The second most frequent option was to lobby the federal government for more funding and aggressively pursue a greater share of our resource royalty revenues from the federal government.
In the past and within our current formula financing agreement with Ottawa, it is the federal government who receives most of the benefit from resource development in the North. Under the existing formula financing agreement, for every additional dollar in tax revenues that is received by the territorial government, Ottawa receives 80 cents. If the federal government is receiving most of the benefit, then they can pay their fair share for the investment in highways.
There are no guarantees from the federal government that the proposed fee would not be clawed back in future formula financing agreements with Ottawa. This was an ongoing concern of the committee. Unfortunately, in the committee's correspondence with the territorial Finance Minister on this issue, the Minister was unable to provide a solid assurance that the proposed fee would not be clawed back:
I am writing in response to your letter of May 25, 2001, in which you request a special revenue exclusion under the territorial formula financing for the new highway toll you are introducing. It is my understanding that although this is not a concern under the current TFF agreement, however, you are seeking a special exclusion for the next agreement which would commence in 2004-2005.
...I am not in a position to make such a commitment at this time.
...I would not want to prejudice the outcome of that process.
(June 18, 2001 letter to the Honourable Joe Handley, Minister of Finance, Government of the Northwest Territories, from the Honourable Paul Martin, Minister of Finance, Government of Canada)
Mr. Frank Pope, a town councillor from the community of Norman Wells, summed it up by suggesting:
When you go back and write your report on this, I think you should direct the Cabinet, the Premier, et cetera, to go after the federal government. That is where the dollars are. There are people who are being well paid from our resources from the Northwest Territories. Once De Beers and Diavik come on-line and that starts to pay for itself again, unless these things change, the royalties, the dollars are going to flow into federal coffers and they will give you a little back. (Committee's minutes, Norman Wells, October 16, 2001, page 10)