Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to start by thanking the committee for its work on Bill 60. I sat in on I believe all of their proceedings. I was there for the public hearing and so on, meetings with the Minister and staff. And I think they've come to a -- given the state of information that was available and what they heard from the public, I think they've put forward a reasonable set of recommendations. Probably -- but I think it's important to kind of review how we got here first.

And back in 2021, the federal government set new targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions partly based on, you know, an international consensus that the Pan-Canadian Framework targets, the old targets were not going to get us where we need to as a planet. And, you know, the federal government went out and informed all the provinces and territories that there was going to be some new goalposts, new benchmarks, put in place. And the federal government required as of April 1st, 2022, an indication from each of the provinces and territories whether they were going to have their own carbon tax approach that would meet those goalposts, collect the revenues themselves and decide how to use the revenues, or whether they would prefer to go with the federal backstop. And if a province or territory decided to go onto the federal backstop voluntarily, the federal government would transfer all the revenues to that jurisdiction and allow that jurisdiction to decide what to do with the revenues. And if a province or territory decided that they didn't want to voluntarily go into the federal backstop, the federal government would, of course, collect the taxes but then rebate most of the taxes to individual taxpayers in those jurisdictions. And a number of jurisdictions have done that including Alberta, Ontario, and a longer list that I'm not going to go through.

So that was the first sort of gatepost, was April 1st, 2022.

The second was September 1st, 2022, when if a jurisdiction decided that they wanted to retain their own carbon tax, they had to submit specific proposals to the federal government so that they could evaluate that they would fit within the goalpost that the federal government had set. They even issued some guidance around that which, you know, jurisdictions could use in designing their own carbon tax.

Now, the first meeting that, you know, the Regular MLAs had with the Minister of Finance on this approach happened in July of 2022. So by then decisions had already been made and then of course the bill was introduced in October of 2022. So I think it's -- from my perspective, what this is really all about is Cabinet's approach and whether, you know -- I think it really is a struggle here about power and authority over who sets the carbon tax, at least within our jurisdiction, and who decides on those revenues and what role will be the Regular MLAs, and perhaps even the public, have in all of that.

So I think it's important to look at how the first carbon tax bill came in the last Assembly. It provided basically total authority jurisdiction to Cabinet to decide how to set the carbon tax rates other than they were set in the legislation but they tweaked -- they get to tweak it, but they also get to decide how the rebates are going to be set through regulations. And the Regular MLAs had no say whatsoever on the regulations, nor did the public, other than providing feedback and then they can take that. But Cabinet can change regulations at a whim. So I think it's important to look at how that exercise of discretion has been used between the first carbon tax bill and where we are now.

So I said that there was these two important mileposts, April 1st and September 1st last year for deciding if you're going to keep your own carbon tax and then submitting a design for that. And I think it's fair to say that that first milepost of April 1st, 2022, Regular MLAs, we didn't even know it was happening. There was no effort to reach out to us to look at options, get or seek our input. That decision was made completely by Cabinet.

Now, the -- so then I think, you know, other discretion that could have been exercised when we did start to talk with the Minister and staff about this, we suggested that there be some robust public communications around that. There was one presentation to standing committee, and that's all you can still find I think on the Department of Finance website about the carbon tax. That's it. So there really hasn't been much in terms of public communications around that, and I think that's borne out by what we heard in the standing committee from the public. They want more information about this, and they didn't get it.

So another -- some further exercise or discretion, the kind of approach the Cabinet has put forward, and I will go on record about this, is unfair. It treats the large emitters more favourably than other businesses, small businesses, NGOs, community governments. It's unfair. That's how Cabinet exercised their discretion with Bill 60. They brought forward an unfair approach.

The only consultation that happened in developing Bill 60 was with the large emitters. The public wasn't consulted. Regular MLAs, we had some input; it didn't start until after some of the major decisions had been made. So I believe that that was unfair the way that Cabinet decided only to consult with the large emitters.

Cabinet also got an exemption for methane emissions. Methane is problematic when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and its effect on climate change. It's 80 times worse than carbon dioxide. There are methane emissions that happen in the Northwest Territories, fugitive emissions flaring. These happen at Norman Wells, but Cabinet went and sought an exemption for whatever reasons. This is not environmentally friendly to get this exemption, quite frankly, so.

So Cabinet proceeded on. Cabinet has decided they do not want a legislated approach because Cabinet wants to continue to control how the carbon tax revenues are used. And so the impact, mitigation, offsets, rebates, will all be done through regulations with no input from Regular MLAs, no input from the public. That's not how we should be doing this.

I also tried to get some accountability, transparency, inserted into the bill. I gave the Minister even wording around this from what I tried to do in the last Assembly. That was not included. So there's no separate accounting for this money. There's some public reporting that happens; it's discretionary, it's not very good. I've been critical of that as well, but I think it should be right in the bill itself.

So all of this leads to the need for a legislated approach to set down a fairer approach, greater accountability, sharing of the revenues, and that's what they do in the Yukon. That's not what we have here. And I'm not prepared to yield that much authority and control to Cabinet because of the way that they've exercised that since the last carbon tax bill legislation that was brought in. I'm not prepared to give them a blank cheque to continue to exercise that kind of control and authority given what has happened and transpired here.

So to try to further some of the debate and discussion on this, I did table a model bill for NWT carbon tax rebates in the House last week. That, I think, needs to be plan B. That's the approach that we can and should be taking, Madam Chair. And I've also reached out, offered to discuss this, try -- I've said that we have to find ways to work together with Cabinet to come up with a better plan for the Northwest Territories. I haven't seen any willingness on the part of Cabinet to actually do that. Those are my remarks. Thanks, Madam Chair.