Masi. Minister of Justice.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department, of course, did review the recommendation, and the act has been amended several times in the last few years. There were significant amendments made in 2015. In the last 10 years, there have been amendments in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017, so there have been significant amendments, often in response to suggested amendments from the office. Some of the amendments that we have made this year is to permit the filing of rental officer orders in the Supreme Court registry and the authority to rental officers to correct minor errors in their orders. So improvements have been made, and certainly we are interested in continuing to make improvements.

I will ask the Minister later about the deputy rental officer position. The annual report also spoke to the growing complexity of files before the rental officer and cites this as one of the reasons the wait times are increasing. In Alberta in 2014, the residential tenancy dispute resolution service was introduced as an alternative to the court systems and a way to reduce complexity. For example, the service limits hearings to 30 minutes, and the government took steps on implementation by hiring necessary staff and making a wide range of information documents, handouts, and tip sheets available online. So, can the Minister identify what drives the increasing complexity he mentioned and what is being done to help the rental officer tackle this challenge?

As was mentioned in the question and the response to earlier inquiries, we have noted that the complexity of applications has increased over the last few years. I understand that much of that is driven by the increased amount of paperwork that is filed with the applications, dealing such issues as rental arrears, arrears repairs, and other matters, so the applications have become lengthier and therefore more complex. This has of course put pressure on the office administrators' workload, and, in response to this concern about the workload, the position has been reviewed and formalized procedures to provide guidance on certain issues have been put in place.

With respect to the earlier question regarding the deputy rental officer, we did issue an RFP for the addition of a deputy rental officer, but, unfortunately, these processes did not result in the recruitment, so what we have done is hired someone with a great deal of experience on contract as a part-time deputy rental officer in the beginning of February, so we are hoping that will alleviate some of the problems.

The Minister mentioned extra paperwork being submitted with these applications, so I am wondering if perhaps that is the work of one of the departments that is submitting these applications. Paperwork seems like a specialty of the government. It's my understanding that roughly 140 applications to the rental officer in 2016-2017 were made by landlords outside the public housing system. It sounds to me like government agencies are squeezing individual landlords out of the process that is put in place to protect them. On top of that, individual landlords may have to compete for time with the large residential landlords. Can the Minister identify how many of these 140 applicants were individual landlords compared to the large residential landlords such as Northern Property?

Of the 139 non-subsidized public housing applications that were filed in 2016-2017, 51 of them involved individual landlords as applicants or as respondents to a tenant application. I would assume the rest were corporate.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I noted earlier that there has been a decrease in the number of applications, and I think this might be attributable to the fact that it is taking so long that some landlords are just giving up on the whole process. How has the department considered addressing the imbalance in services delivered by the rental office? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Certain emergency matters can be fast-tracked, but apart from that, it is first come, first served. Corporate applicants or respondents are not given priority over anybody else, and tenant applications are not given priority over landlord applications. We do realize that there is a problem, which was identified in the report that has been referenced. Hopefully, the improvements that we are putting forward, in particular the hiring of a part-time officer to assist, will reduce the wait time, because we do realize this is a very serious matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

I would like to remind the Member that we do not have that kind of Minister in this building, so if he can rephrase that certain Minister?

My apologies, Mr. Speaker; the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are doing quite a bit. We get a lot of heat sometimes for going to some of the shows that we go to in the press. We have been to Mineral Roundup. The Premier and I have just been to PDAC, but it is one of the reasons that this government has developed a Mineral Development Strategy, and that is to address some of these inconsistencies that people have about the Northwest Territories. The 17th Assembly had signed on to devolution, and that gives us the tools that we need to change a lot of legislation to help us address some of these things, be it the Mineral Resource Act or a number of LPs that my colleague, the Minister of Environment, is going to bring forward around environmental protection and the new protected area strategies and these sorts of things.

We get out there and continue to pound the pavement to promote the Northwest Territories as a great jurisdiction. We know that we have the mineral potential that is here, and just as we have done today here in the Great Hall, signed a deal with the Minister of Infrastructure of Canada on how we can invest in the Northwest Territories to alleviate some of these things so that we can draw some more international dollars to our territory to invest in the mineral potential that we have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The issue in this most recent Fraser Institute report that is primarily the holdup for investment from the survey respondents, and this is a direct quote, is that "ongoing disputes over land claims and protected areas create uncertainty for investors." I would like to ask the Minister what his plan is to address those specific concerns. Let's start with land claims.

As the Member knows, we have all sat down with all of the Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, and one of the number one priorities of this Premier and this Assembly is to address land claims in the Northwest Territories. The Premier has done a tremendous amount of work on this file. We have made substantive offers to two of the three outstanding land claimant groups in the Northwest Territories, and we are working on getting something with the third one. There is some significant progress being made there. The recent announcements with the federal government on how they are going to approach some of these things is certainly going to help us, I think, move some of these files along.

I'm with the Premier. Hopefully, we can settle some of these in the life of this Assembly.

The issue with land claims is, of course, much more complicated than we can get to today, so I am going to move on to protected areas and conservation.

An often concern is, that because of the size of conservation areas in the Northwest Territories, they cut off potential exploration and mineral development. Is the Minister cognizant of that, and is he bringing forward some clarity on that issue to investors that we are a friendly jurisdiction for mining?

Early in the life of this government, I was the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, so I am quite aware of the protected area strategies moving forward. This was something that was under the federal legislation, and now it has been switched over to the Northwest Territories, and we are moving on those fronts. It is a complicated file. It's not like we can just shelve all of the protected area strategies that the federal government was working on. These are led by a number of Indigenous governments, the areas that they want to protect, and it is a complicated issue.

As I have said, the Minister of ENR is coming forward with an LP for the new protected area legislation on how to address some of that and which ones will be rolled out in the coming years as we move forward, and we will be working with our Indigenous governments to ensure that the areas that they want to protect, and maybe carve out some areas that they want to consider for mineral development as they participate in these mineral mining shows that we are participating in, they realize that mining is a big part of our economy, and they want to be able to participate and contribute to their members as well.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister is dedicated to a charm offensive at these trade shows and industry events and mining conferences, but I would like to know what we have to show for it. How much mining investment has been attracted to the Northwest Territories since this government took office? Thank you.

I can't give you an exact number, but I can tell you that we have met with a number of stakeholders and interested parties that want to invest in the Northwest Territories, and the ones that are investing here are glad to see the hard work that this government is doing on a number of these files, as I have said, since devolution.

We have taken over the LPs or the land and resource part of this from the federal government. It is going to create more certainty for the mining industry to come to the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to engage all residents, stakeholders, and industry on how we can promote mining in the Northwest Territories and move this file along. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about the homelessness report done by the City of Yellowknife. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Homelessness if there has been any progress made. The report was released in the spring of last year. From then until now, what progress has been made to address some of the issues in that report? Thank you.