Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of my concerns is that all are a number of rights-based cabins. There are even people's houses within municipal boundaries who are being directed by their leadership to not pay the fees. I question why this is being dealt with in the Department of Lands. My question is: if we are going to have true nation-to-nation relationships and Indigenous governments are taking a position to not pay lease fees, is this not something that would be better suited and dealt with by Executive and Indigenous Affairs?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I just clarify that $649,000,000, those are the securities held by the Department of Lands, and that doesn't also include those under water licences, ENR?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the appropriate standing committee also be updated regarding the status of the ongoing disputes and issues and the responses to requests that have been raised by the NWT Foster Family Coalition?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I recognize the Department of Lands has a lot of work to do and there is a lot of complication in land administration. My question is: I would really like to see a land-use plans for all Indigenous governments during the life of this Assembly. Does the department have the sufficient resources to do that right now?

Ongoing dialogue is important, but I was looking for a little more from the Minister of Health and Social Services. The NWT Foster Family Coalition publicly made a number of requests. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services commit to responding to each of those requests made by the NWT Foster Family Coalition?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I am going to rephrase that. What happened is we started the work on the Yellowknife management plan, and then the Department of Lands failed to do adequate consultation, got some resistance from Indigenous governments, and now the plan is not complete. I struggle with why the Department of Lands, which is responsible for the land in the Northwest Territories, cannot do proper consultation. My question is: when will we see the Yellowknife periphery area recreation management plan complete?

I appreciate that commitment to bring this forward to the department to look into it. The main issue with a building standards act is we all know there is a multimillion-dollar deficit in infrastructure costs to the NWT, and GNWT infrastructure is built to very high-quality standards, but, in the communities where there is no enforcement of this, every single person building a building has to decide between quality, and often we are building buildings that are the cheaper option, which means that the cost of living in our communities consistently rises. A building standards act creates an even...

Thank you, Madam Chair. If we transfer the land in fee simple, and then it's not complying with a community bylaw, those bylaws still apply, and it's the responsibility of the community to deal with that. This issue of, you know, "If it's there's not financial compliance," but we're actually spending millions of dollars a year trying to get people in compliance, many of whom are Indigenous rights holders. There is a lot of complexity here that I believe the Department of Lands needs to take a better look at.

I would like to move on, though. In my riding of Yellowknife North, we have already...

I hope, by end of three years of pestering the Minister about this, I can get a couple of extra hours. At some point, if the democratically elected people of the NWT can't get a couple of hours of time to renew their driver's licence, then I don't believe we are having the right conversations. My question for the Minister of Infrastructure is simple. I don't want to continue having conversations about the operating costs and the operations of a building. Will the Minister direct her department to open the department of motor vehicles in Yellowknife for some portion of time, either evenings or...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess this goes back to that issue. I question if there is outstanding money on people's equity leases, and they're not making payments, and we agree that we will eventually give them the land in fee simple. Why are we spending millions of dollars administering this when we could simply just hand over the land? Is the Department of Lands willing to look into cases where there may be outstanding fees? Is the Department of Lands willing to conduct an analysis of whether we're actually spending more money administering equity leases than we are actually owed at the end...