Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; we do want to help reduce the cost of living in the North. It’s expensive, and any way we can, we have to look at avenues to do so. Under the local improvement tax it is tied to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, and that’s something that we did say we committed to have a review of that and bring forward in the 18th Assembly. So, there’s a direct linkage to that particular piece of legislation.

Right now residents that do want to make an investment can go to the bank. There are options of going to the regular lenders, to banks to help fund these enhancements to their homes. Certainly having it legislated is probably a good way to go and we are committed to look at that once we start looking at the municipal legislation.

We have 20 pieces of legislation as a department that we’re responsible for and we are making efforts to get them through. Some have been very outdated, like the Fire Prevention Act and the Civil Emergency Measures Act. So we have to set our legislative priorities, and those are, in our minds, more critical for the residents of the Northwest Territories than a local improvement legislation. It’s something that in our priorities we are aware of it, we know the issues. The City of Yellowknife has

voiced their opinions on it numerous times and until we get through the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and update our municipal legislation, I think that’s where it’s tied to and that’s where we could make those enhancements. Thank you, Mr. Chair.