Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, when committee was doing its work, it took a significant amount of time to do the -- oh sorry, I just ran down the stairs. It took a significant amount of time to actually look at a jurisdictional scan and look at what other -- what other regions across Canada were doing, particularly other territories. And what we came across was the -- what is used by the Government of the Yukon, which provides municipal governments with 3.5 percent of its total carbon rebate. And while I appreciate what the Minister is talking about in terms of meeting committee a little bit closer to where we're at, the $2.2 million, really, that we are asking for here, ends up being equal to nearly the 3.5 percent that is being stipulated in legislation by the Yukon government.
One of the things that I think is really, really important is that within the territory within our communities, there are some that are tax-based, some that are not. The communities that are tax-based have indicated that if they do not receive any kind of rebates that their property taxes will go up. I've said already that I believe that the carbon tax is yet another increase in cost of living in the Northwest Territories that is going to continue to hollow out our middle class; it is going to continue to push people and industry away from the territory if it is costing them more to employ people, costing them more to they themselves operate a business here and also to pay their workers here. And this is a huge, huge concern when we are trying to grow our territory.
The people that I serve cannot afford additional increases. They feel like they are being squeezed at all ends right now and they feel, especially business owners post-COVID, that they need time to catch up. They held their breath for years while they were on lock downs and trying to mitigate public health orders and they need some time to catch their breath, Madam Chair.
That doesn't speak to the nontax-based communities that can't turn around and increase their property taxes. Nontax-based communities, we heard through NWTAC, are going to have to turn around and cut their programming from somewhere in order to pay for the differences in carbon tax. And the number one programming, they said is cut first in their communities, is recreational programming. This is a huge concern from the Standing Committee on Social Development because when we went and spoke to communities about child and family services, so how to lift northern families and support stable environments for families to grow in, when we went and spoke to communities about homelessness prevention, and when we spoke to youth about suicide prevention which is another report that we intend to table in this sitting of the Assembly, the one theme that connected all of those pieces so powerfully was access to recreational programming. And this is a massive concern in our territory, and our youth cannot afford to have less programming in their communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.