I do hate taxes, but it has been mentioned a couple of times, some Members have mentioned coming together in this government and what we've adopted from the last government. It always
amazes me when I think back to when we came together as a 14th Legislative Assembly if we look back at the recordings, I think we were talking about exactly the same things. About when we were going to hit the debt wall in four or five years and where we were going and how we were going to find the solutions to our problems. I guess we did get lucky in the last government with some major windfalls and it was all around, if I remember correctly, mostly around corporate tax at that time. The point has been made before that we were convinced that it was such a good thing that we should lower our corporate tax to 12 percent to attract more investments in the North and more companies to file their taxes here.
We were sold on that idea and we were sold on that idea by our Cabinet of the day and the people that do our accounting system. I won't begin to try and convince anybody that I understand the accounting system that the government uses. I know that we were delivered in our office or mailbox a book here a couple of nights ago that addresses the issue of how government accounts for funding for governments. We've been pretty busy and I haven't had time to read through it all, but I did read three or four pages of it. Long enough to know well into it that it's probably no use trying to figure it out because they said even accountants that work in industry don't understand how government accountants work and how they figure out their tax base or formula financing. I kind of got discouraged after about three or four pages saying if they can't figure it out, I'm not going to be able to figure it out.
Here we are again being told by our leaders or the Finance Minister and his accounting people that we have to increase our corporate income tax because we were sold a bad bill of goods last time and what they told us was that it didn't turn out to be that way. I guess I personally don't think that the government's track record of putting out predictions as to what a government initiative is going to bring back to government as far as revenues, I don't know what kind of a track record we have, but I would venture to guess that it's not great at meeting our predictions.
I have said before that when these taxes were first introduced I was totally against them. I had no intentions of supporting these tax bills. We have had a lot of information since then and I do sympathize with the Finance Minister that we have to try and find some way of getting some revenues and demonstrating to the federal government that we're trying to do our part. I was thinking back to when we made changes to the income tax before, and I haven't been able to look back and dig out the transcripts, but there's something that tells me that I remember our then-Finance Minister saying to us in committee when the question was asked about how the federal government looks at us playing with our Income Tax Act that he said we're such a small jurisdiction that they don't really care what we do with our income tax and it doesn't make any difference on our formula financing. But now we're being told that they're watching it very closely and we have to show them that we're doing things to generate our own revenues.
I have taken a lot of the information that has been presented to us and one of the things that has kind of convinced me that there is some value in supporting some of these taxes, as much as I hate to do it, is that it's hitting the bigger corporations. Not to say that they're not important by any stretch of the imagination. I think they're very important to our territory. They're the ones that are creating the jobs out there, putting people to work. They invest in a lot of things and I think that they're very important. But again to me it comes back to our leaders over here that are setting the direction for this government. We have to put some faith into the fact that they have done the homework and that what they are leading down the path of is not one of total destruction and driving people out of the Northwest Territories. I certainly don't think that would be a good approach.
I do believe though that we have room to move in other areas than taxes. I am not convinced that we are not trying to be too big and be in too many things to too many people. I'm really hoping that we start looking inside a little bit, before this next round of cuts comes along, and we have to set some priorities. We can't just keep going and everything that comes before us is a priority and keep throwing money after it. It has been mentioned before, spend, spend, spend like drunken sailors. I still see this government wanting to spend, spend, spend. We're still looking at huge developments that I think we're spending a lot of money in areas that if we just let business run business, they would invest the money and those things would look after themselves.
I am certainly going to be looking forward in this next round of business plans to what we're doing as a government to look internally a little bit at our spending and what our priorities are and, as much as I hate to say so, I am going to support this corporate tax rate and I'm going to put, once again, my faith into the leaders that we have that are telling us that we have to do that.
I always put a lot of faith into what I hear back from my constituents and I did go back to Hay River last weekend and talked to a few people and I was quite surprised at the level of negative remarks that I got back. I was very surprised at that. Again, that's about all I have to say now, Madam Chair, and I will be looking for some better things from the next round of business plans. Thank you, Madam Chair.