Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT manages a $31 million lease portfolio. That is larger than the budget of EIA, Lands, and of that $31 million, Mr. Speaker, $21 million goes to one company, that is the combined assets of Northview and KingSett. That's more than we presently provide our communities for water and sewer, Mr. Speaker. We manage 129 leases for 626,000 square feet of office spaces. That's 12 Bellanca buildings, Mr. Speaker; many of them in downtown Yellowknife. And, Mr. Speaker, it is clear that that $20 million a year, we provide to one company year after year for decades now, has built up that monopoly such that one company owns the vast majority of commercial space in this town and a very significant portion of residential space. And yet, Mr. Speaker, we have done nothing at all to prevent this from happening. In fact, our leasing of commercial property policy is from 1998, and despite repeated requests to the Minister of Infrastructure, we have not amended this policy in over 20 years, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, getting a local developer to do any work in this town is becoming rarer and rarer. It's because the GNWT has strategically, over years of either neglect or on purpose, refused to give them work. They have all gone to one company. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I don't believe I have to speak to the benefits of local ownership to anyone in this House. When you have local landlords, they are more willing to build buildings. They are more willing to work with people. They are willing to add to our desperately needed housing stock. But when you have multibillion-dollar foreign companies or multibillion-dollar REITs, who Yellowknife is abound with them, they don't work with our local non-profits, they don't work with our Indigenous development corps, they don't work with local contractors, and they do absolutely nothing to address our housing crisis or address what we want our offices to look like.
I will once again have questions for the Minister of Infrastructure of whether she is going to do anything at all to address the monopoly that we have created and we are responsible for. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
