Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to following the best practices of other jurisdictions and ensure that the ownership of all privatelyheld corporations is made known through access through the corporate registry search? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So corporate registries is publicly available. Anyone is able to search the corporate registries. It's a free search. For a fee of $4, anyone can then get detailed access to reveal who are the directors of that corporation, but the corporate registries does not keep a list of the shareholders of a corporation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason why I ask that is that because in the NWT we have a good system in place, you know, for societies. But when it comes to corporations for profit, we don't have any information. We don't know who owns what businesses, etcetera, and there's no requirement. And I just wanted to know why, you know. So what is the purpose of keeping this information private? How do we ensure many of these business owners or these businesses are truly living and working in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So corporate registries is responsible for extraterritorial registration, so companies from outside of the territory who want to do work in the territory, as well as corporations in the territory. So that information, like I said, it can be publicly found. The directors, you know, the location of the office, so things like that are publicly available. If a municipality, an Indigenous government, is having difficulties, the Department of Justice is more than happy to help. If the Member has a specific issue that she would like to raise, she can send me an email, with some details and we can discuss it. I might not be much help here on the floor right now. I don't have details of the concerns that she's raising. I will say I'm not the most familiar with the Business Corporations Act. It's been a while since I've read it and I will say I have not read it in full. So it's difficult to sort of get perhaps the detailed answer that the Member is looking for. But, like I said, if they're running into roadblocks, we're happy to help. And so I encourage her to reach out. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will take him up on his offer and meet with him to discuss this further. So no more comment. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
