Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line is a backbone transport link to GNWT asset. Linking this backbone to the community is what's called the "last mile." This service is provided by the local service provider as GNWT is not in the business of providing local Internet service. Building this backbone significantly improved the telecommunications infrastructure in the Mackenzie Valley, replacing the aging and costly microwave system. It isn't accurate to say that there haven't been improvement or promises made. The only promises I make are to my grandchildren. We have...

The quick answer is yes, when a resident applies, we will work with the client to come up with an affordable monthly payment plan, and, if there are some that have entered into repayment plans already, we would expect them to honour it, and this program would apply to them, as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I noted before, the Property Tax Arrears program is designed to provide a path for residents to address the outstanding arrears. Residents can enter into a repayment plan for the outstanding property taxes, and the interest that has been building up will be forgiven; or, in other words, the resident will not have to pay the interest portion. Residents, we have to be quite clear, have to stay current on their payment plan on future property taxes to stay eligible for the program.

Mr. Speaker, revenue forecasts were developed for the project that were projected to increase over time. Revenue has grown at a pace of around 20 percent a year since the inception of the Mackenzie fibre optic line in 2017, and has met its projected forecast. With the recent approvals related to the Inuvik satellite station, I expect there will be more interest and, coming from small communities such as Inuvik, we see that interest firsthand. Finance continues to work with the federal government on the development of a satellite station facility to further increase revenue. Thank you, Mr...

I would be interested to hear from some of the smaller communities down the valley to see if their services have improved at all. We know of the federal announcement where they have committed a whole bunch of money to improving broadband in northern communities, and I think our service providers up here was able to take advantage of some of that. We own Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line. I think we're responsible for getting it out to pop-out, as it's called in the community, and then their service provider would go from there.

Again, Mr. Speaker, we shouldn't be throwing around promises. I don...

These initiatives, they are related. The Property Tax Arrears program will help residents that have built up appears in the past. It is a time-limited program, however, to deal with these circumstances. Going forward, the standard interest rate establishes a more reasonable interest rate on any outstanding amounts owed to the GNWT in property taxes. These two initiatives taken together should help address the historic problem we have had with property tax arrears. That said, though, residents will have to pay their property taxes, and, if they do not, the arrears will start to grow again over...

We are sending letters to all clients with arrears, and we will provide them with details on applying for the program. We are also doing a communication effort in communities in the general taxation area, and we are working with our GSOs, and they have been trained to help residents apply for the program, as well.

We can always have those discussions with not only the City of Yellowknife, but we can have those discussions with all of the communities that do have liquor stores in them. I mean, we all know how sneaky smart a lot of these bootleggers are, and they will always find ways around everything. Everything that you try to do to combat the problem, they will find ways around. I think there was a rationing system that was tried. I know that, in my home community, a number of years ago, they found ways around that. We have to be vigilant in trying deal with this. Again, we will have discussions with...

I am sure the department has a clear idea of some of the numbers or some of the costs that it would take to relocate some of these bears. The department might have a clear idea. The Minister actually, unfortunately, does not have a clear idea as to exactly what it would cost, and the Minister will commit to working with his department to find the cost and then work with the Member and the community of Aklavik to see if those can be implemented. Thank you.

I think one of the reasons that they put the tag system in place was a number of years ago, when there was no tag system, there was a large amount of bears that were harvested, and I think there was a belief at that time, and this might have been 10 or 15 years ago, that, had they not put restriction on it, then that might have hurt the grizzly bear population quite a bit more. I think what we are seeing today is a result of some of those measures that were put in place to try to protect some of the grizzly bear population. We would have to work with our co-management partners, we would have...