Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I spoke to the removal of students who are planning to come back to the Northwest Territories to do their return of service — and they do it gladly.

I would like to direct my questions today to the Minister of ECE. I’d like to ask the Minister of ECE: what’s the department’s policy on student removal once they’ve completed university or college?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Throughout Canada our SFA program is one of the most successful, generous programs that we have, and it continues to be so.

With respect to the students who are returning, it’s always been our goal to have those students return to our Northwest Territories or even to our communities to work for our government or community governments.

For the removal program that the Member is referring to, we do offer trips to the destination of students’ studies or the institution where they are studying. We cover their cost of travelling either by air or by vehicle. Most of the time students travel by vehicle, so they can take all their belongings there and back. So those are the areas that we cover. We also cover the basic, essential needs of the students that are living in the institution, whether it be residence or their household. Mahsi.

I have never been one to question the generosity of our Student Financial Assistance. I have stood up here many times and praised it as being the best in the country, so that’s not the issue here. The issue here is: do we have a policy to pay for students’ removal back to the North?

Mr. Speaker, specific to the policy itself we currently do not have a policy on the removal of the students, but we do cover their travel to their destination and back. So that’s what we offer. We offer other subsidies within our department for students’ needs. That’s what we offer through Student Financial Assistance for the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, when you first go to university, chances are you’re going to be flying out with probably a couple of suitcases. After four years you’re going to have gathered a lot of belongings, and you’re going to want to bring those home. Otherwise, you have to buy them up here. Where are they going to ship them from? They’re going to ship them from the same place they just left, so it just doesn’t make any sense.

Will the Minister commit to having his department implement a policy to pay for student removal beyond the airfare and that? I mean, that is all fine; that’s part of Student Financial Assistance program. But would he commit to developing or implementing a policy that would pay for student removal after their time at the university or college?

Like I said before, most of the students travel down south, and they do find accommodation, apartments or residence. Most of the time it is also furnished, so they don’t really necessarily have to buy furniture. But there are times when students buy furniture, and then they sell after three or four years, after their program of studies. If we look at the number of students that we currently subsidize through the SFA program, we have over 1,400 students. Just doing the mathematics, it will be over several million if we want to implement a policy. So we have to keep that in mind as well.

So, again, we do offer various subsidies, whether it be through the Income Support program or the Student Financial Assistance program. We offer a generous package to the students for them to complete their programs and come back to the North. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just from the tone of the discussion here I get the impression that, no, there is not a policy; no, we are not going to implement a policy. Even though the students could sell their furnishings, there are still a small few, after successful completion of university, who want to bring their belongings back.

That should be my question. Why is the department reluctant — other than quoting millions of dollars, which I don’t think it’s going to cost to begin with — to implement a policy for student removal?

We are going through a process here, of course, the business planning and certainly those ongoing discussions. There are always changes that happen. There have been some recent changes to benefit the community for students’ needs. I will certainly take the Member’s comments into consideration when we are drafting changes to our policies. We will work with what’s presented to us, so we will certainly take that into consideration. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Oral questions. The honourable Member for

Great

Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister of Finance. As I

indicated in my Member’s statement, solutions to our financial challenges are both complicated and difficult. Just for the record, I don’t support, with the exception of possibly taxes on cigarettes and booze, any increases in taxes that affect our residents or taxes on our residents. I do support resource taxes, and I do support initiatives that will be focused on increasing our population.

So keeping that in mind, my question is to the Minister of Finance, and it is: has the Minister of Finance met with the diamond mines to ensure that they are meeting their obligations under the socio-economic agreements with respect to northern employment? Specifically, have you met with the diamond mines to ensure that they are finding ways of encouraging their employees to stay and live in the North?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, ITI regularly meets with the diamond mines. There is a meeting set up here in the next number of weeks with Minister Bob McLeod and Minister Lafferty, as well as myself, to talk to their president. They have indicated an interest to us to talk about the revenue options paper. So we do meet on a regular basis, but there is clearly going to be some special attention paid to the work that is currently going on in terms of the consultation process.

Mr. Speaker, are the diamond mines meeting the conditions of their socio-economic agreements with respect to fly in/fly out employees and employing Northerners?

Mr. Speaker, we

estimate there are over 2,000 workers that are in the business of flying in and flying out. With the work we are undertaking, we’d hopefully capture at least 300 of those over the next number of years. Clearly, we believe that we have to do a better job working with the mines with the bilateral arrangements, socio-economic agreements, to realize those numbers.

So will the Minister commit to working with the diamond mines to ensure that they do meet the terms and conditions of their socio-economic agreements, thus encouraging more employees to live in the Northwest Territories, which will help us with our financial situation?

Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to working with the diamond mines; we do it as a matter of course. We are putting special attention and emphasis on this because of the revenue options that we see dealing with the fly in/fly out workers. Being able to get more of them located in the North, as has been raised in this House repeatedly by the Member for Kam Lake — he has pushed us to do that — is a key part of the possible revenue options that we

see would add to our economic pace and help us grow the population of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Finance Minister for his creative way of describing my oral question back in June. Quite interestingly enough, I don’t think Michael Moorecould have painted it more creatively. The fact is that I was asking about what we are doing to make up that $15 million loss in corporate taxes and how come we are not considering raising the sin taxes in balancing the fact that we are cutting and firing employees.

So to put it in context

—

my question to the Finance

Minister is again almost similar to the question in June: what are we doing to expand the growth of our economy and encourage businesses to file corporate taxes here in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, the corporate income tax is one of the options that is listed in the revenue options document. That has been looked at over the years. We have raised it in the past; we have lowered it in the past. We have the challenge of living immediately north of Alberta, which has, I believe at this point, the lowest corporate income tax in the land and a huge budget surplus and revenue stream that allows them to do that. Clearly that is one of the options that’s out there for consideration as we look at the discussions ahead.

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be little effort to go and attract new investment. It talks about playing with the tax numbers, but it wasn’t that long ago that we had people go out and look for businesses to file their taxes in the North. That has actually led to problems because we haven’t created a stable tax base. So what is this Finance Minister doing to attract big tax filers to come to the North and file their taxes in the North, and will we be the beneficiary of those corporate taxes that they pay?