Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I think it's worthwhile to actually start with identifying what is carbon tax. And so carbon tax, according to the federal government, is carbon pricing, about recognizing the cost of pollution, and accounting for those costs on daily decisions. Do I agree with the way that the federal government sees that rolling out in the territory? Absolutely not.

The government also says that -- the government sets a price that emitters must pay for each ton of greenhouse gas emissions that they emit. So what that, in turn, means is that they charge on fossil fuels and for regular everyday residents like ourselves and that there's a performance-based system that's input on to industry. So this is what the federal government has decided, is that they are going to do a carbon tax. But that's not what we're sitting here talking about today. That's already been decided. The federal government has already decided on a carbon tax. That was a decision made in 2018 that was debated at length in this House during the 18th Assembly. The whole notion of carbon tax here in the territory is something that I like to call a northern double jeopardy. And I mean, I've said that before in the House, that here in the territory we're charged a premium with high rate increases for our energy through NTPC for using their expensive aging infrastructure and then we turn around and we're charged by the federal government through carbon tax for using the energy monopoly that is limited by this government -- we are limited, sorry, for our ability to use alternative energies by this government because our deputy ministers sit on the board of NTPC. And so this government, really, at the end of the day is limiting our ability to use alternative energies so that we can actually accomplish the goals of the carbon tax of the federal government. But this is not what we are talking about today.

Carbon tax is here. Carbon tax is already in the entire country. We are not debating whether or not we are imposing the carbon tax in Canada or in the Northwest Territories. What we are talking about here today and what we are deciding on is who is going to administer that tax here in the territory. We are deciding if we are going to support Bill 60 and have the GNWT administer that tax, or if we are going to reject Bill 60, in which case on April 1st, which I believe is Saturday, the federal government will have to administer a backstop in the territory in order to take on the role of administering that tax here in the territory. So whether or not a carbon tax will exist in the territory is not what we are talking about here today. It's coming. It's here. It's increasing.

So I just wanted to be very, very clear on that. I also, as we're talking about the fact that carbon tax is here and is already been here and was debated already in the 18th Assembly, I went and pulled the report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations from the 18th Assembly, which was the report on the carbon tax bills, because at that point there was two separate bills that were reviewed, and I wanted to share some of that with committee because I think it's worthwhile.

The section is called lack of meaningful engagement with committee. GNWT -- sorry, raise -- sorry, the committee raised concerns that the GNWT's approach did not set out options for public debate. The proposed 75 percent direct rebate for large emitters was too high. There was no rebate or special measures for small businesses, and the policy objectives of the carbon tax were not clearly articulated.

The report goes on to say, the committee again wrote to the government advising that it does not support the proposal.

Later on in the report, it says committee also expressed its concern that there was no indication from government as to whether or not the carbon tax legislation would mandate public reporting to enable transparency, increased public awareness of how the tax revenue is being used, and measure the impact of the carbon tax on emissions in the NWT.

Later on, the report also says that the carbon pricing in the Northwest Territories was negotiated with the federal government leaving little room for input from Regular Members once that process had commenced.

Madam Chair, it sounds to me like history is repeating itself because we're sitting here staring at a bill that has not changed at all other than the schedules in the bill.

Later on in the report, under challenges in comparing options, which is talking about comparing the options from the GNWT, which is -- or versus the option that is the federal backstop, the report says 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. We're still in that situation today. I literally said in my words in supporting the bill to move to second reading, that I wanted to support it because I wanted to learn what the federal government had to offer. I'm no farther ahead but I can't fault the Cabinet Minister for that here in this room. The federal government also has an obligation to be transparent with the Northwest Territories and they have not done that, and they need to be held accountable for that and wear some of that themselves.

So as I said here, Madam Chair, history has repeated itself, and the changes that this committee in the 18th Assembly wanted to see were outside of the scope of the bill. The changes that our committee wanted to see, which we proposed five recommendations, and the two that I think were the most important in order to be able to give a lot of people on this side of the House a little bit more comfort, I will say, was recommendation 3, which was revenue sharing, and recommendation 4, which is putting a lot of revenue sharing information and reporting into law, into legislation. But, again, that was out of scope of the bill and unable to be pushed forward because -- and I think it's worth noting here for the public, as soon as a bill is tabled and nothing can be added to it that is not within scope. And I'm noting that I'm running out of time. So I want to move along. But I think that this is very important to say because I think that I'm very disappointed in the bill that was brought forward by finance because it shows me that they did not go back to what was done already in the 18th Assembly. And the reports that are tabled in this House come from information from our stakeholders, from our residents, that are given to our committees. They're not reports that we make up on our own time. They're actual words that are elevated in this House from the constituents that we all serve. And so to have a government turn around and table a bill that has blatantly ignored previous recommendations is incredibly frustrating. So what we have in front of us here today is a no win situation because we cannot change the scope of the bill by legislating -- by legislating the revenue sharing, and that is something that we absolutely want to see.

So now where we are is we have Bill 60 which has a lot of things that I think are so important. It has regional -- regional cost of living offsets. So what that means is we were able to negotiate that places where the costs are more expensive, like for example, Ulukhaktok, will receive a higher cost of living offset than somewhere like Yellowknife. And I think that that is so important because it is -- as we've heard from our colleagues here today, it is far more expensive for someone to live in Paulatuk or Ulukhaktok than it is to live in Yellowknife. That is so important.

In addition, we have -- within Bill 60 -- or sorry, not within Bill 60, but through negotiations with the Minister, been able to negotiate revenue sharing with community governments. This is also so important because if there is no revenue sharing with community governments, you better believe that they're going to turn around if there are a taxed0based communities and pass that on to residents. If they're a nontax-based community, they're going to turn around and they are going to take those dollars needed out of programs and services. That's a huge concern of mine from social development because we have heard that the first thing to go is recreation -- or sorry, is recreation programming. Without recreation programming, we run huge risks to our suicide prevention initiatives and also what people are saying that they need to create and build healthy families and stable housing. Recreation was huge, and NWTAC said that is the first thing to go in nontax-based communities. So I think that's very, very important and it is definitely related to this.

My other concern is that the other option if we vote down Bill 60, we're left with the federal backstop. From what we know about federal backstops, it is either going to be a blanket cost of living, or they're going to turn around and send it right back to the GNWT. So we're no farther ahead. And Madam Chair, I have 30 seconds left, and I have many more pages that I wanted to be able to talk about today. But what I think I want to say is wherever this debate ends today, this cannot be the end of this conversation and a new bill needs to be drafted for the people of the Northwest Territories that needs to put revenue sharing into law and that requires carbon tax revenues be shared with households, businesses, community governments, Indigenous governments, and NGOs, and that reporting on carbon tax needs to be done in a meaningful way and that meaningful energy alternative advances need to be made in this territory. Thank you. And thank you for the extra ten seconds.