Mr. Chairman, on the word "perversity" I think we invented it, but I am not totally sure about that. I will check and report back to Mr. Lewis on that. We invented perversity, the feds don't like it. Our people do the same thing, inventing words.
With regard to what we can do, Mr. Chairman, I know it is a bad thing to say in this House, but that is the reason for the payroll tax. I have some statistics here with regard to the payroll tax. There are already 13 companies from Quebec who report annually, three who report semi-annually, one who reports quarterly, three who report monthly and 13 who report seasonally. So there are already 33 Quebec companies registered with us in the Northwest Territories.
On a total payroll basis, there are already $14.356 million. So, you are right. I could give you some other comparisons. Yukon is $11 million. The USA is $7.5 million. Alberta is $92 million. British Columbia is $49 million and Manitoba is $16 million. Already there are 33 companies from Quebec that are working in the Northwest Territories. We know, those of us who live in the western Arctic, Mr. Chairman, that they are not working here. So you have to say that they are working in Nunavut. Mr. Todd and I had an experience with a Quebec business person whom we had somehow offended by not giving his company a contract and, believe me, Mr. Todd and I found out that they do business very differently in Quebec. We were in the Cabinet room discussing this and we were both surprised at the way that person acted. So not only do we have the numbers, the economic mass and expertise, we also have tens of years of experience in bidding jobs, lobbying and being in Ottawa getting after the federal government.
For mining, I suppose we could tax on commodity. But when you are talking about the clean-up of a particular site, which is mostly labour, that is very difficult to do other than by a payroll tax or by some tax on companies. That would affect Northwest Territories companies as well.
With regard to the clean up, I think it was at a DEW Line site that we are discussing, I used to be the Minister responsible for the closure of the DEW Line. Mr. Todd now has that responsibility. I do recall being at numerous meetings and the Premier was there as well, where we were told by the federal government they would do as much business in the Northwest Territories as possible. So I am also surprised that this particular contract has gone that way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.