Mr. Speaker, I hope Ron Irwin doesn't read these debates. I promised him I wouldn't say the "p" word because it gets the federal government excited. Mr. Speaker, when the formula was put together, it was deemed by Canada that we should maintain 85 per cent of the average tax rates across southern Canada, which includes personal income taxes, corporate taxes, tobacco taxes, property taxes, et cetera.
What happens if we fall behind? The federal government says you should have been able to achieve that and they lop that off of our grant. They automatically take it from us. I should explain again, Mr. Speaker, -- Mr. Patterson asked for 25 words or less, but it's difficult to do that -- what happens is if there is a volume increase in taxation in the Northwest Territories -- which means more people are working and paying their incomes taxes -- then for every extra dollar we receive in that particular revenue, the formula takes $1.30 from the formula financing agreement for those revenues inside the formula.
So, putting more people to work in the Northwest Territories actually works against us in that respect. That's it, sort of, Mr. Speaker. It's highly technical and I could send the documentation to Mr. Koe, who I know is an accountant and who could probably wade through the pages. But, that's it, in a nutshell, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.