Page 4-445, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, grants, $44.822 million.

Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a question on the senior citizens and disabled persons property tax relief. I am just wondering from '05-06 down to '06-07 there is a steady decline in that when I think we have more seniors coming onboard every year here in the NWT. So how do we cover those added expenses for property tax relief? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, I will have to ask the deputy minister to respond to that and give an

explanation why the '05-06 actuals are higher than what is required for this coming '07-08.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Anything further, Mr. Villeneuve?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Deputy Minister, for that. Just a question on the grant-in-lieu of taxes. Also an issue with this New Deal, I guess maybe I just want to ask the Minister, with the New Deal going down to letting the community governments collect property taxes and assume property tax revenue in their basic community operations, does control of the tax mill rates in all these GTA communities and non-tax-based communities still in the government's control, or is it going to be down to community control? If it is, I think these grants-in-lieu of taxes are going to be much higher than what we are showing here on our books today. I would just like to get some clarification on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I will get Debbie to explain the grants-in-lieu policy.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask the question of the control over mill rates and the GTAs and non-tax-based communities. Is that going to remain with the New Deal? Is there a timeline when this setting of these rates are going to be in the hands of municipal governments, or is it going to remain in the territorial government's authority over the next three years? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the process as it stands now is the appraisals, the evaluations are done by MACA and the actual taxation amounts are set by the Department of Finance. The community, through the New Deal, will have the ability to request that the increases take place at some point. We will be expecting our communities to move over to municipal taxation authorities.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just kind of curious. This whole taxation issue is a real complicated can of worms here, especially in the smaller communities. The New Deal is going to allow the communities hopefully to become tax-based communities but, as we know in examples of Fort Simpson or there is a small tax base and in all these small communities, there is really no tax base to let communities be more autonomous in their tax collection or setting of taxation rates. I just wanted to ask, in this New Deal, is there something in there that clearly stipulates that before FMBS or the community makes any changes to mill rates and general taxation area or in non-tax-based communities, that there would be some thorough community consultation review process of how much they actually collect and how much they need to collect and how much the government is going to be providing them in lieu of taxes, et cetera? I know there are a lot of outstanding taxes out there and I just can't see people buying into it. What are the Minister's comments on that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The whole idea behind the New Deal was to allow the communities to make those decisions. We don't expect great change in one area. This is a new revenue stream for most of the communities in the Northwest Territories, except for the larger centres, of course. We expect the communities to be the ones that would work with the finance and our staff to be able to set what they think is appropriate and be able to determine that and work through that process.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We are on page 4-45, regional operations, activity summary, grants and contributions, grants, $44.822 million.