For the past few months - we've been doing spot coverage of various mobile land clinics hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Minister and Cordel Hyde have been going all across the country, taking Lands Department services to regular folks. It's an important outreach - but today they took a turn off the beaten path.
They went to the BDF's base at Price Barracks. Minister Hyde and his team got the idea when he recently held a land clinic in Sandhill and the soldiers kept streaming in. He promised to set one up just for them - and that's what the MNR mobile unit set up for today and tomorrow. Hyde explained:
Hon. Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"The birth of this is a few months ago at our Sandhill Land Clinic, the BDF came out in droves, it must have been a couple busses of them and so we promised them that they don't need to subject themselves to that, that we'll bring a special operation for them here. I don't think they believed, we've put it off a couple times but we're here and really it's about giving them a special treatment because what we are going to do is, we are issuing purchase price approvals for them and then they are going to pay because they've said they had the money to pay so they're going to pay immediately and apply for title immediately and so we are hoping that by tomorrow to issue the titles to these folks. Over 200 soldiers and civilian workers from the BDF and we are dealing with some individual personal issues so it's a two-day event. In addition, we're hoping that by tomorrow, we'll have like 150 purchase approvals for the police officers so that they don't get jealous. We have a firm outstanding commitment to our police officers, our nurses, the medical and dental people, workers from NICH, stevedores, and we do have some outstanding for the teachers, we've issued some hundred to them already, just last night I was quarreling with Elena about how much exactly we have outstanding for them but we are giving them a firm commitment that by the end of the year, we would have delivered all that we promised them. I hope I didn't forget the public officers, I can't forget the public officers, but by the end of the year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed so we're trying to get that done and in addition to all the other things we have to do across the country. But we have that firm commitment to public officers."
And finding land for public officers, teachers, police and soldiers has been a priority for Hyde's ministry. But, it's a finite resource - and there isn't that much crown land let. Hyde says, the BDF knows were to find unclaimed parcels:
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"BDF knows about land, this is one organization that knows about land for many decades, they're good at it and so in one case, we have approved a subdivision for them and got the survey done so we are making good on that. In other cases, it's about getting land in Sandhill and surrounding areas."
Courtney Menzies
"We know that land is a finite resource and there's a lot of competition for it. How hard is it to find land for people like the BDF soldiers, police officers, and teachers?"
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"It's hard and it isn't in the sense that we have this firm commitment so whenever we come upon land, we do our best to ensure that we prioritize these persons who have given tremendous service to the country over years. I don't think they've really been prioritized before in this kind of way. So,we're trying to make good on that but whenever we get land, and we are searching constantly every day for national lands because as you know, it's a finite resource and every time we give away land or every time there's hundreds of acres that are isolated we don't get that back, so the pie shrinks so we focus on them. We have instances where people have leases for years, for decades, and they don't pay and the lease expires and you find out it's 200 acres, 300 acres, all over the country and so that's an opportunity for us to get back those lands because it's national lands and try to make good use of them by giving them to our public officers."
