This is page numbers 4627 - 4656 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was communities.

Topics

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you. I will commit to the Member that I’ll follow up with the hamlet and see if they’ve received payment, and I’ve also committed to following up to see the status of this contract, because my understanding is there were a few issues that needed to be worked out and there were a few people that needed to be paid and that’s why we withheld the money until that got resolved. Thank you.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister if he can tell me exactly when is the new water treatment plant going to be up and operational so the people in Aklavik can get some safe drinking water from the new water treatment plant.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you. I know that the construction is ongoing and they’re very close to completing. I don’t have the exact date, but I’ll find the exact date and I’ll share it with the Member. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Question 51-16(5): Proposed NWT Heritage Fund
Oral Questions (Reversion)

March 3rd, 2010

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance and are in relation to the recently released public consultation paper on an NWT Heritage Fund. I want to start by saying it’s really great to see this out. It’s something Members of this House have been pushing for and I’m happy to see it finally happening.

One of the things we’re dealing with is with exceptionally low royalty rates in the Northwest Territories. Our resources are tending to leave faster and faster and our diamond mines are a good example of that. So how can we collect revenue to fill up a Heritage Fund? The Minister in his paper has identified that a resource tax is a possibility, but he goes on to state that this would be considered double taxation of resource development and that’s a bit of a barrier. I wonder if I could get him to explain that to me. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Question 51-16(5): Proposed NWT Heritage Fund
Oral Questions (Reversion)

Thebacha

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Minister of Finance

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The concern would be that they’re already paying taxes and that if we, in addition to the federal government who controls all the royalty taxation, in addition to that put on another tax, it would possibly be seen to be as the Member characterized. We also have to look at the current economic circumstances.

I think the key goal for us first is to decide the structure and shape and the criteria for a fund, what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to be set up, how tight is it going to be, is it going to be like the Norway model, and then the discussion about what kind of funds we’ll put in there will be the secondary discussion. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you. I appreciate the comments from the Minister. I’m simply responding to what’s in here and I’m also of the opinion that those are parallel processes. We could, you know, wait until the cows come home and do things one after the other and take forever to get this going, but I think there’s a desire to get it going quickly and effectively. So I hope we can have that discussion in parallel.

Would the Minister agree that certainly there are corporations that are typically taxed in a number of ways and that in fact a resource tax could be designed to tax the excess profit? So in other words, after all of the expenses, normal taxes and so on, royalties have been paid -- and this is when there are exceptional profits -- my understanding is that resource tax could be applied to excess profits. Would the Minister agree that that’s a possibility for consideration here? Mahsi.

Question 51-16(5): Proposed NWT Heritage Fund
Oral Questions (Reversion)

Thebacha

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Minister of Finance

Thank you. I would agree that this is a consultation process and we are open to listen to and engage in discussion on any or all options, the same as we indicated at the revenue round table that we had in the fall. The focus then was to look at tax shifting. As we set up the Heritage Fund, looking forward into the future, a wide-ranging discussion would definitely be helpful as we decide on both the structure and what final decisions would be agreed to in terms of putting money into a Heritage Fund. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you again to the Minister for those comments. I think there has been interest, as the Minister has reflected, and my interest here is really how can we start to fill this fund up. So I appreciate his discussion.

The Minister goes on in the report to suggest that there’s possible consideration for the introduction of other taxes. To me, I can think of a capital tax as a possibility there. I’m just wondering if the Minister had any other things in mind or his advisors had provided ideas on what those other taxes might be. Mahsi.

Question 51-16(5): Proposed NWT Heritage Fund
Oral Questions (Reversion)

Thebacha

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Minister of Finance

We’re engaged in a number of initiatives that have tax implications. Firstly, coming out of the last October round table we agreed to look at what’s possible in terms of tax shifting. Since then, within existing tax structure, given the fact that we’re still struggling through a recession, to see what may be possible in terms of tax shifting within the existing tax structure. We’ve also since then announced that we’re going to be renewing and coming forward with a plan to have a full discussion on the Greenhouse Gas Strategy, which is going to lead us into the discussion tied into carbon, carbon taxes, standards, targets, all which possibly have tax implications. We also have the Heritage Fund proposal out there for discussion. We recognize as well that there’s going to be a number of suggestions about how we would possibly put money into that that also has tax implications.

We have to look at all those. The Member is aware of some of the issues we were talking about with the Greenhouse Gas Strategy, for example, so we have to be mindful of these processes, parallel processes as the Member referred to them, to make sure that we’re as organized on this and clear as possible.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response. I didn’t have anything specific in mind. It was a wide open question.

Finally, I know there is a lot of interest in this and I assume that the Minister will have some sort of consultation strategy laid out. Is the Minister meeting with groups or is that an open invitation to

meet with groups and what is the best way the public can participate in this discussion?

Question 51-16(5): Proposed NWT Heritage Fund
Oral Questions (Reversion)

Thebacha

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Minister of Finance

We’ve distributed the proposal far and wide. It’s on our website. We’re looking for feedback that people may wish to give us. If there are specific requests, then we’ll definitely entertain those. We’re encouraging people to send us e-mails, to write, to talk to your MLA, talk to your mayor, talk to your Association of Communities, whoever they would like to carry the message for them. We’re not planning a major dog and pony show across the North. We will look at responding to specific requests. The timeline is April 30th . We’re looking

forward to getting some very valuable feedback.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, I was listening, with some interest, to Mr. Ramsay’s question. I want to ask the Minister of ITI, I have been privileged to attend two briefings with the mining sectors here in the Northwest Territories and I want to ask the Minister about the training for people in the Northwest Territories, specifically P1 candidates in my region and outside of the affected areas around Yellowknife. What is the government doing with the NWT mining society in terms of encouraging the mining society to go into the regions such as the Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta and Mackenzie Delta to entice new workers to come out to the mining workforce as per the NWT mining society’s mandate?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing we’re trying to do to increase the employment of Northerners in the diamond mines or other mines of the Northwest Territories is to increase the catchment area for workers. By that I mean we are looking at increasing the number of hiring points in the Northwest Territories and also to look at training more Northerners for specific jobs in the mines. So to do that, as I said, we have an MOU with the diamond mines and we’re working very closely with the Mine Training Society and Aurora College.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

I certainly support the Minister in increasing the workforce in the North. I want to ask the Minister what his department is doing with the NWT mining society to get into communities such as the Sahtu to encourage workers in the Sahtu to come to the workplace here and to set up training

programs with the NWT society. I don’t think I’ve seen them in the Sahtu. I only hear of them in the Yellowknife area. What is the Minister doing to encourage the NWT mining society to get out of the Yellowknife area and into the Sahtu to set up training programs there for the people in my region?

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

The Mine Training Society doesn’t have an unlimited amount of funds; they have a limited amount. So generally we work to provide training in the areas of greatest interest and most of the training has focused around the North Slave region. Although, recently there was a training program in Fort Simpson. Generally where there is identified interest, as the Member knows, as part of the MOU initiative we’ve been working through our career counselling offices at Education, Culture and Employment to make sure that all the communities that are serviced by the career centres have information as to the type and number of jobs that are available. In order to set up a training program, we would work through the Mine Training Society and Aurora College.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

That’s what I was looking for, was to see if there was more creativity possible. They have a bunch of learning centres in the Sahtu communities that could be available. It takes one or two people from the mines. I’m not sure how it works. They can certainly work with the communities in the smaller centres outside of Yellowknife. I know the funds are limited. It’s funny how working with the diamond mines there’s lots of dollars in diamonds. If this government can get that, they can work with the learning centres to bring the NWT mining society into the regions and I think you’ll generate interest. I think that’s a plus. I’m just looking for some way how we can get them into our communities other than just having residents come to Yellowknife to take the training.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

If all the diamond mines money doesn’t go into the Heritage Fund we should be able to have money for training. One of the priorities for our government working with the diamond mines is to make sure the people of the Northwest Territories know what is available to them and what the mines will do if they hire people in the Northwest Territories to work for them, so that they know what kind of benefits are there and whether the travel will be covered and so on. I think that the best thing for us to do, and the diamond mines management have gone and made tours to all the regions and I think we just have to work closely together to identify where there is interest in working in the mines. Through that process we can identify training opportunities.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say to the mines that I appreciate them

choosing Norman Wells as a pickup point for the workers coming out of the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister about new development going forward on diamond mine training. Could he look at one community in the Sahtu bringing in new training programs in the next couple of months to develop a program that would have the NWT mining society work with the Aurora College to look at programs they could have in the Sahtu region?

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

I would communicate that to our people involved on the training side. I’m sure we can find an opportunity to do so.