Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Oral questions. Before I go on to oral questions, Members, I'd just like to draw your attention to the rules that you have set for oral questions, and that is that your questions are to be allowed one preamble and then keep your supplementary questions very brief as far as preamble is concerned. I would just ask Members to keep those rules in mind when you're asking your questions. Oral questions. The honourable Member from Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are on the need to lessen the burden of doing business for small communities, as I stated in my Member's statement, and my question goes to the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, I hope the Premier and Cabinet take comfort with that letter of comfort that they sent Imperial Oil. Now that we know their last-quarter profit was a record-breaking $1 billion. That's just the first quarter. I could see that this government is very anxious to give them a comfort letter, and the government is mobilizing their effort to give a let up to ATCO to get their $297 million housing project. Now I think I'd like to see some comfort on the part of this government to the small business. The Minister's of Finance budget had a mention of small businesses on page 7, Mr. Speaker, where it speaks to the fact that...The Minister states that at four percent, the small business taxation is competitive. What I can tell you, from the information from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which I believe was forwarded to Mr. Roland, it was an open letter to him and the Premier, it says that our 12 percent is not competitive. Actually, our rate is not competitive with our neighbours in Nunavut, Alberta and British Columbia, and it should really be at 12 percent. The Minister indicates that he working on a new plan for small businesses; I'd like to know if he can indicate to this House what that might be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the small corporate tax rate that we have in the Northwest Territories is one of the lowest in Canada. In fact, our small business corporate tax rate is at four percent. Ms. Lee mentioned 12 percent. That is referring to our large corporate tax rate. It was 12 percent. We previously moved it up to 14 and have announced, through the budget address, that we're proceeding to move it down to 11.5. So the small business corporate tax rate is at four percent, and we are having some discussions about how we can support the small business. Is it do we keep that area around; do we look at other programs we have in place that support northern businesses to see if there's something we could do with that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to suggest to the Minister that the time for discussing that might be coming to an end pretty soon here. This is his third budget and it is time for him to act as soon as possible, Mr. Speaker. One of the four things that the report mentions, in terms of the burden for small businesses, is the high taxation and a shortage of skilled labour, and some of the paper burden on the government which I think the government can really take leadership on. The WCB premium, I said it's tripled in the last three years, but it increased by 25 percent each of the last three years. I'd like to know if the Minister of Finance would undertake reviewing the burden on small businesses and come back to this side of the floor within the next couple of months so we could really take an action on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of small businesses and our support for them is something that we are looking at. As I stated in the budget address, we need to come up with a plan as to how do we pursue this area and try to ensure that the small businesses have, indeed, a foot up here in the Northwest Territories. We don't have a lot of information at this point. There's been some preliminary discussions, but it's something we will follow up on. As we go down that path, I'd be more than willing to sit down with members in committees to give them an update. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the different tax rate for the small businesses at four percent. I don't know if that is the competitive rate with our neighbours, which we often go by. The high cost of fuel and gas, and high cost of doing business in terms of hiring labour could be compensated by government's action of reducing costs in other areas, such as WCB. Could I ask the Minister to come back because I didn't hear a commitment from him? Could he commit to coming back with some solid package to this side of the table for discussion in the next two months? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the areas, again, that we have been working on and considering around the small business and support for those have been more in the area of the small business corporate tax rate, which for the Northwest Territories is four percent. For Nunavut and the Yukon it is at four percent, as well. B.C. is 4.5 percent. Other jurisdictions go from five to as high as eight percent; Alberta being lower than us at three percent. But working towards trying to ensure small businesses have a good start here in the Northwest Territories. I had already committed; we are working on a package that we can bring back to Members of this House and look to see if that is enough in the ways of trying to provide the necessary support for small business. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member from Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and it gets back to my statement that I made earlier. I believe that it's incumbent upon the Government of the Northwest Territories to ensure that it provides help to all day cares and day care providers. Mr. Speaker, I'm not advocating that arrangements currently at play with providers be rescinded or altered; however, as a government, we cannot allow day cares to suffer through prohibitive operational expenses. If what one day care gets, in what my research dictates, an $80,000 advantage, then something has to be done for the others who need help. The first question I have for the Minister of ECE is whether or not he's aware of the inequities that exist amongst Yellowknife day care providers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm aware that this government does provide opportunities to non-profit groups to lease space in what are called charity

leases. So, yes, there are operators in Yellowknife who are taking advantage of space that they're not paying rent for, and that is providing some operators, I guess, with a bit of a leg up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that's fair game. I think the government does do some of these charity leases and there are providers that operate out of government-owned facilities. But what I'd like to ask the Minister is if he recognizes these inequities, what are his plans to get more funding for other providers so that all have the same level of support and are working off the same page? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that in the last session, Mrs. Groenewegen asked if the government would look for places where we had opportunities for day cares to operate in government-owned facilities. So we did, with Public Works, undertake an examination of that. We have, in the past, made it a practice where there is space available to provide that space. So for instance, on the Hay River Reserve, the Aboriginal Head Start Program is operating in space there and isn't being charged rent. In Mildred Hall there's a Head Start Program this year that's not being charged rent. Our position has been that while this may not be totally equitable, it is a good use of public facilities to ensure that these good programs are able to run. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if the ones that are getting subsidized, are they for profit or are they not for profit? There is a distinction there. I would like the Minister to try to explain that distinction, profit or not profit. Thank you.