Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my Member's statement, advancing land devolution to our communities, my questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Minister, would you commit to working with communities to begin the process of transferring authority over all territorial and Commissioner's lands within community boundaries ensuring they have full control and decision-making powers over those lands? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department is committed to working with all communities interested in bulk land transfers. To this regard, currently we've received one request from the city of Yellowknife regarding a bulk land transfer and currently the department is working with the city on their request. As part of our daily operations, ECC land management and administration works directly with the communities on individual transfer requests. And currently the division is working on over 152 applications that are in the system. And of those, 98 have passed through the consultation phase and are in the final stages of approval. So to be clear, you know, the communities require development plans, bylaws, and surveys. This is part of the requirement to fulfill those land transfers to a community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister. And I understand that, you know, some of -- I know at least one community has put forward a request to have a transfer of lands. And I guess what we're talking about is transferring -- and I understand there's survey work will be required to be done there, but transferring as one block. And I guess what I'm looking for is can the Minister kind of commit to kind of a clear timeline to developing kind of an action plan to transfer these controls, and is that being worked on right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, the discussions around bulk land transfer and the transfer of land in general has been a topic that's been top of mind of my own personally for quite a while, and we've had many discussions with our partners across the territory through ICGS protocol. And as we look at those, we have to take into consideration that this process has multiple pieces of legislation that come into play here, and we have to always take into consideration the requirement for proper consultation in this process as well. So the work is ongoing, and certainly happy to have that conversation with any communities that are interested in pursuing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister for Environment and Climate Change. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister. And, you know, and I appreciate that and, as the Minister's aware, there is a cost oftentimes, particularly for smaller communities when they're looking to transfer this land, if there's any survey work that is required to be done. But will the Minister commit, as part of their engagement plan with communities through outreach, to look at covering some of that cost or assisting with that cost to get this land surveyed so it can be transferred? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd certainly be happy to engage with any of the communities that are interested in advancing this process on, you know, a bulk land transfer and certainly more than open to having the officials from the specific communities or multiple communities come and have that discussion with the department on the options that are available to us within the current guidelines and legislation that we have to follow and always, you know, interested in having the bigger conversation about what we could potentially look at doing going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.
