Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Across the Northwest Territories there's essentially three types of tenure. There's community government leasing. I got no problem with those. Community governments can sort out how they want to lease their land. Then there's fee simple title. Never hear any complaints about anyone who owns their house, Mr. Speaker. And then there's the GNWT lease, which to me the main benefit seems to be a miraculous ability to be brought up in every single meeting and immediately derail it. No matter the meeting we're having, someone inevitably starts complaining about a 600 percent fee increase or their cabin, Mr. Speaker. It seems to be a golden rule of the GNWT.
And so my question for the Minister of Lands is can we get out of the leasing business and give people who live in their houses, in a GNWT lease, fee simple title? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Lands is able to offer fee simple title to leaseholders in the areas where land leaseonly policy is implemented or doesn't apply. In other words, where land claims have been concluded. The land leaseonly policy applies where land claims are not settled. The policy restricts the sale of public land in order to ensure the land claims and treaty negotiations are not jeopardized. As the Member is aware, we are wrapping up a review of the land leaseonly policy. This review is intended to address the efficiency or effectiveness of this policy, and it was developed over 30 years ago and has been very and has had seen very little change over time.
I'm hoping to update the Members here this week on the status of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to those updates to the land leaseonly policy. But there seems to be a disconnect because it's only supposed to apply in unsettled areas, but we know in the IRC, even though it was settled 40 years ago, we are still having this fight about GNWT leases. And it seems to me that at the heart of this issue is we need to separate out those who are rights holders. Even if they are on public land, if they are in their traditional territory, we need to create a different form of tenure and bring them into a different conversation.
Is the Minister willing to look to create some form of new tenure where rights holders are not paying the same lease fees and the same taxes as everyone else? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so rightsbased cabins, we're working on that. We're trying to put that to the side. We're trying to be able to identify some of the things. Some of the work that's being done is exactly what the Member is asking for. So we're working on this, trying to get this resolved. We're working with Indigenous governments to come up with a definition with what's a rightsbased cabin. Not the GNWT, with the Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
