Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we could look at the funding again to see if we can improve it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Member for his comments and we will take his comments very seriously to look at areas where we need to improve in terms of coming up with the figures. We try to forecast to the best of our ability how much we will need to spend in all areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments under this activity. There is a task under this activity called "home owners property tax rebate." This provides a $300 tax rebate to people who own and occupy their own dwellings. There is a $75 levy for general taxation. I am not sure what that is, but I assume it is the same as the $300. How is this rebate administered? Is there a policy in place with administration guidelines or is this legislation? How are administrative guidelines and procedures set out?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This program is administered under the Home Owners Property Tax Rebate Act. There is an act that administers it.

Under that act then, are there procedures for administering? Who collects and how are the rebates issued? Are they spelled out?

Yes, the act is quite clear as to how the process is done.

Has the department looked recently at the process under this act in terms of ways and methods of streamlining it?

Yes, we have in two different ways. We have been approached by the NWT Association of Municipalities who asked us to look at streamlining it to make it less confusing for the municipalities. We were also approached by the Inuvik town council to see if there was a better way to disburse the money, and we are still reviewing that with them. It seems every time we try one way there are some pitfalls and we are still trying to work those out where we will be reviewing it further.

I agree, it is very complicated and it seems as if there are many administrative procedures and people involved in trying to issue a rebate to a home owner. From my knowledge, an individual receives a tax bill from a municipality. That individual then pays taxes directly to the municipality, then there is a form which the individual has to fill out and submits it either to the municipality or the government. Your department then has to tabulate all the requests for rebate, and send a cheque back to the municipality. The municipality will then issue individual cheques back to the taxpayers. It seem very time consuming and many people are involved in tabulating, filing out forms, compiling and issuing cheques. The municipality, in the end, issues individual cheques back to the people who paid them in the first place.

The municipality should deduct the rebate at source when they issue the tax bill. They could then submit one bill to your department. You, in turn, could rebate the municipality. It seems quite simple to me but, obviously, there must be other complications which I am not aware of. That is only an idea. You can respond to it if you want, but I think it would be best if you just act. It would save many people a great deal of time and effort, especially the municipalities because every cheque which is issued by them is a cost to them.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are very good suggestions. We tried to do that but one of the problems we ran into was that it has to be verified whether the taxpayers are bona fide. The other problem is that municipalities wanted to be the ones to give out the rebates, even though they were territorial government rebates. We could give the rebates from here or the regional office, it would not matter, but we have to work out those administrative details. Sometimes people apply for the rebate, they may get paid for it and when you look into it they are not eligible for it for all kinds of different reasons. We are trying to streamline it. What you say makes a great deal of sense and we might go that way and take our chances with some of the pitfalls.