioned here both under the Commissioner’s land administration, which I understand, and the Territorial land administration.

What is the situation with securities on the Territorial lands with the new legislation we will be adopting here? Right now, for example, under the Commissioner’s Land Act, securities are required for any leased territorial property, Commissioner’s land property that has a liability of $1,000 or greater. What is it under the Territorial lands administration new federal legislation?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The boards set the security on the advice of the government and then the government holds the security payment. Thank you.

So, at this moment in time, there is no requirement to set up financial security for a leased property. Is that my understanding? Just if the boards decide to do it, or can we request it or require it? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I don’t quite understand where the Member is going. Is he talking about lands that we had administered or is he talking on a go-forward basis? If this is on a go-forward basis, on a go-forward basis the board will set the security on the advice of government and it will hold money for them.

Are you talking, like, on Commissioner’s land that we had administered in the past? There was security that, on recommendation, could have been required on potentially any lease that we had out there, including cabin leases, but I don’t think it was something that was done regularly. Now, on a go-forward basis, knowing that is has become a fairly serious issue, and with the amount of land that we are going to be administering, then we need to make sure that securities are required, and they are set by the board and we will hold the money. Thank you.

I think the difficulty is that the administration, the legislation that we’re adopting does not make that requirement clear. That’s how the federal government had to accept $8 billion in liability for largely northern mines because of a failure to hold security for those mines.

In contrast, I think we have a requirement now in the Commissioner’s Land Act on Commissioner’s land. So that is a different situation, as the Minister was saying. Given that right now it sounds like we’re at the mercy of the board on whether they

assess financial security or not, the need for financial security or not as opposed to having the strength of a legislative tool such as the Commissioner’s Land Act which requires that… I guess that’s my understanding and maybe I will leave it at that, unless there is more to be said by the Minister. I guess I would hope that I would hear the Minister say that if we don’t have that certainty, we are going to pursue it and we can legitimately do so. I will leave it at that.

Just in terms of our inspections, I see we have a diamond resource management inspection capability, but I don’t see that for other mines. It is not mentioned for other mines. We seem to have our own diamond resource management section for inspections. Maybe it is covered in resource management. Could I get some clarity – I know the Minister was planning to bump up our mine inspection capabilities – on what is happening there for all mining activity, and I will leave it at that.

One second, Mr. Chairman.

We will go to the deputy minister, Mr. Warren.

Thank you, Mr. Warren. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps that’s something else we can talk about during our briefing on the new department.

With the additional inspectors and the additional responsibility, we know that our land base is up considerably here, it’s a lot more work, an order of magnitude in possible enforcement activities and so on. During the review with Justice, we didn’t see much response in anticipation of this. Has the department worked with Justice to get recognition that there is a lot more inspectors, there could be a lot more legal work here as a result of infractions and so on? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I take the Member’s point that when we go into business planning next year, we can look at how we…even some of the wording that we use in the operations of diamond resource management and all that, it is a discussion that we could have.

As far as the enforcement, we do plan on having a very aggressive enforcement, as I said in my opening comments, because we believe that we are going to be inheriting, well we got 940,000 square kilometres that we are going to be responsible for compared to I believe it was 2,400 before. In those 940,000 square kilometres there are a lot of issues that we will have to deal with, squatters and so on, so we will make sure that our inspection regime… I think in my appearance before Committee of the Whole, the last time I was here with MACA when it still had lands, I mentioned a couple of times that we are picking up our inspection and enforcement regime and I believe during deliberation for the Department of Justice the other day, they were talking about bringing on five additional people to deal with a lot of the responsibility that might be coming over with devolution and if we have to go out and start enforcing a lot of the land issues. So we won’t know until we actually get past April 1st the extent of what

we’re inheriting as far as our inspection goes, but I do know that on the MACA side of it, when the land was there, the enforcement was picking up. I think we added a couple of PYs in the last two budget cycles. So I believe we’re getting prepared and we’re not sure, I don’t think we’ll have a full understanding of the scope of what we’re inheriting until we actually get out there and start doing the inspections on our new land and the enforcement. We’ll see how things go the first little while. I believe we’re prepared, though, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on 14-21. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just my last question here. In terms of oil and gas, obviously a big impact on the land, any role of this department?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’re going to go to Deputy Minister Warren.