Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly the Minister is right; these are agreements based on goodwill and intention on everyone to move them forward, but things happen and interest can change from time to time. Right now, Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that if someone wanted to build a house or develop something, there is no publicly owned land that you could purchase in the city of Yellowknife. Our situation is that dire and we are extremely dependent on this process to get land available for the growth the city faces. Does this agreement prescribe clear, well-defined time frames by which...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow through with the Honourable Michael McLeod on some land issue questions as the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. In our discussion earlier in question period, Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned the Interim Measures Agreement as the protocol that we have regarding our government’s management of Commissioner’s land and the interests of municipalities or others and aboriginal governments. In the city of Yellowknife, we went through last year quite an interesting exercise, thankfully one that had a good outcome, with the Con Camp area...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is useful information. I guess I would like to return to my original theme though, which is how are we making land available that is affordable to build on? We are discussing here a bit of the process of making land available at least around Yellowknife, but I would like to look at what steps we are doing on a territorial basis, Mr. Speaker, to make land for housing more affordable and available in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this afternoon is directed to the Honourable Michael McLeod in his capacity as Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. It relates to the whole issue of being able to provide affordable housing, Mr. Speaker. One of the biggest barriers, the first barrier that communities and developers experience is the lack of access to affordable land for building and development. I wanted to see if the Minister could advise the Assembly what ways he has looked at to make land more affordable and available to community governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to take a note from my colleague Ms. Lee’s book here, and hopefully do some loud crowing and roostering about the housing situation here in the Northwest Territories.

---Laughter

You know, since we last met here a few weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, there have been a number of signals that show that it is getting and it is going to get even more expensive to keep a roof over your head and that of your family. Mr. Speaker, thinking of buying a house, the average here in the Northwest Territories, we learned last week, for a three-bedroom unit is now $246,000, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I would like to underscore for the Minister and get his response, if he cares to, on the issue of the lack of land, as I am told no publicly available land. How can developers make decisions? We are quickly coming up to the spring and summer construction season. If we don’t know whether or not we can get land in a certain time frame, how can these decisions be made? This is the crunch that the City of Yellowknife and developers are facing in Yellowknife right now, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of the protocol and exercising this Interim Measures Agreement, is it working out to everyone’s satisfaction? Are we able to see through this clear management of the handing over of land to communities? Is this agreement working the way it should? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is to that last point that I would really like to focus on. This is where I am continuously crowing for our government, Mr. Speaker, to be more aggressive and innovative. Could the Minister tell us, the recent announcements about federal infrastructure money coming into the North, is this potentially going to be something that can help us deliver more affordable land in our communities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to speak in favour of the motion. There are some aspects of it that I would like to lend some ideas or some observations to.

First, as Mr. Ramsay has said, I think most of us have encountered some kind of contact, direct or indirect, with the situation that’s going on on the streets. I can relate at least to Yellowknife. In fact, just the other night, I was at an evening event at one of the highrise office buildings in downtown Yellowknife. As I left the building at about 8:30 or so, around the corner were four young people smoking up something and the bit of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Aside from assigning some people to this program or to the process of designing the strategy, I wonder if there is any anticipation or are we going to be called on to actually put dollars on the table to help us proceed. Will this cost us anything, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.