Thank you for that. Would it be fair for the Minister to characterize that the communities or municipalities are happy with this approach, or would they rather have seen a bulk transfer of land? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

They're happy with it. We are actually working with them. We're working at their speed, their capabilities, and what they want to do and what they are trying to achieve. Again, it's -- you know, if you give them a bulk land, just a whole chunk of it, then you're really not expecting them to do a lot of work to certain areas. So like in the city of Yellowknife, we are looking at very specific areas that the community -- the city uses and they're looking at taking over. And then as we move on, then bulk land transfers will be moved to their -- at their speed. So we are relying on theirs. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Nokleby.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just for the part of the rollout, then, for the rest of the territory after the city of Yellowknife, is there a plan to look at that individually by community versus having them all be sort of under the same umbrella or all at the same time; will it proceed based on community capacity? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Nokleby.

No, I think I'm good. I just want to always throw in the faster we can get land I think into the communities' hands, the better. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further questions on reduce the municipal funding gap? Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, the first item on page 27 is reduce the funding gap by $5 million. Do we actually have a formula to calculate what the funding gap is at any point in time? Is it transparent? Is it reported annually? Sorry, there's two or three questions there but I'd like to find out more about how this is actually calculated. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Premier.

Martin? Thank you, Mr. Chair, I'd like to transfer it to the secretary to Cabinet.

Secretary to Cabinet.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Premier.

I will either make a commitment to either provide it to the Member in a public fashion or to provide an explanation of why we can't give that to the Member either with a why we can't give it period; why we can't give it in a public manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for that commitment, Premier. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. And look, no disrespect to the deputy minister; I know he's very hard working, I just need to get a political commitment from my colleagues across the aisle.

So I'm a bit surprised to hear that nobody really knows if we actually have a formula for calculating this on an annual basis and that it's not reported annually. So my suggestion, recommendation, is that whatever the formula is, that it should be transparent and that it should be recalculated on an annual basis. And I imagine that this is something -- like, it was done in 2014 with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities. There was a 2019 sort of update or reassessment but I think it still used figures from 2014. So I don't think we've actually got a transparent way and an annual reporting of what that gap is. And I think that's part of the problem with having a vague target like this of $5 million. Well, $5 million when and where and so on. So that's all a recommendation that we need to have a formula. It needs to be transparent, and it needs to be reported on annually so at any point in time if federal dollars fall from heaven or some other funding comes free, then we know what the gap is and how we can start to better close that. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Those are comments, and if the Premier cares to respond that will be great. Thank you.

Premier.

Mr. Chair, well I do know that Municipal and Community Affairs does keep track of the capital amounts that they get from the federal government. The difficulty with having a formula, Mr. Chair, is that the -- years back, and I can't remember what year it was, but the GNWT did a good decision in my opinion, was they signed what was called the new deal, which meant that city -- municipalities were allowed to define their own, what they wanted to do instead of the GNWT telling them what to do. But when the -- the bad point -- there's always good and bad with everything and what happened that -- with that that wasn't so good is that instead of saying you have a community of 500 people so within that community, like it was before, you can have an arena of this size or a gym of this size like we do for some things, we allowed the communities to do what they wanted. Some communities made great big recreation centres that all of a sudden put it out of -- out of whack. You know, 500 people and you got a rec centre that meets the needs of an Olympic team. That's the reality of what happened. So how do you make a formula that addresses that? The only way we could address that, in my opinion -- and that's because I used to be the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. The only way we could address that, in my opinion, would be to do the research every single year which is not financially feasible to do either, and a bit disrespectful. So I don't think that we're going to be able to come up with a set formula, Mr. Chair, because of the -- because of the new deal and allowing municipalities to do what they want with their money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Just very quickly, it was done in 2014. There's no reason why it can't be done again. And as I understand it, it has to do with an asset base that changes in value over time and I don't think it's rocket science to recalculate that. It was done once -- or even calculate it once or twice, or do it on some sort of regular cycle. But to just keep reverting back to 2014, that's not good enough. Thanks, Mr. Chair. And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further questions on reduce the municipal funding gap? Oh sorry, Mr. Thompson.