Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re continuing to engage the city on the transfer of Commissioner’s land within the municipal boundaries to the city. We have advised them that when it applies to acquire Commissioner’s land, our preference is they do it incrementally and indicate to us the proposed use of the land. This approach to applications improves the ability of the general public to focus on a particular parcel. So, we are continuing to engage with the city. Thank you.

I will commit to having further discussions with the city and the YKDFN. I’ll point out that I actually met with the mayor of the city this morning and we had a very good conversation, and we’ve had some conversations with the YKDFN. There is a desire there to move some of the issues forward and address some of the issues that are facing both the city and the YKDFN. We’ll continue to have those discussions and I will keep the Member and Members apprised of where the discussions are going. Thank you.

Since 2006 we’ve transferred over 700 hectares to the city. There are a couple of applications that are in the process right now. We’re working with city officials on completing one particular transfer. The consultation survey work is done and Lands is working on completing the transaction. As well, we have another application that we are working on the city with for 102 hectares. Now we’re just in the final stages of transferring the land. So, if the Member wants, I can speak to the Member and give her the information on which pieces of land we’re talking about. Thank you.

Through the formula funding review this is an issue that was discussed and we’ll continue to move forward on this. I think we’ve had a number of recommendations that have come out of that. The government, actually, you know, we’re challenged fiscally, and the people that worked on the formula funding review recognize that. But it is an issue that has been brought up and we need to find ways to deal with it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’ll make that commitment to make it a little… Again, this is 11 months into the process so we’re just figuring out how we go about our business plans and presenting them to committee, but we will make that commitment to be a little more specific going forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it was maybe last year or the year before, we did have a bit of an increase in this fund. I think we’re up to $400,000 now, as the Member mentioned. It’s fully subscribed to. We have a number of communities that are taking us up on this. It could help with equipment. However, I think the communities’ priority is to provide training, and I think we’ve been working with Transportation to provide some first responder training.

It is a program that is fully subscribed to and we are making some progress on this again. There are options there to help the communities with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have Mr. Mark Warren, deputy minister of lands. To my left, I have Brenda Hilderman. She is the director of finance, Department of Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A considerable amount of work has been done on this. I think we have requested some time with committee to provide them an update as to some of the work that we’re doing. Thank you.

I am pleased to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Lands. Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $2.438 million, or 9 percent, over the 2014-2015 Main Estimates.

Highlights of the proposed estimates include:

$2.8 million in new initiatives. These initiatives are funded from the reserve set aside by this Assembly for devolution impacts identified after the 2014-2015 Main Estimates were considered by this Assembly. These initiatives include:

$1.006 million for the new liabilities and financial assurances division to manage and coordinate the financial...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right before committee I think there was support there for our desire to add next an extra person on. As you heard from Mr. Schauerte, we’ve re-profiled one of our positions to help deal with this so we can take care of some of the backlog as far as legislation goes and be as current as possible. We had the support of committee. Again, because of fiscal constraint, we were unable to get the position at this time, so we re-profiled internally. Thank you.