Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it has been almost two years now since the Government Operations Committee did a report on investment schemes that we had researched, and out of that came the Aurora Fund, the recommendation for the Aurora Fund, and also for this new equity investment tax program which would have been called NORTHTIIP, I think we had recommended. This will be infusing many millions of dollars into the NWT economy for businesses. I notice that yesterday Mr. Roland had asked the Minister if there is a minimum investment in this NWT equity tax program, and the Minister did not really reply very clearly, I did not think. If a person has $1,000 that he wants to invest, would he be able to invest that? If he had $500 would be able to invest that? What I would like to know is, is there a minimum or where is that?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I would like to thank my honourable colleague, Mr. Erasmus, and several other creative MLAs who assisted me and given me some clear and constructive, rather than critical, constructive direction as to where we could head with some of these new initiatives. Frankly, they should get full credit, for all I did was put into place what they advised me to do. I must apologize to my colleague. I do not know. I will have to check into it. Again, it was an important question, but I do not know if there is a minimum. I know there is a maximum of $100,000. I will check into it and answer that tomorrow. My apologies. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The reason I am asking, of course, is because there are a lot of people out there who do have a few extra dollars to invest, but they might not have $50,000 or in that category. The next question I wanted to ask was if the Minister would expand on how a labour-sponsored fund would work?

One of the labour-sponsored funds we are looking at right now, actually, is with Alternatives North. In particular, Mr. Ben McDonald has come forward with the idea of a community-sponsored debenture capital fund where corporations and banks would fund on the front end, if you want, some equity for a fund. That equity would generate interest, and that interest would then be reallocated to community-based, if you want, social programs. That is one small example of the fund we are looking at right now.

There would be, if you want, a corporate commitment within some of the large corporations and some of the banking institutions. I am advised, actually, on the employee labour sponsor debenture capital funds that, in fact, in southern Canada, there is a great deal of money in those funds right now, and they are not being utilized to the fullest extent as they should be and that even though we are looking at it, and we say there is a menu of investment vehicles, we will have to look at the additional funds that we think will bring us, if you want, the best bang for our buck. Would that be an appropriate way to describe it? No? Okay. The best return on investment, then, Madam Chair. We are looking at that right now. I would have actually liked to have been able to move on more quickly on some of these other funds that my colleague and his colleagues have advised me on. Unfortunately, it did not quite happen. As we move down the road of getting more information on some of these funds, I will be able to advise the committee, and in particular the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, as to what options we are looking at and seek their direction and counsel as to which ones we should move forward on in this last 12 to 14 months of this Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could the Minister expand a little bit on the issue of how the investors would benefit. I understand that on some of these you would get a tax break on your NWT taxes, and on some of them, you could put it towards your RRSPs. I just wanted to have a bit more of an explanation on this aspect.

Okay, I think that is a good question to get some clarity. As we did give the example, you know, if you put $10,000 into company A, we will give you a Northwest Territories tax credit of $3,000, roughly 30 per cent. In fact, even though you are putting a $10,000 cash equity in when you write the cheque, at the end of the year, you get a $3,000 credit on your overall income. On the RRSP, I think I did qualify it by saying, of course, you have to have some RRSP room within what you are eligible for. But in an ideal situation, if client A had a $10,000 investment, he would automatically get a $3,000 credit. If he had enough room within the RRSP credit room, he can get an additional $4,400 credit if he had enough room in terms of if he has not put anything in or if he has put so much in, et cetera. So overall, the tax rate at the end of the year would be about $7,400. His risk capital would be $2,600. I am not saying that everybody would be in that situation, but certainly some of the smaller investors that have got limited RRSP room, they could actually get into this and take significant investment and return on investment based on this.

So in summary, Madam Chair, $10,000 investment, roughly $3,000 in terms of the tax room in our NWT tax investment policy. If they are eligible for the max on the RRSP, another $4,400, interest $2,600. That is not a bad investment tax credit program, but I would caution my honourable colleague by saying that, to get the max, it would really depend on how much eligibility you have got in the RRSP room. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Since the RRSPs are federally sponsored or are a part of a federal program, I am assuming then that there has to be federal approval and monitoring. Is this correct?

That is correct, Madam Chair. We have the support of the federal government on this initiative, and we thank them for it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Considering the fact that the funds will be used to invest in businesses, there is always the possibility that the business will fail. What type of risk is involved for the territorial government? Will we have to guarantee this money, and if a company goes bankrupt, for instance, will we have to cover the losses? Thank you.

No, Madam Chair. The only risk, if you want, the down side to this government is that we have given the tax credit with a hope that we will create one new business opportunity and with it new jobs and purchasing of goods. That will not avail itself if it went bankrupt, so there is no exposure over and above the tax credit for this government in this initiative. Thank you.

My understanding, Madam Chair, is that all employees as of April 1, 1999 that are GNWT employees and reside in Nunavut will be transferred to the new Nunavut government, period.