Shane Thompson

For that, right now, no, we're not going to be reviewing this. The NWT Surface Rights Board Act meets Canada's obligations that arise from the Gwich'in, Sahtu, Dene, and the Metis comprehensive land claim agreements to establish surface rights legislation in the NWT, so it does meet that requirement. No, we have no desire to bring it forth. We have other obligations, legislation, and other work that we need to do that are priorities that we sent out from the mandate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, so that is securities coordination. Is that what you were looking at?

Around 700 that we have identified from the territories; 550, I believe are in the North Slave area roughly, approximately, from what we understand. Those are the ones we have been able to identify presently. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would get clarity for how we assess the leases from the deputy minister. Thank you.

The Member is correct. We haven't had an issue brought forth to the board for the length of how long it has been there. I will ask the deputy minister for clarity on the duration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I may make the water murkier, so I am going to turn to the assistant deputy minister to help out, try to hopefully make people understand what we do. Thank you, Mr. Chair, with your permission.

From my understanding, we work with our Indigenous governments to identify rights-based cabins. We have heard some challenges, that people may want to assert their rights-based cabins but that it's not their traditional territory. That could be some of the challenge that we face. However, if it's rights-based cabins and we are able to deal with it, we are putting it to the side; we are not dealing with that issue right now. We want to deal with the people who are squatters, I guess is the best way to say it, people who are not supposed to be there. That is what our priority is. It has been 50...

The answer is yes, but for further detail, I will turn to the deputy minister, with your permission. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have with me today Deputy Minister Sylvia Haener and director of finance and administration, Katherine Macdonald. We also have, in the waiting room, the assistant deputy minister of operations, Blair Chapman. We will be swapping him out with our deputy minister when it comes to operations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I might be a little confused on what the Member is asking, but we want affirmative action people in place. We want to put Indigenous P1s and P2s in our government doing the work representing and working for the residents of the Northwest Territories. There is a hiring process. There is an HR process that we need to follow. We follow that to a T. Sometimes there are effective employees, and if they are effective employees, then there is a system in place where they actually get the opportunity to get the next job available if they're qualified.

To answer the Member's question, yes, we...