Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions, if I can, and then I think I feel compelled to say some remarks in response to what I have heard from the Minister. If the bill is passed, what date does the Minister intend to bring this into force? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

September 1^st, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Why wasn't that date actually put into the bill itself? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The original date of implementation was July 1^st, but because we needed to work on our legislation, we had approached Canada to see if we can delay the implementation. They understand our process, therefore we agreed to it. We had hoped to deal with this during our clause-by-clause so that we wouldn't have the debate on the floor of the House. I will be moving a motion later to change the implementation date from July 1^st to September 1^st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before, so I appreciate the heads-up moments before it is going to come to the floor. As I understand it, Alberta had a carbon tax change in government there. They took away the carbon tax. Can someone explain to me what the implementation date is for the federal backstop in Alberta now that there is no carbon tax in Alberta? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. That is a little bit out of our jurisdiction, but I will allow the Minister to give a response if he would like. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with you. Alberta is a different jurisdiction than ours. We have been doing the work on our particular one. To say that, giving the heads-up on the motion, I have been discussing it with committee, and I think that we did ask committee if they would be willing to move the motion to change the implementation date as we went through clause-by-clause. I take issue with the fact the Member keeps saying that these things are being sprung on us in surprise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. There is a rule against anticipation. For any future motions, I would ask all of the Members to refrain from discussing future motions until we reach that point. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I didn't get a response to my question, of course, but as I understand it, the federal government has indicated to the Alberta government that they intend to implement the federal backstop in that jurisdiction effective January 1, 2020.

I do feel compelled to make a few remarks in response to what I believe I heard the Minister say. The Minister talked about the failure of the committee to take the bill on the road. I think it is also fair for the public to know, and I would suggest anybody who is really keen to look at the committee report, the committee really didn't have any information to enable it to take the bill on the road. The Minister had changed the approach to large emitters and the implementation date and hadn't bothered to tell the public about that. Committee knew that information, but there was no way for the public to know. Taking a bill on the road on a faulty set of assumptions would not really be a great way to proceed with public consultation.

I guess, Mr. Chair, I would also point to my attempts, even in this review in Committee of the Whole, to make two small changes to the bill: one with regard to requiring some public reporting, and secondly, to require --

Mr. O'Reilly, those are matters that have previously been dealt with by the House. Similar to the rule against anticipation, there is also a rule against discussing matters that have been dealt with. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it would be fair to say that the way that this bill has been crafted is that the committee, Regular MLAs, are not able to make any changes to it. The only thing that this bill does, and I have said this before, is set out what the carbon tax rates will be. All of the decisions around what the rebates, the grants, how the money is going to get spent, are made at the total and utter discretion of a future Minister of Finance and by Cabinet. What's the point? The bill could not be changed anyways the way that this had been put together. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just so that we are clear, this is, for me, it's something that hasn't anything to do with an election. I take what the federal government has written to our Minister, and what the Minister tabled as something that is a route. I believe that the federal government was in a position to put the act in place on July 1^st, and have now indicated to us that they will be putting it in place on September 1st. If we don't put our federal tax in place on September 1^st, then, we are passing at least four months' worth of the federal tax on heating fuel onto the people of the territory. I just wonder whether that's a wise thing to do, considering the feds have advised us that they will put the tax in place.

The other thing that I think no one is talking about is the pollution. The whole idea of carbon tax was because of what our country is seeing, especially in the NWT, what the greenhouse gases are doing to our country and our territory. I think in 2000, when a house in Inuvik fell over because the permafrost melted, people began to realize that this was a pretty serious matter. I think the federal government made a decision for the whole country. They made a decision that they are going to price pollution. We are going to be pricing pollution, no matter whether we send the bill to our people or the federal government is the one to send the bill to our people to pay for the pollution and to pay for the cost of using your vehicle, heating your house. Unfortunately, heating your house is something that we can't avoid in the Northwest Territories, so I think the government has put in place something to protect the people on heating fuel.

If we are very concerned about gasoline, which many of us are because, in the small communities, the people have no option but to go out on the land to try to reduce their cost of living, I guess other people that can curb the way they do it. If it is not essential to drive, than don't drive. I think that right now, we all take positions because we are taking some positions because we feel that the federal government will not put the act into place on September 1^st. That's how I felt this morning coming to work, but after getting something in writing saying that they will, I believe that they will. Unfortunately, we have to have a carbon tax, and it is better to have ours than theirs, the federal government's, I mean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that clause 22 of Bill 42 be deleted and the following substituted:

22. This Act comes into force January 1, 2020.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. It is being distributed. The motion has been distributed. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose of this motion is twofold: one is to immediately provide up to nearly four months of tax relief to NWT taxpayers, because that would be the time between the passage of the act pass and to be implemented January 1^st, especially during the cold winter months. I believe the savings are in the public's interest.

The second is a more fundamental question which is, who should decide on such a fundamental change as adding a significant tax to a jurisdiction whose number one public issue is the cost of living. Members have spoken at length about how dissatisfied they have been in the approach this government has taken; not universally, but certainly, even the sponsor of this bill has criticized the fact that it is a tax. This motion allows, fundamentally, the people to decide by putting it off until January 1^st and allowing a general election to take place in between that time. This is consistent with where the Alberta federal backstop is going to be implemented also on January 1^st.

I will point out that that is a hostile government to the federal government in terms of this public policy direction, and they scrapped their carbon pricing plan. Even in that circumstance, the federal government allowed them January 1^st. I think in our case, where we have a plan that is compliant that meets deadlines, the federal government will be sympathetic to that concern that, in our system of government, there can be no guarantees over legislation, that they need to go through each legislative step, and the outcome is largely unknown until they are finally passed. This would be a change to do exactly that.

Mr. Chair, until 1:01 p.m. today there was no firm deadline for implementation that had been issued by the federal government. It was not until the sponsor of the bill, the honourable Minister of Finance, directed his staff to request that a deadline be imposed on the Northwest Territories that a deadline was clearly communicated to the House. We asked during our previous review of that for a clear deadline for clear confirmation, and it could not be produced.

Mr. Testart, I will interject and, since no point of order was raised, I am going to caution you on assuming the motives of the Minister. You are unaware of what the Minister requested. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, we have an implementation date today at the 11^th hour. That was not known until now. I believe firmly that we can negotiate a later implementation date, give Northerners four months of tax relief, and ensure that the next government is the one that decides this, and not this government that is sitting on a last-minute plan that hasn't had adequate public consideration, that hasn't had adequate cooperative development through our legislative processes inherent to this building. I encourage Members to consider carefully how they proceed on this, as this will be a live issue in both the coming federal and territorial elections. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion? Seeing nothing, I will put the question to committee. Minister McLeod.