Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that equity leases are leases on Commissioner's lands, where the leaseholder has a commitment from the government that their lease payments will be put towards the eventual purchase of their land. In this House, I have been asking about equity leases for a long period of time. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please provide an update on how his department is working to resolve this issue, and how many equity leases exist on Commissioner's lands in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Justice.
Mr. Speaker, when I first took over this file I had thought that there would not be many equity leases out there, but unfortunately there are a great number. I can advise that there are actually 243 equity leases spread throughout all five regions of the Northwest Territories; they are all on Commissioner's land.
In the coming weeks my department will be bringing forward options for me to consider. I will bring those to Cabinet for consideration and then to the Members for further discussion as appropriate. We certainly do recognize this is a very important issue for many leaseholders throughout the Northwest Territories. We are hoping to resolve this issue.
I apologize if I confused everybody in the House here. I was talking to the Minister of Lands, which was the same Minister of Justice. How will the department deal with this extra workload; because we're talking a number over 200 land leases there, equity leases, so how will the department work with that?
Certainly, initially what we'll have to do is determine how we are going to be proceeding with the resolution of the equity lease problem. We're hoping to have an overall comprehensive plan that will resolve this very difficult issue. We are going through the process right now and any positions conditionally approved through the forced growth or initiative process will be defended through committee reviews of the 2018-2019 business plans in November and defended through the main estimates process. The first step really in this procedure will be to determine where we're going with this very difficult project. I am confident that we will be bringing forward to Cabinet measures that will hopefully resolve this issue.
I thank the Minister for his answer; however, it seems that we're continuing to delay, delay, delay, and that is a concern for the residents, just not in my riding but a number of ridings. What will the Minister or the department do with leases that are expiring until they're dealt with?
Yes, as the lease agreements mature or come to an end, Lands is placing them in an overholding status until the issues are addressed. Now what that means practically is that the lease continues under the original lease clauses with an overholding status. We will not be entering into any new equity leases; those are a thing of the past, but we believe that this will not prejudice the current holders.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his answer. I guess I'm a little concerned if the lease payment says at the end of the day you've got to continue with your payment, a dollar a day and that, but what is this government doing to ensure all leaseholders who have equity leases in place are treated fairly by this government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, it is our intention that all leaseholders will be treated fairly. I think it's important to realize that not all of these equity leases are identical, so it's going to require a lot of work to go through them one by one, but as I mentioned at the outset we are intending to resolve this matter by treating leaseholders fairly and properly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
