Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Right now, we are discussing the committee report. We will have an opportunity to discuss further issues as we move through the report. The chair will likely make a number of recommendations. Then, we have two bills to go through. There will be opportunity to discuss individual clauses there. I just want to let committee know that there is plenty of time to get your comments out. Anything further? General comments on the report? Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the work that the standing committee put in to examining these bills. The process was obviously very fraught. I don't want to go too far down that road, because it is well-documented in this report and by the remarks of my colleague. I just want to underline that the studies that are being reported in the media reveal a real urgency around this issue to begin taking action in order to slow warming and, if at all possible, to roll it back.

I hear a lot of messaging from the government that says, as a small jurisdiction with a small population, that somehow we need a bye on participating in the solution. I want to say that I don't agree with that. We need to be fully involved in action on the climate crisis. This is one possibility. There are many others. I spoke about some of them during the last session.

Just to quickly recap, I suggested that there be a whole-of-government approach to procurement that takes climate change into account so that the most energy-efficient ways of doing business are those that are favoured. I have talked about personal responsibility programs. I have talked about the need to increase money for retrofits. At the moment the uptake on retrofit programs is not very robust. More money could encourage more people to do it. There needs to be a suite of actions that would take action on the climate crisis. This is just the first one, as far as I am concerned. There will need to be more. They may need to be more aggressive than this is.

I am prepared to support this bill, but if I am fortunate enough to be re-elected, I will certainly be making a point of saying that this is just the start, that the government needs to stimulate action in many other areas to deal with the climate crisis. This is not a one-and-done solution. There is more than needs to be done. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Next, I believe I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, will be supporting the bill. For the constituency I represent, in order to go anywhere, a good example is Aklavik or Tsiigehtchic, the majority of the time, you need to travel to Inuvik just to get groceries. That is probably, easy, $150, almost $200, return trip. That is for gasoline. That is usually once a week or once every two weeks you need to do that. Any time you want to go hunting, you are looking at $500 just for gasoline, maybe more. That is a rough estimate.

In my riding, compared to living in Yellowknife, you just go downtown, and you are at the grocery market. A good example is, where I live, it is the highest cost of living, let alone the highest cost of gasoline and fuel. For the people that I represent, to have them pay more, especially under the federal backstop, at least here, we are kind of limiting what we are trying to do. It really is a shame.

I know there is a climate crisis, but making our constituents in the highest cost of living areas pay more is really challenging because they have a 35 percent employment rate. Those who are unemployed have to pay more for fuel, gas. I know they do get a rebate for home fuel, but a lot of these rebates I'd like to see put more focus on small communities because I will tell you one thing. In my riding, there is not a lot of people who access these solar panels or everything that is available because they just don't have the capital to do that or expertise, people who put those in place. It is really challenging the further north you go. There needs to be more focus on that.

I believe this is the best plan we have moving forward. Who knows what will happen in the next federal election. There are plans to possibly take this out, depending on who gets in. Leave it at that. For now, I am willing to support this. Thanks.

Thank you. Next, I have Mr. McNeely.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, will support this bill. I totally agree with my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta here on the smaller communities. Because of the high unemployment here, not a whole lot of people have the front-end capital to fund and install solar panels and then get a rebate later. Hopefully, the revenue generated by this will take that into account.

Other pilot projects such as the one done by the Yamoga Land Corporation in Fort Good Hope where they bought over 50 of these secondary combustible wood stoves and install them, sent two young fellows out to do the installation or get the training to do the proper installation, so many inches away from the wall sort of thing and the chimneys. If that could be looked at and maybe even look at some of these other energy-efficient appliances here.

For example, the older models, which are still currently supplied, the hot water tank, you have your hot water elements here burning 24/7 where that could be reduced for on-the-demand system of providing hot water in homes, which, therefore, reduces the amount of electricity to have hot water in your home when the taps are turned on. Those are just a couple of examples there that I am hoping that the operational side of this revenue would go towards things of that nature in the smaller communities where the employment is very desired by a lot of people but the opportunity to create those employment are very, very limited. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McNeely. It is pretty obvious I am giving everyone a wide berth here. We are not talking about a bill. This is not a bill. This is the report. I know it is hard. We can't avoid discussion on the bills, but this is not a bill. This is the report, just to be clear to those who are reading Hansard. Next, I have Mr. Nakimayak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Speaking about the report, we travelled around the territory. Obviously, the issue was the cost of living, the cost of transportation. In my region, we rely a lot on gasoline for harvesting, for country food and things like that, transportation for airplanes, which we see there will be exemptions. I just want to say, Mr. Chair, I won't be long, but if we went with the federal backstop, we would definitely be paying more, and we would definitely feel it further in the territories. I think that this is probably the best way forward for now as the legislature and the territories are moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Anything further from committee? General comments? Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I stand behind the report that was brought forth in the Legislative Assembly. The concern in terms of the timeliness of legislation has to be raised. I know that we are kind of at the tail end of the 18^th Assembly. We were dealt a task, and part of that process was to undertake a level of consultations with the people of the Northwest Territories.

We are also, of course, dealing with another parallel process that was at the federal level in terms of implementing an income tax on petroleum products or carbon-based products. It was unfortunate that the task was for the government to deal with climate change, to take that first step, and that first step was to tax people. Perhaps down the road, there could be some discussion in terms of taking constructive steps in terms of dealing with some practical initiatives. One of them is reductions on plastic products. There is a country in Latin America, Costa Rica, that has banned plastics. Why can't we do that here in the Northwest Territories? Perhaps initiatives like that could be contemplated in the next Assembly.

For the most part, I stand behind the report. The concern was accepting what the federal government had proposed in terms of the federal backstop. In its implementation, I think that we have customized an approach in terms of how it is that it could work up here in the Northwest Territories. Foremost, as an MLA, is the concern about how it is going to impact the cost of living to people who, in their livelihood, that everybody drives trucks. You have to drive a skidoo. You have to drive a boat to get to your destination. Even if you hunt and trap, you have to drive a skidoo. It is going to have a big impact. I think that this government has taken a level of responsibility, customize it, to try to cushion its implementation.

As I indicated and stated at the outset, I think that we could have done a little bit better in terms of consultation and sharing of information to make this legislation stronger. Mahsi.

Thank you. Further general comments? Mr. Testart.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that, for all bills proposing to establish, replace, or make significant changes to territory legislation, a plain language summary be prepared and made available to the appropriate standing committee at the time is introduced in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. There is a motion. The motion is in order. To the motion, Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion applies to much of the work of the standing committees of the Legislative Assembly. Oftentimes, the committee is put into a position of defending a government bill, and its role is rightfully to review that bill. Having access to some of the questions that the public wants to ask is crucial to ensure that we can clearly define the roles of the executive branch and the legislative branch and so those respective branches of government can operate effectively.

A plain language summary attached to the public consultations on bills such as this one would greatly improve the public's understanding of our process and answer the questions that they might have that the committee is either not in a position to answer, unable to answer due to confidentiality concerns, or simply does not know the answer. This motion calls for those plain language summaries to be prepared ahead of time for major legislative initiatives so that the public is aware of what the contents of those bills are.

I should note that, in some of the cases with the other bills that have been brought forward in this House, extensive work was done on plain language summaries that greatly assisted the public's understanding of the bills and the standing committee's review of those bills. Those processes are a good template to follow for the future. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

Mr. Testart.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommend that the Government of the Northwest Territories, led by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, complete its work to address the municipal funding gap on an urgent basis, taking into consideration the increased costs of the carbon tax to all local authorities, and that additional forced-growth funding to compensate for these costs be included in the 2020-2021 budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. There a motion on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This House is well aware of the shortfall to the municipal financing formula that is putting increased cost pressures on our local governments in the Northwest Territories. We have heard many of those governments be concerned that they will be passing on costs to their residents as a result of the shortfall.

The concern that the standing committee heard directly from the NWT Association of Communities is that, without specific rebates or grant programs provided to municipalities in light of the carbon tax, the additional taxes that will be paid on municipal vehicle fleets or other things that are not automatically exempt will drive the cost of operating those local governments. As a result, those costs will either have to be passed on to residents in the form of higher taxes or a reduction in services. This is already a challenging state of financial affairs for our communities, who are dealing with a systemic gap of resources, and this is only going to add more cost pressures.

Committee felt very strongly that we needed to do more than simply draw attention to the problem, but make a concrete recommendation on how to resolve it, which is ultimately more funding to compensate for these additional costs, so that we take the pressure off of cost of living of Northerners. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

Mr. Testart.