The commitment was to look at it and see if there was anything we can do.

I give notice that on Monday, June 3, 2013, I will move that Bill 20, An Act to Amend the Tlicho Community Government Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an issue across the Northwest Territories. I agree with the Member; there are other mechanisms in place to deal with this particular issue. I take the Member’s point, though, on the need for trespass legislation. I have reviewed trespassing legislation across the country and in many of the other jurisdictions it is administered by the Department of Justice. Seeing that, I’ve had a discussion with our Justice Minister and he has committed to me that he will have his department have a look at the opportunity of trespass legislation, or we’d have to weigh that...

In a letter received back from Minister Duncan at the time, he reinforced our need to work together. That’s why we were quite surprised at the number of leases that were letting out. I followed that up with a letter to the new minister, Minister Valcourt, explaining to him our disappointment and the fact that all these leases were let while we were doing all this work and how we thought that might undermine the work that we’re doing.

I have not received a response back from Minister Valcourt. The letter just went out recently. We have asked the Minister to cease any applications that are being...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Mr. Winston Moses, who I had the opportunity to apprentice with back in 1980. I worked with him. I had an opportunity to work with Alfred. I won’t tell them about the driving lessons nobody wanted to give you back in 1980.

---Laughter

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, May 31, 2013, I will move that Bill 14, An Act to Repeal the Pawnbrokers and Second-Hand Dealers Act, be read for the first time.

I’m not quite sure what the conditions of the federal leases are. I believe it’s a 100-square metre building. It could be one or two storeys.

To the Member’s question, we are trying to update our regulations. We are going to have good regulations in place, good density studies in place. More importantly, we are going to have good enforcement in place.

I have directed the department, through the proper business planning process, to come forward with a request to possibly bring on more enforcement people, knowing that as of April 1st we are going to be inheriting the enforcement of all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has reached out to take the lead in this. We, as I mentioned to Member Bromley, have had good discussions with the YKDFN. We met with them out in Detah. The Member makes a good point that there is strength in numbers, if we can all relay our concerns to the federal government as to the number of leases that were let out there. The majority of them, there are 122 and I think 35 of them are here in the capital. There are a few out in the other areas of the Northwest Territories, but the issue is not as problematic there as it is here because there is a lot of...

We were doing all the work because we knew that devolution was coming and we would have to have responsibility for all Crown land that is transferred over to Commissioner’s land. We had updated our regulations. We had done a lot of good density study work, and our regulations would have applied to any new leases that may be coming.

I do tend to agree with the Member that with devolution coming we would have assumed that they would have put any new leases on hold until after devolution, and then those applications could then come to the Commissioner and be regulated under our Commissioner’s Land...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were unaware that they were going to be putting these leases out. Of course, we were quite concerned with all the work that we were doing, as far as the density study goes, around those areas. As far as the public process, I mean, I can’t speak to how AANDC does their business, but I think we would have all known in this building today if there was a public process as to the leasing of their lots. I can’t speak to what they were doing. I can only speak to what we knew and what we didn’t know.