Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment is pleased to provide its Report on the Government of the Northwest Territories Approach to the Mining Regime Fiscal Review and commends it to the House.

Introduction

As part of the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) work to bring the Mineral Resources Act into force, as well as to further implement the devolution of the land resources management, the GNWT has commenced a review of the mining fiscal regime, including royalties paid.

The GNWT's first step of the review was to produce a study that assessed the tax and royalty competitiveness of the mineral sector in the NWT. The Tax and Royalty Benchmarking Report released October 2020 was the GNWT's first step of the process.

In the public release of this document the Minister notes, the re-imagining of our government's fiscal framework around royalties is one that deserves a comprehensive, collaborative, and multi-phased approach." The committee was concerned about the scope of work for this benchmarking research and given the technical nature of this study, an independent review was undertaken for committee.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Member from Frame Lake to conclude. Thank you.