Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the term "race to the bottom" is something that is not necessarily a new one. Something all governments do pay attention to, the smaller jurisdictions especially, is when you look at our revenue base, to continue to try and match the large provinces would be very difficult for us, indeed. We have less flexibility in that area, but, at the same time, when we feel the immediate impacts of a less competitive environment being what we were at, we feel the immediate impact especially with the formula the way it is right now.
Waiting for the federal government to come up with a revised formula financing arrangement is something that we need to do and try to work with and ensure that they adapt or adopt the issues that we raised that would see us working in a more favourable climate.
The other comment I would make to that is that although there may be articles that would refer to a spiralling downwards of the corporate tax, adjustments are made in fairly small increments when adjustments are made. The true picture, at least at this time, when we are looking at this bill, as I stated in my opening comments, is that we are the lowest, matching with Alberta, when we look at our income and second lowest when you look at just general corporate tax rates. Quebec is the lowest overall.
Alberta has announced in the past that it would look at the possibilities of going down as low as eight percent. Right now, they are at 11.5 percent. They haven't given any timelines on that target, but it is something that we will have to keep an eye on as they are our closest neighbour to the south and have the largest impact on businesses
here in the North because of their relationship with the Northwest Territories and how things generally flow right through from the Northwest Territories into Alberta.
It is something we do have to keep track of. As stated in the opening comments, of having to adjust our rates based on our formula arrangements with Ottawa will continue to play a role in how we look at our fiscal strategies in the future. Thank you.