Bill Braden

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 appreciate the information there. I guess I would like to ask the Minister for some more clarification with regard to the status or the position of the Yellowknives Dene or other aboriginal organizations in terms of how land is disposed of or delegated. What is the role there? How does this process work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very fortunate to have living in Yellowknife many members of my immediate family, my mother being one of them. My dearest, Esther Braden, welcome to the Assembly.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an ambitious target. I am glad to hear the Premier talk today, as he did yesterday, about jointly developing the strategy with aboriginal and northern residents. It seems very ambitious. I wanted to explore this a bit further because we are also included in this with our sister territories, the Yukon and Nunavut. Is there a process by which we are expected to or we want to bring together some joint agendas here as the three northern territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, thank you and good morning, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this year on a family vacation to Europe, my family and I took the opportunity to visit one of the most remarkable and inspiring places I’ve seen and that was the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France, Mr. Speaker. The time allotted won’t allow me to go into a description of everything that we saw and felt, but it was a very calm and a very quite day in June when my family and I walked amongst the monuments. Those 30-metre-tall white marble spires dominating the landscape are indeed inspiring. The rows and rows of graves of...