Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will reiterate my colleague's comments that the NWT SPCA does do work in all of the communities. I think, more and more, we're realizing that animal health is just a part of human health, and if you see rabies transmit between species, it can have devastating effects. It's a huge public health thing. I'll just reiterate that. That is the aspect that I find most concerning about the gap.

I wanted to switch. I heard the Minister say that, currently, all calls are being answered in the NWT. My understanding is that there were some dispatch centres, and that may actually...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I struggle with this because I see the 13 positions in the directorate, and there are only a few in policy and planning. I recognize how hard those people work, but MACA has a legislative backlog that really needs to get done. I've mentioned multiple times the hope of a building standards act, the hope of a Consumer Protection Act, a city charter. I know we're finally getting to the Fire Prevention Act, which is going to be a lot of work. We're also getting the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, which I'm very excited about. I've asked the Minister to look into...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see that this is the area regarding responsible assessment. I recognize we provide some funding to the City of Yellowknife to do their assessments, and we have recently had this issue with the Yellowknife hospital. There have been a lot of different interpretations of exactly how that money got missed. Could I just have the Minister explain what exactly occurred there and how we are going to ensure that we budget for assessments going forward?

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate we should be working with our communities to find other sources. Get money from the feds is the slogan around here. I want to confirm: if it's approximately 40, and it's going to be approximately 35, and we know that the gap actually increases with inflation, and it increases with devaluing of assets, are we going to be spending more than $5 million in the life of this Assembly to reduce the municipal funding gap?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My colleague for Hay River seems to be getting some good answers there, and I believe the Minister of Finance has kindly agreed to take questions on behalf of ITI and Infrastructure. My question is: can we remove Wal-Mart from the Business Incentive Program?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can someone tell me what the municipal funding gap currently is?

I don't often like to refer to the Yukon as doing things better than us, but I can tell you what a proper agricultural land system looks like. In the Yukon, if you live on a piece of land for seven years, they give it to you for free in fee simple. It's not a lease; you get to own that land if you're willing to put it to agricultural use. Now, I think this is, perhaps, too much to ask the Department of Lands to look at something like that, but when we are looking at agricultural leases, can we look at the pricing and make this as cheap as possible for those willing to start agricultural...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I completely agree. I think, without the legislation having more teeth, you get fewer complaints. I was just curious whether it was being utilised and the extent, now. Sorry, I wanted to switch to the Office of the Fire Marshal. This is probably one of my largest, actually, areas of constituents' complaints, is coming out of the Fire Marshal. I'm very excited that we will be reviewing the act. I believe there is a bit of a cultural issue in the department, in not working with people, and there has been inflexibility. I even know that the GNWT itself has had some...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier today in my statement, presently, there is no such thing as an agricultural lease in the Northwest Territories. My question to the Minister of Lands is: when can we see agricultural leases in the Northwest Territories?