I’m not an expert on what’s a generation. My understanding is that there’s 25 years to a generation, but I think we did have that sort of longer period in mind and I was very curious, I still am, about why that was reduced.
Moving on, I’d like to just briefly discuss this cart before the horse concept that my colleague Mr. Krutko raised. I think it stresses the point that we need to review how we are spending existing funds and we need to recognize that our most lucrative resources are rapidly being extracted and exported with little lasting benefit. I agree with Mr. Krutko that we have not acted responsibly to nail down full benefits and appropriate levels of benefits, and everybody knows right now that these precious metals are exponentially... It’s quite the phenomenon in today’s economic globalized world. These minerals are exponentially increasing in value. Gold is something around $1,800 an ounce. Diamonds are at an all-time high and, of course, we know that our fossil fuels are going up every time the economy ramps up.
I’m curious, the Minister mentioned we had considered or discussed resource taxes and I don’t recall that at all. I remember raising it a number of times, but I don’t recall a serious consideration of a resource tax. I guess I’d like to get his take on where we’ve been with resource taxes and why we couldn’t contemplate, or the 17th Assembly
contemplate a resource tax that would immediately
start to put some real dollars into these funds, into the Heritage Fund. Thank you, Mr. Chair.