Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly won't need 20 minutes to speak on this one.
Mr. Speaker, I'm also rising to speak in favour of the motion. Mr. Speaker, when I served on Yellowknife city council, the issue of access to lands was on ongoing frustration. When I asked staff at one point, you know, in a particular moment of frustration, whether any other jurisdictions in Canada have systems like this where lands within municipal boundaries have multiple layers of jurisdictional management? The answer that staff gave me at the time was no, that the NWT is unique.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that we have outstanding land claims and certainly support excluding lands under interim withdrawal from consideration for transfer, as spoken to by the Member from Range Lake. However, I don't otherwise see why municipalities shouldn't be managing lands within their boundaries as most municipalities do anywhere else in Canada.
If the departments implicated in this motion are concerned about certain implications of granting communities this responsibility, I ask could those be addressed in ways which don't impede access to lands for municipal development which aren't of concern?
I spoke to priorities in my Budget Address earlier today, Mr. Speaker. Duplication of land management in municipal boundaries, where municipalities have been devolved responsibility by the territorial government, is not something which strikes me as being a high priority. I don't think the territorial government would or does appreciate when their federal counterpart overly involves itself in governance of the territory. The reason authority is devolved is to ensure local oversight and appropriate levels of governance, whether that be from the federal government to the territory or from the territory to municipalities. Where possible, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to unnecessarily impede communities from developing their lands to increase access to housing, which I see as being the primary reason for this motion coming forward. Let's find a way to move forward on this which works for municipalities and do what we can to ensure that whatever concerns exist on increasing municipal autonomy are addressed with reasonableness, fairness, and consideration of the top priority of this Assembly, which is development of housing. Sorry, I don't have the -- off the top of my head. But that wraps up my written comments on the motion, Mr. Speaker. I just think that we should be prioritizing where we can, not getting in the way of municipalities developing their lands. I think my colleagues have spoken to this already; I won't repeat what's been said. So that stand as my list of reasons for supporting this motion. And I'm certainly interested to hear the government's response. Thank you.