Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to follow up on some of the points that I raised in my Member’s statement. I attended one of the two public meetings that were held here in Yellowknife. In listening to the back and forth and in listening to the responses from Municipal and Community Affairs staff, there was an indication that there was a possibility for more consultation. I would like to know from the Minister what process is intended to be followed now. What steps will MACA take? What is MACA going to do going forward? How are they going to ensure that they get the right information so that we get the right policy put in place? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The steps going forward, we have released a discussion paper, as the Member had noted in her Member’s statement. We had to get something on the table for the public to latch on to. The next steps are to consult with all affected stakeholders and use all the information we gather to do the final framework. Again, this is just a discussion paper; it is not the final product. We will be working on getting the final product out by June 30th of this year. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I hope by final product he means a report and not implementation, but I will come back to that.
One of the things that was glaring and obvious in the meeting that I was at, is that there has to date been no formal consultation with First Nations, the Yellowknives Dene whose traditional lands this area sits within. There has been no direct consultation with the users of the area, whether they be current leaseholders or day-use users. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not that specific consultation will be done. Thank you.
The discussion paper that we put out, we will consult with all affected stakeholders before we release the final drafting in June. The final draft is actually not the implementation, as the Member had noted. It would be a draft taken into consideration, all the comments that we have heard during the consultation process. Thank you.
Again, thanks to the Minister. I would like to know from the Minister, because this is another area that, in my mind, where lack of information was glaringly obvious. There was no assessment of current use of particularly the Vee Lake and Walsh Lake areas and a couple of small lakes around it like Jackson and Banting, I believe. I would like to know from the Minister if we are talking about a June 30th final document, how will the department get that current use evaluation, that data, how will they get that prior to June 30th. I think it is vitally important that they have that data in order to have a good framework and policy going forward. Will the department do that work that is required? Thank you.
I believe the department has done some work in identifying the density of the cabins out in these particular lakes as they have done around the airport like in Inuvik, just to ensure that there is room for growth and able to get more cabins on there. Some of that work is done. Again, I will assure the Member that we need to make sure we get a good product out there and this is one that we are going to take our time, make sure we get the right product out there before any kind of implementation because it is very important to residents not only of the lakes surrounding Yellowknife but the residents of Airport Lake in Inuvik too. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I totally agree with the Minister that we want to get it right and I think there are a number and certain parts of information that are lacking. The density study unfortunately was done from a desk, it wasn’t done from on the land, and that, in my mind, is lacking.
I’d like to ask the Minister, there’s another area that hasn’t yet been handled, from what I’ve seen, and that would be the ownership issue of letting leases on land that’s been claimed by prospectors where there are mineral claims, and also how is he going to handle the ownership issue of Yellowknives Dene First Nations land. Thank you.
Thank you. Obviously, these are very important questions and ones that we need to address. Part of the consultation between now and when we get the final draft framework done, we need to make sure that we have all these questions answered, the ownership issues taken care of so as we go to implement the framework there’s not a lot of confusion. So we hope to clear up a lot of confusion before we actually get into implementation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
