Frieda Martselos

Madam Speaker, I want to be able to ask the Minister of Lands: what is the Minister's policy on enforcement, for enforcement on reserve lands?

The Minister has an ability to make a difference on this whole file. Leadership must be shown at the top in order to advance the Government of the Northwest Territories' affirmative action to its fullness. Does the Minister agree?

Madam Speaker, the Minister must be very firm with all of the senior management within the government to ensure that the Affirmative Action Policy is followed. Mechanisms must be put in place to address the gaps, and if not followed, there has to be a process of meaningful appeals with a neutral panel and very concise direction. Does the Minister agree? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise today, along with my colleagues, to speak about the Affirmative Action Policy in the Northwest Territories. My focus in this Member's statement is to talk about the many gaps that exist within the policy. The Government of the Northwest Territories created the Affirmative Action Policy to hire under-represented groups of people in the public service. To ensure that the government is representative of the population it serves, the designated groups are Indigenous Aboriginal Persons (P1); Indigenous Non-Aboriginal Persons (P2); Resident Disabled Persons (P3); and Resident...

Madam Speaker, will the Minister admit that this whole situation could have been handled better, and will he commit to improving the decision-making process for future decisions like this issue? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Can the Minister explain why his department decided to initiate the new minimum rent cost for land leaseholders all at once rather than a gradual approach as done with taxes?

Madam Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on the review of the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Annual Reports of the Official Languages Commissioner and commends it to this House.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations has reviewed the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Annual Reports of the Official Languages Commissioner. The committee thanks Mrs. Shannon Gullberg, the Official Languages Commissioner, for her appearance on October 26, 2020.

The Official Languages Act requires the Commissioner to prepare annual reports. These reports include...

I have no other comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to be supporting this expenditure, and I am doing it because I have just been in contact in the last 10 minutes to reinforce exactly what the three leaders have said in the community of Fort Smith: the chief of the Salt River First Nation says they support the secretariat; the Fort Smith Metis Nation support the secretariat; and I was also in contact with the mayor of the Town of Fort Smith. I will be supporting the supplementary in full.

I know there are other issues that are of concern, especially the housing issue. Because the housing issue is a major...

The last time I asked the Minister about this topic, he mentioned the development of public land regulations on the way. Can the Minister explain how he intends for those regulations to ease the financial burden on people from the new rent minimum cost?