Thank you. My understanding is, just in one case of another provincial jurisdiction doing this, in British Columbia, when a land transfer tax or fee was implemented in the 1970s, the explicit policy rationale was for income redistribution. Large home purchases would bring about revenue that could be invested in social programs and policies. I guess the contention I have here is this is a fee that is going to disproportionately affect ratepayers in one part of the territory and largely ignore the state of play in other parts of the territory.
I am not opposed to new taxes as long as they are married to very clear policy objectives. Certainly, I am opposed to anything that raises the question of tax fairness. As I said previously in this House when this proposal was raised, I cannot support a fee increase that is going to disproportionally affect my constituents for the sole policy reason of raising more revenue for the government.
I certainly do not take a problem with taxes on, say, tobacco or alcohol that have a clearly measured outcome. I certainly do not take issue with those kinds of considerations, but here we have the majority of land transfers taking place in the City of Yellowknife, and it's a fee increase. It is $.5 million that Yellowknifers will provide in revenue to the GNWT.
We have already had changes to airport fees which amounts to a tax, if nothing less, and other initiatives. What I hear door-to-door from my riding of Kam Lake is that people already are concerned about the cost of living, are not seeing that cost go down, and this is another thing with the coming of other tax initiatives that is increasingly becoming unbearable for my constituents.
I think I have come to the conclusion of my line of questioning, but I am not convinced that this is in the best interests of the people I represent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.