Mr. Speaker, I have directed Lands to place any lease that expires during this review in over-hold status for one year at the last-paid lease amount. This ensures residents will not be compelled to sign a new long-term lease before the review is complete. Hopefully, within the next year, we can resolve this issue.

I thank the Minister for that answer. It actually makes some of these equity leaseholders happier to see we are working towards it and we are doing this agreement. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please provide if this is part of the view, looking at leaseholders to purchase this title land?

Mr. Speaker, once the review is complete, I would want to assure all Members of this House that they will be briefed on all the options to meet the needs and desires of constituents before we move forward with any changes. I think we can all agree that, ultimately, the best solution may be actual ownership, but there are many issues surrounding these leases. The leases are not all the same. Some of them are very different. Some have an indication that might be that the leaseholder would get ownership at the end of the lease. Some are less clear on that issue. There are also issues of Aboriginal claims because many of the leases are in areas of unsettled land claims. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I totally agree that equity leases are all over the board, and I am glad the Minister is looking at that and trying to resolve that. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise us, if somebody has an equity lease, do they have to purchase their land if private ownership is allowed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Lands.

The information is that people could renew their lease when the current lease expires, although I am expecting, if they had the options, that many would seek actual ownership. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice regarding the renewal of the men's healing program, A New Day. I wonder, can the Minister explain to us what factors or, more importantly, evaluation findings led the department to change the counseling process in the RFP? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I am sure Members will recall, there was an extensive report on A New Day, which we tabled in November of last year. As a result of that, we have made some minor changes, I regard them as minor, to the program. The group therapy model and the curriculum are not changing. That will stay the same. What is changing is some of the administration around the program. That was seen to be an issue. The program will become more flexible, and efforts will be made to have more facilitators available to run the program more often. This would also assist us, should we decide to take the program outside of Yellowknife.

"Minor changes" is putting it lightly. Obviously, the changes don't reflect it being more successful because there was no uptake on the RFP. Can the Minister explain why the RFP does not reflect the input that the department received from the Coalition Against Family Violence?

Mr. Speaker, in designing the RFP, of course we did listen to concerns of all stakeholders, but we mainly relied on the report, the very expensive report, which was tabled in November. As I say, I don't think there are significant changes in the program. What is changing is the administration. There was an indication in the report and from what we have heard that this was a problem. We are going to make that portion of the program easier. I am hoping to make, therefore, the overall program more effective.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister shared with us concerns during budget deliberations, and when this matter came to the House some time ago, about budget concerns with regard to running this program and what the actual numbers were of people using the program. Since there were concerns about that, can the Minister describe how the department calculated the competitive costs of ongoing family violence to the healthcare system, as an example, the education system, the justice system, even public housing, and the continuing cycle of violence to future generations? Can he tell us those kinds of numbers?

Mr. Speaker, I don't think I could tell the House those numbers because I think they are essentially unknowable. How can you quantify those things? It is almost impossible, but you know that there were relatively few graduates of the program. I think we are up to 31, and our costs have exceeded $1 million. Thank you.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Mr. Speaker, those are the challenges that we face all the time when we don't recognize good service and programs. When they are successful, when we don't get behind them and support them, we never take the time to actually go and calculate the costs that they are costing our society. It is a failure.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise the Assembly, since no bids were received to manage the program, going forward, what the department plans to do to make sure the men's healing program continues? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, this government is very interested in continuing this program. I can advise that we are dealing with some NGOs, and hopefully I will have good news in the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned in my Member's statement here earlier on advertising and welcoming the students to encourage them to seek employment within our summer student program for 2017, I want to ask the Minister of Finance what initiatives are under way for this summer's recruitment program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Member for that very positive question. I can inform this House that we are projected to be ahead of last year's numbers. I think, last year, we had 306 summer students who were hired. My understanding is we have 272 who have been hired so far this year, and I think we have another 50 job offers that are awaiting signatures. We are well ahead of last year's numbers, and I think we have heard the concerns from Members of the House.

As far as the advertising goes, a lot of the kids who go to school or come on as summer students are well aware of the program, and they are well aware of where they want to work and how they need to get their applications in. If there are any ways we can improve that, we will continue to work on that, but so far, Mr. Speaker, the numbers early in the summer are quite encouraging.

Thank you to the Minister for the response. It is encouraging that we are going to see the numbers increasing. I was very encouraged by the latest report on the recruitment numbers. Looking back at the Sahtu historically for the last two summers, in 2015, we had five; 2016, we had five. Recently, 2017 started off with two, so I am of the impression we can see that number increase, more specifically for the riding that I represent. So my question is: What targets or what methods of advertising are in use to recruit and exceed what we have done so far for the Sahtu region?