Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by Ms. Bisaro on February 9, 2015, regarding municipal information and privacy legislation.

On September 18, 2014, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs distributed a discussion paper to community governments and other stakeholders including the Standing Committee on Social Programs, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure of the Legislative Assembly for comment. In addition, the discussion paper was made publicly available on MACA's website.

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I have not heard personally, but I haven’t had an opportunity to review some of the comments that came back. But I would assume it would be a concern of a lot of residents out there, especially with so many people getting out on the land now and the ability to make trails to these lands. I know, back where I’m from, we have a few trails out to some of the cabins out there. There aren’t as many as around here because of the higher usage here. But I will review that, and again, I will relay that information on to the Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure what the regulations are. I would have to check with the Department of Transportation because I’m not quite sure what the regulations are. So, I will commit to working with Transportation and see what those regulations are and share that information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Northwest Territories residents take great pride in the beauty of their land and want to see the Department of Lands managing it in a fair, transparent and consistent way. The development of new recreational leasing policies that respond to the needs of our residents is a priority for the department.

Lands is committed to finalizing its Recreational Land Management Framework by mid-2016. This framework will apply to both Commissioner’s land and newly devolved Territorial land. The policies and planning that make up the framework will address the current and future recreational...

Mr. Speaker, that will happen. On the Lands side of it, we’ve inherited the Territorial Lands Act, which is a huge piece of work. We also are working with the Commissioner’s Lands Act that we had worked with previously. That is a huge undertaking, and I can commit to the Member and all Members of this House that that work, I think, in the life of this government anyway will have to do the initial work. The bigger piece is going to have to be done, I think, in the 18th Assembly, to amalgamate those two acts. It’s a huge undertaking, but it’s one that we’re aware of and one that has been brought...

As far as the repayment plan goes, that’s something that the land owners would have to work out, I think, in some of the smaller communities with Finance, because I believe it’s through Finance that it’s administered. In some of the larger communities it’s through the community government.

As far as the second part goes, I’m not going to attempt to answer that because I’m really not sure. We have a whole suite of programs that have different rules for market and non-market communities, zone A, B and C. We have different criteria for a lot of different areas across the NWT. We try to tailor it...

I just said that we recognize some of the challenges that are faced in the small communities. We try to tailor many of our programs to get as many people into the programs as we can. In some of the larger jurisdictions, especially the market communities, they have easier access to bank financing and resale value of their units, a type of luxury that we don’t have in many of the smaller communities. So, that is the rationale for this and we believe it’s one that’s working fairly well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will commit to the Member that I will review with the officials the application process and whether it’s part of our process or if it’s one we inherited and if there are opportunities to review it and make some necessary changes so we’ll be able to assist people out there with their applications. Again, there is always the option of, if they have some questions, to come quietly to our lands office and get some assistance from them. But I will commit to the Member that we will review it and I will report back to committee.

This is where they would work with the local lands office. If they go in there and seek help we’d be able to assist them in trying to guide them through some of the requirements and the processes of filling out the applications. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the Member is referring to the smaller communities, repayment plan for the smaller communities, or all communities in general. Maybe if I could just ask the Member to clarify which part of the market he’s speaking to, then I will respond accordingly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.