Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Public Review of Bills 42 and 43

Timing of Review

Rule 75(1) of the Rules of the Legislative Assembly provides that a bill referred to a standing committee "shall not be proceeded with until the Assembly receives the report of the committee or 120 calendar days pass from the day the bill was given second reading." Convention provides that, should the 120-day period expire while the House is not sitting, committee must report the bill on the first day of the next sitting of the Legislative Assembly.

On June 5, 2019, the Finance Minister made a statement in the Legislative Assembly advising that the GNWT now intended to implement a carbon tax in the Northwest Territories on September 1, 2019. This statement, which appeared to be directed at the federal government, suggested that there was a delay in the legislative process and that "this delay was unintended and in no way should be considered as a lowering of the government's commitment to implementing the NWT carbon tax."

Given that the 120-day period allowed for the review of Bills 42 and 43 expired well after the spring sitting of the Legislative Assembly, committee is of the view that it has been required, from the outset, to report the bills on August 12, 2019, the first day of the final sitting of the 18^th Legislative Assembly, regardless of the GNWT's planned July 1, 2019 carbon tax implementation date. While it is perhaps moot at this point in the terms of the 18^th Assembly, committee nonetheless encourages Cabinet Ministers to keep in mind the time allowed by the rules for standing committee review of bills when planning its legislative calendar.

Challenges in Comparing Options

Before commencing its review of Bills 42 and 43, committee undertook to analyze and compare the GNWT's approach with the federal backstop, which is based on Canada's output based pricing system. This system establishes emission intensity standards for various large industrial sectors based on average emissions per unit of output.

Committee found it challenging to assess the salient differences between the two approaches. While Finance provided ample material regarding the GNWT's proposed approach, the key features of the federal backstop were more difficult to ascertain. For example, Finance provided committee with a figure indicating the estimated "effective carbon tax" for small emitters under the GNWT's approach, which is the average carbon tax per tonne of emissions. Committee asked both Finance and Environment and Climate Change Canada for the corresponding figure under the federal backstop. Committee also requested information on the annual net carbon tax revenues deriving from small emitters under the federal output based pricing system.

The GNWT's response, while detailed, did not provide committee with the figures it sought. The response from the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada completely disregarded committee's inquiries, instead referring committee to public information on the Government of Canada's website about the output based pricing system that is technically detailed and not specific to the Northwest Territories. Similarly, a lack of detail about the federal government's approach to offsetting the carbon tax for small businesses and municipalities, made direct comparisons with the GNWT's proposal difficult.

Mr. Speaker, I pass the rest of the reading on to the Member from the Deh Cho. Thank you.