Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This legislation is the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, which has been in place by this Legislature for quite a number of years. In the Act, it lays out what we have to do. The idea here is to collect taxes and money for this government so we can run programs and services in the communities.

Usually, you have a community and there are people living there. People should contribute to run the programs and services in the community. They should contribute for clearing the snow from the road or picking up the garbage. It is like a user fee. Whenever you call it taxes, people kind of shy away from it. That is what it is in the tax-based municipalities. That is where the money goes, into the general coffers of the municipality and they use it for whatever they want to do with it.

In hamlets and smaller communities, according to this legislation, Municipal and Community Affairs looks at a property and says this is how much we think it is worth. We do it every ten years. According to the Act, they do not have to consult. They just assess it every ten years.

In this case, the assessment has jumped so high, the Minister of Finance will have to look at it and say okay, this is the rate we should set, and try to collect that through the government. In the tax-based municipalities, the people who live there and were property owners, the council sets the rate and collects the money.

Perhaps in the non-tax-based municipalities, that might be one way of looking at it. It is like a user fee, paying your share in the community. Your community will run a lot better and provide better programs and services. That is one way of looking at it. That is my understanding of what taxes are. Thank you.