Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess what I'm trying to understand is the first budget that I dealt with as a Member here when we looked at increasing the rate from 12 percent to 14 percent, that was two years ago. This is the third budget, so, yes, it was two budgets ago that we did this. Now, between then and now, things have changed and the level of the grant was fixed and federal legislation for 2004-05, which would have been almost immediately on the heels of us approving this increase, I didn't think it was a good idea so I didn't approve it, but we, as a Legislature, decided to approve the increase to 14 percent. On the heels of this, the grant is fixed in federal legislation. We do nothing about it for 18 months and the only reason I think that we've actually stood up and paid attention to it is the fact that we were hit with a $30 million corporate tax hit. This happened and it woke us up. All of a sudden it hit us in the head and we realized well, geez, maybe we should do something about this. I'd like to again ask the question why nothing was done for the period of time that it was fixed in federal legislation and today? Why are we only talking about this now? That's the question I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
David Ramsay on Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 28th, 2006. See this statement in context.
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 27th, 2006
Page 1449
See context to find out what was said next.