Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions, again, are for the Minister of Finance because she's got control, I guess, of the money and all the finance books. Can the Department of Finance pause is it possible to pause outstanding land lease accounts from going to collections in Finance? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, dealing with land leases obviously, I know the Member is well aware, is primarily the responsibility of now ECC. The Department of Finance certainly works with other departments but we really are, essentially, just the financial agent in that respect. So I can't pause the accounts of going out on my own, we would be relying on government policy to do that, and I know that work is happening right now over at ECC. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I guess my question is, is it possible to I guess I should clarify, can it be done? So can accounts be paused under the direction of working together with the Minister from another department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, what is required in order to pause an account from going to collections, or to cease acting on a file that's gone to collections, really requires some sort of parameters or criteria where a department that had an outstanding account, some other debts for instance, whether a lease or otherwise, if they were to come to the Department of Finance and say, you know, that they had reached some sort of agreement with the person who owes the debt, then that then can be that those that can be moved forward to be out of collections, to be forgiven, to be paused, to have some other process. But once the matter has gone out, then under the financial administration rules, the matter would continue as a debt owing. So there needs to be some mechanism to indicate that in fact that what was deemed as an outstanding debt no longer is. So it's those types of parameters that I understand ECC is working on to ensure that they can then convey that and share that with the Department of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
All right, thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just trying to think about okay, so it can be done but it has to be in collaboration with another Minister. So I'm just wondering has there been any discussions and like you said, the lands were has there been discussions with finance that this is can be done and will be done or, you know, I'm just the reason I'm saying this is that I have constituents that have leases and they've jumped up 600 percent. And if my power and my heating bill jumped up 600 percent, you know what, I'd have to walk away from my mortgage. If my interest rate jumped up 600 percent, I'd have to walk away from my mortgage because I just couldn't afford to pay it. People in the cabin that have these cabins, they're not multimillion-dollar cabins. They're probably not even worth two years of lease fees. So what I'm asking the Minister is this something that she and the Minister of ECC and if I have to ask more questions, I'll ask the Minister of ECC if he'll work with the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hear the back and forth on this issue in this House. I have heard it now for almost four years as well. I'm only hesitant to create something on the fly out of the Department of Finance when I know there's processes happening in ECC that I am less intimately familiar with. But, Mr. Speaker, the departments the two departments are more than happy to work together. I know Minister of ECC and I work together on shared areas of overlap, whether it's finance, whether it's ITI, we have joint meetings. We can certainly start to do that with Department of Finance and ECC as well. And if that might assist the staff, who I know are working through the process at ECC, to access some of finance's resources in how accounts are transmitted to collections and how they can be paused, Mr. Speaker, I know I think both of us on this side here would be more than happy to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
