Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I believe there was a system worked out where people could email and then some of the records were available online and some weren't. A lot of land titles, if you want, are still done in paper, so I am looking for a commitment from the Minister that we can bring our land titles office digitally online. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry. I think a lot of the services that are provided can be performed online, but there certainly still are requirements about the document passing back and forth, that are still requiring the papers to be filed. We have worked out a system where you can drop something off in a drop box, but that certainly is far from being an online system. Again, that is sort of outside the scope of what I can speak to in terms of our budget right now. It's not in the budget, for what that is worth, but as far as having a conversation, again, that might be one of the post-COVID-19 conversations that we are now going to have to have. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I guess I will look forward to that conversation. I think if you can give the office marching orders to bring their systems online, they will tell you how long that will take. If it takes a few years, I can live with that, but clearly it's something we should get started. Similarly, this is one of those weird sections of Justice where we have our personal property registration, a very underutilized system. We have regulations of securities trading, as expertise, we struggle to keep/have in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister update me if there is any thought to combining these, specifically the personal property registration, with Alberta or any efforts to kind of work with larger jurisdictions who hold the expertise? This is kind of a structural problem in that I think the GNWT has some responsibilities that we are perhaps not really capable of or it's not a priority. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That certainly is a larger question around the structure and the function of the department. We are small fry in some of these respects and in some of the tasks that are being performed, in securities, for instance. That is not to say that we do not have some obligations, and some of those obligations are going to be legal obligations we have to maintain these registries and legal obligations that we have to perform the function of registering securities. I think there is always a desire for efficiencies in conversations being had. How far they are going, I am not sure. Perhaps what I might suggest, Madam Chair, let me start with the conversation with the Member for Yellowknife North. However, if there is a bigger interest in this area on the part of a committee, we can certainly have a conversation. I am certainly happy to go to committee and sort of brief them on what is maybe not as well-known an aspect of the work that the Department of Justice does. I will start one Member at a time, though. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I suspect I am probably the only Member interested in the regulation of securities trading, and I don't know -- oh, sorry. I am getting some looks. I would like to speak briefly to the rental office. I understand the rental office is a bit of an arm's-length organization, but I have raised previously with the Minister some of these concerns and their ability to kind of make orders and address things more systemically. We had a briefing from the human rights office, and they have kind of switched to this model, looking at more systemic issues, issuing kind of larger orders. A lot of the work came out of their act. Are there any plans to review the legislation that the rental officer operates under? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now, that legislation, I was just going back to double check where it might be landing in terms of on our legislative worksheets. Certainly, there were recent amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act just last year, so it likely isn't going to be high in terms of a further review. That said, certainly in terms of the commercial tenancies and the residential tenancies, both of those pieces of legislation have been called to task, if you will, for their lack of modernity during COVID-19. I am certainly now aware of that. I was aware of it before, but I am more aware of it now. I am not going to necessarily commit to ratcheting it up the legislation timeline other than to look at whether there are small tasks that we can maybe do. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am getting down to the weeds in these sections because I have some very specific issues with them. One of my issues, as I have raised with the Minister, is that the land titles office does not let you search by the name of a property owner. You have to find the lot address and the legal address and then find who owns it. I get that there are some personal privacy issues, but what other jurisdictions have done is they have allowed all corporate-owned land to be searchable by name because those same privacy concerns do not apply to corporate entities. I, for example, would love to know how many properties Northview actually owns in the Northwest Territories. That is not public information. I would love to know how many Kingsett owns in the Northwest Territories, how many of these large REITs just keep gaining more and more property. There is no public data. That is not publicly available information. I can't go to land titles and search it. Would the Minister be willing to make the land titles office have the ability to search corporate entities by name? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That, on its face, seems like an easily solved problem, so part of me wants to simply give the easy "yes," but at this point, again, I am not sure if there are other pieces of legislation, either domestic to the Northwest Territories, that we would have to comply with. I do not know the degree to which there would have to be associated amendments and associated regulation changes, et cetera. I just do not know the extent to which this is a problem or why it's the problem that it is. What I can certainly commit to doing is finding out why, why it is that we have this system that is different. I do not know the answer to that off hand, but I can at least start there. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Are there any other questions from any Members for services to the public? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I know it has been raised in this House by members of the public that sometimes the turnaround in the rental office doesn't always meet people's expectations. Has there been any assessment of the workload of that office and the resources that they have available? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do know that those numbers, the lag time between the filing of an application and the hearing date has been continuously dropping, and indeed, I believe as of February 2020, it was roughly at five to seven weeks, which is an improvement over the last few years, certainly. Some of the initiatives that were undertaken in order to get there were around the fact that they do not need to conduct in-person hearings, and that certainly made it a lot faster. There has also been an attempt to increase the staffing, although I don't know that we are quite yet at two rental officers, fully staffed, at this point. Though, I can certainly confirm whether or not we have achieved that goal. Again, there is always going to be a need to improve those wait times. Five to seven weeks is still a fairly significant time, whether you are a landlord or a tenant. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes. I am looking at page 286, and I see that, 2018-2019, there was actually $292,000 spent in the office, and the budget for 2020-2021 is only $238,000, so there might have been some extra money spent in the one year. Can I get an explanation of what might, on the surface, look like a downward trend in resourcing? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there is some variance as a result of the UNW collective bargaining, but if I might, I'm going to ask the director of Finance if there is any further information that we can provide to the Member, please.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.