Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up with questions from my Member’s statement to the Minister of Lands, and I appreciate the Minister’s consultation with our public as part of the process to craft a recreational land management plan. I’m sure that plan will be much better because of this discussion.
Can I ask the Minister, can he say when the consultations will be complete and how long will it take to put together the draft plan for public review after that? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Lands, Mr. R.C. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few more communities that we need to visit, to do our consultations. Once we do that we’ll work on putting together a bit of a draft consultation and the overall policy is expected to be fully completed in mid-2016. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. Many constituents are concerned that recreational leases are now being let without this vital planning tool to guide the process. The current leasing process is not seen as clear, consistent or sustainable, and they would like to see a hold on all leases until the rules are in place.
Will the Minister commit to extending the moratorium currently in place to all new recreational land use requests in the NWT, or at least to the islands in Yellowknife Bay, so valuable for public use and desirable for cabin leases, until the new policy is in place?
Thank you. The focus area in and around the capital here is our highest usage and the most demanded for the recreational areas in and around the focus area that we have around the capital.
So we’ve heard some concerns, such as the Member raised there. As far as all of the NWT, the demand out there is not as great as it is here within the focus area. But I’ll have a discussion with the officials and we’ll see if there’s any movement that we can make because we have heard the concerns from not only the Member but a few of the constituents from Yellowknife. Thank you.
The Minister’s response is much appreciated. Absent extension of the moratorium to the valuable lands mentioned that are under ever-increasing pressure, both by the seekers and legitimate leases and squatters, what mechanism does the Minister propose to give the public some say in identifying those lands that should be preserved for the use of all versus those to be leased for private use in the areas where there are not moratorium? Mahsi.
The consultation process that we’re going through right now will give a lot of people the opportunity to raise their concerns. I think the Member raised in his Member’s statement, there was a lot of good feedback from the people that had taken part in the consultations here, and I think he even mentioned some of the areas outside of the focus areas. So we use this consultation, and it’s been a great opportunity for folks out there to let us know their feelings as we continue to develop our policy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Once the lands are identified to be offered for lease to people wishing to build cabins, they must be allocated in a transparent and fair fashion. One method proposed is through ballot draws. Another is to auction them off to the highest bidder.
Once these lands have been identified for offer to the public for leasing, what equitable and clear process does the Minister propose to allocate them? Mahsi.
Thank you. Again, that would be part of the feedback from the consultation, but our initial plan is if we’re going forward in letting any leases out there, a ballot draw we’ve heard is the fairest way to do that. We respect that and we would take that into consideration, but our plan now is if any lands were to be disposed of I think the ballot draw would be the fairest process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
