Merci, Monsieur le President. Yesterday the Minister of Lands made a Minister's statement in the House enhancing transparency and client experience. This was about the administration of lands in the Northwest Territories in something called ATLAS, which is a pretty cool computer based information system about land here in the Northwest Territories.
So I commend the Minister for this effort in bringing more transparency to ourselves as a, you know, manager of lands. But I want to ask some specific questions about whether this new information available through ATLAS includes information about financial security that our government might hold. So if I could get the Minister to answer that, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Lands recently expanded the information and data related to land administration and is available to the public and as part of our efforts to increase transparency. The Department of lands currently tracks the form, the amount, and expiry dates for security and is working on how to make this information transparent through the public lands regulation.
At this point, lands has not included financial information related to the leases on the ATLAS system. We are looking to do this into the future.
I agree that accountability of land manages; we should be open and transparent. The Department of lands is currently reviewing the on land platform online platform to make to best make this information publicly available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that information. And of course the reason why I raise this is our government, when we had the surface lease for the Giant Mine, we had zero dollars in financial security, zero dollars, which we actually we ended up on the hook for $26 million in an agreement with the federal government as our contribution because we had zero dollars for financial security on that property. Ptarmigan Mine, zero dollars for financial security for the surface. It's going to probably cost us more millions of dollars.
So can the Minister tell us when this information this kind of information is going to be publicly available. I know he's looking at it, but is there a date by which this information on financial security can be made available to the public. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could give the Member and the public a confirmed date, but presently, we don't have that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course I might be back here in October asking when it's going to be done. But can the Minister confirm that this information is actually tracked already by the department. So it's not a question of having to go and comb files to find this information. We already have it. It would be just adding additional attribute data to ATLAS. Can the Minister confirm we have this information already. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that the annual security reporting requirement is a part of the Public Land Act, and we do have that information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course the difficulty with the annual reporting requirements of the Public Land Act is that that act is not actually in force yet. So we're waiting for regulations. So is there a way in which this information on financial security held by our government can be made available even on an annual basis in advance of the Public Land Act coming into effect. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department participates in the GNWT open data initiative to increase government transparency and accountability while maintaining the government's responsibility towards privacy, security, and legal obligations.
So we are working on it. The Public Land Act, as the Member said, isn't in force because we're doing the public land regulations on that. So until that is done, we're not able to provide that information publicly. We are working on it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
