Kieron Testart

I appreciate the stakeholder engagement that's gone into this. The Association of NWT Communities has recommended these changes and other changes in the legislation for, I think, a decade now, so it's nice to see the department moving forward. I'm wondering if there's any possible way that the Minister can move up the timeline? The reason I ask, Mr. Speaker, is the City of Yellowknife is depending on some of these changes so they can afford their tourism operation. I just don't want to be put in the situation where we're not able to give the City of Yellowknife this legislative change and they...

Mr. Speaker, the 33 communities of the Northwest Territories are governed by a suite of territorial legislation made up of the Hamlets Act, the Charter Communities Act, and the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, all of which were enacted in 2003. Together, these statutes provide the legal authority for municipal operations in all of our communities.

The Cities, Towns and Villages Act, also referred to as the CTV Act, governs the larger communities in the Northwest Territories, including the City of Yellowknife. It provides the essential legal framework establishing a municipality and authorizing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the course of this budget review, I want to be able to speak to some of the work standing committees did during the business planning process. We touch on this often in our sittings to benefit our constituents that MLAs are hard at work for the fall of every year, reviewing the departments' annual business plans. This takes a lot of time from the Ministers' offices, the standing committees, and from the departments and departments' staff. It is a significant amount of work, and it should not be understated how important this is in the functioning of consensus...

I'm just going to remind the Minister that the GNWT is in a revenue crisis right now, a massive shortfall that is unpredicted at this time around. It seems like now is the time to do it. Will the Minister reconsider that in light of a significant shortfall in revenues?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment made a Minister's statement, and I will quote from it: "Royalties directly impact the profitability and viability of resource development projects in the NWT" and that, "further, we will not be reviewing our resource royalty regime as part of the work on the proposed act."

One of the stated public goals of the act is to create a cuttingedge mineral resources regime in the Northwest Territories. If royalties affect our competitiveness so much, why is the Minister indicating that we are not going to address...

I will move off this, Mr. Speaker. In the case of the City of Yellowknife, if the City of Yellowknife is unable to establish the appropriate authorities in time to fund tourism and visitor services, will the Minister commit to providing additional funding to the City of Yellowknife so that they will not be faced with a budget shortfall while these amendments take time to get started?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs for clarifying that the department is moving forward with amendments on the CTV Act. I have a follow-up question: will the Minister coordinate the introduction of the CTV Act amendments with municipal governments, including the City of Yellowknife, to allow municipalities time to establish their own authorities to effectively implement the changes? Thank you. Mr. Speaker.

I'll just remind the Minister that the changes that the department has narrowed down and has been consulting on have been recommended by Regular Members every year. So I can speak for the standing committee now that, if the legislative proposal contains the exact same recommendations that we've been making, we're pretty good to go with it. So, again, will the Minister expedite this matter? My concern is: we need to meet the timelines. I represent the riding here in Yellowknife. I'm looking out for my constituents, and I want to make sure that they're not burdened by the inability of this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs well knows the issue of the outstanding amendments to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, earlier in the day in my Member's statement quoted one of her officials from a business plan review for 2016-2017. I would like to ask the Minister today: what progress has been done since that review on updating the Cities, Towns and Villages Act? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tough act to follow.

A lot of these new initiatives that the department is speaking to are good things: additional resources for land rights agreements; $250,000 to the friendship centres; $100,000 for the Tuktoyaktuk Community Corporation; the Western Premiers Conference; campaign schools. I mean, these are all good things, but around what the standing committee deemed as extraordinary funding requests from the Tuktoyaktuk Community Corporation and the council of friendship centres, these are both issues that have been raised with Members of the Legislative Assembly as...