Robert C. McLeod

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...

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

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, May 31, 2013, I will move that Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Curfew Act, be read for the first time.

We had attempted to form a working group, and the YKDFN were going to join us on the working group. We extended an invitation for AANDC to be part of this working group as we were doing our density study.

Again, we were quite surprised when we started getting calls on the activity that was going out on Crown land. So we will continue to try and work with AANDC and the YKDFN, because this is an issue that I think we need to resolve quickly before devolution takes place because we are going to be inheriting all the leases on Crown land. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It’s up to the YKDFN to use whatever avenues that are available to them. If that includes court action, then that would be a decision they would have to make.

We as a government and as a department will use the avenues that are available to us. We have tried to work very close with the YKDFN in identifying some of their traditional areas out there too. They have been very receptive to working with us. They were just made aware recently, I think, of the federal leases that were being let on Crown land in their territory.

It was a difficult question for me to answer. I’m not going to try. They use...

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