Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said earlier, the Standing Committee on Government Operations heard from Mr. Roger Walker as owner and general manager of Territorial Tobacco Products. Mr. Walker presented us with a great many documents and a long history of dealing with taxation of tobacco in the Northwest Territories and his concerns about potential tax slippage. We were also provided with information from the government's own internal audit bureau on this, and at this point the standing committee is content with the response from government, and his concerns fell outside of the scope of the bill, it was felt that there was limited involvement in what we can do, but certainly the issues he brought to the floor were relevant to our discussions around the purpose of this legislation which is one of which is the creation of a territorial stamp to prevent smuggling.
The other way the act changes is to require the collection of taxes on tobacco products at the time tobacco is acquired by wholesale dealers for the purposes of resale. There are around seven wholesalers that operate in the Northwest Territories. Only one of those is resident to the Northwest Territories which puts Mr. Walker in an uncomfortable position of advocating for an industry of which he is sole member. However, this purchase method does not really have a large impact on the major wholesalers that operate down south. Let us call them corporate wholesalers. But for Mr. Walker's operation it is a much smaller and territorial-based one. So I guess my question for the Minister would be does this move to a purchase method put an additional burden that particularly affects Northerners as northern businesses will be required to purchase upfront just like their southern counterparts? What we heard from Mr. Walker is that could be a cost of $200,000 to $500,000.
Was any consideration given to that when contemplating the purchase method or when considering whether northern businesses would have special dispensation to deal with the new regulations? Thank you, Mr. Chair.