Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not totally sure the Minister has been hearing my description of poverty traps. This guy is stuck at home with children and when he tries to work a little bit, it gets clawed back and he’s even worse off. When the Minister or myself make an extra $1,000, we pay income tax. We are not living in poverty, so
we contribute about $400 of that back to society, and I think we would agree, all of us, that that’s money well spent. But when someone on income support makes an extra $1,000, they only get to keep $150.
How can the Minister or any government official possibly justify an 85 percent effective tax rate on income for people who are trying to get out of poverty when the most well paid people in the NWT only pay 40 percent?