Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the department have a chart or an infographic or something that MLAs would be able to refer to, and the public even, to help us understand what the various steps are in the process, where we're trying to speed things up, where things get stuck, what we do when things get stuck, what processes are engaged in order to move things along when they get stuck on a part of the process that we don't have control over? Because it's -- yeah, I think that it would go a long way in helping us have a more informed conversation about this issue if we understood it better and the various steps within the process. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will commit to certainly providing that information to the Members, and I will have the deputy minister walk through the process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the deputy minister.

Okay, thank you. Is there any further questions? I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. And so, yeah, obviously I want to ask some questions about that process that the deputy minister just laid out to me. So I really appreciate him laying it out clearly like that. I don't think I've actually had that before.

So I am trying to understand, at any one of these stages -- they all seem like stages except for the land acquisition bylaw itself that the GNWT is in control of that process. So can you help me understand, the answer that the Minister gave previously was that there are stages in the process where the department doesn't have control -- and so can you help me understand, outside of the land acquisition bylaw itself, which of course is on the municipality, how the department isn't in control of the process otherwise? Thanks.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will go back to the deputy minister.

Deputy minister.

Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I can't help but, as I hear that process and how it plays out, think about my experience at the land and water boards, and -- because it's the process I am most familiar with -- I think about how timelines built into that legislation worked in a very similar situation where sometimes the board would be dealing with something and sometimes proponents would be dealing with something, and the clock would be running when the board had it, and it wouldn't be running when the proponent had it. So I wonder if we could establish something similar to that kind of process for our own -- for our land acquisition process in the sense that it seems reasonable that any time the GNWT has its hands on it that we could establish what we consider to be a reasonable timeline for the GNWT to deal with, say, a completeness check or, you know, drafting of land sale agreements and so at least that people, when they apply for land, can be reassured that they're going to get an answer within a certain timeline. And any timeline outside of that that they're in control of, of course, that's on them. And I think that would be a fair way to run the process and a fair way to be transparent about what you can expect from GNWT when you come to them for land. So has the Minister or staff considered putting that kind of structure in place to maybe put better parameters around this process, which I think can probably feel a bit nebulous for people that enter into it. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can honestly say that I don't believe that we've considered that specific approach at this time. I think our focus has really been on, you know, trying to get -- deal with the tremendous amount of applications that we have in front of us. But happy to take that away and have the department have a look at it and see if that is something that, you know, could potentially benefit the process and see what the sort of administrative burden that it -- may come along with that type of monitoring. But happy to take it away. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from the Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I think something that it might help with when I think about something along those lines -- it doesn't have to follow what the boards are doing in any way, but I just bring that up as one process that does have timelines associated with it. But one thing I am thinking is, like, you know, if I was working in that office and 420 applications came in and, you know -- I can just imagine, you know, people are asking you, you know, like, well, how come we're not moving on this, and how come it's not moving along? And staff are just dealing with a huge amount of applications, and we don't have expected timelines that things are supposed to move along with. And so staff are just kind of buried in a huge amount of applications and don't really have a structure to refer to to say we need more resources or we have -- you know, we have enough resources to be able to get these applications done in a timely manner. What ends up happening is instead, you know, MLAs just hear, you know, the process is too slow, the process isn't moving. And so it doesn't -- I don't think it gives anybody within the process parameters to look at and measure their success against. So I think it could be useful and helpful in this conversation.

The -- and, yeah, I think that, you know, for the pieces that end up not in the department's control, I was also wondering, I mean, does the department have some kind of public registry or a place on their website where people can go and look and track applications and see what the progress is on them? Do we have anything transparent like that at all, or are applications all handled behind the scenes. Thanks.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the process is not public in that way. The communication would be with the actual client directly from the department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Fair enough. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I appreciate the department helping me better understand this aspect of their work. And, certainly, I mean, I think I join many of my colleagues in just -- you know, I would like to find constructive solutions to our problem. I appreciate the Minister adding staff to the department to try and address the timeliness issue but, yeah, I am making these suggestions with the hope of constructively getting us to a place where we are establishing kind of a baseline of expectation and trying to work from that in terms of measuring what a reasonable timeline is, whether we're meeting those timelines. I think that's a much better conversation to be having than just back and forth on it's not fast enough. I think it's always good in situations like this to be talking about specifics. So I will leave my comments there for this issue for tonight. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next on my list I got is the Member from Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Similar to my colleague Mr. Morse, how does this process work for Deh Cho, Deh Cho and Deh Cho lands? How does -- I guess I need to understand that too. How does this work outside of municipal boundaries? Thank you.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.