Mr. Speaker, the licence fee which used to be at five per cent, now at 10 per cent, is charged the amount of product that licensed premises would purchase from the GNWT in the way of liquor, beer, wines and other alcoholic beverages. That fee has traditionally been charged to those licensees because they are going to in turn, take that into their licensed premises and resell it. There was a certain overhead with regard to issuing those licences. There is a review each year of the companies' legal affairs, how much money it owes, whether or not it has been in trouble or whether or not it has changed anything in its building. There are a certain number of inspections that incur because of that licence by a licensed liquor inspector. There are other requirements by the government that have grown over the years. Now the Fire Marshal has a great deal of say in licensed premises, as does the health inspector, the electrical inspector and all those other inspectors that we have out there. So there is a cost to government for issuing those licences because the government then becomes responsible for the inspection of those premises. So I think that is where the licence fee came from, and I think the Minister has said that he has raised it because it has not been raised in the last 20 years.
John Pollard on Question O697-12(2): Liquor Licence Fee Increase
In the Legislative Assembly on June 29th, 1992. See this statement in context.
Further Return To Question O697-12(2): Liquor Licence Fee Increase
Question O697-12(2): Liquor Licence Fee Increase
Item 5: Oral Questions
June 28th, 1992
Page 812
John Pollard Hay River
See context to find out what was said next.