This is page numbers 5827 - 5874 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was know.

Topics

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5846

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, Madam Chair, I was looking for something different there. Because this -- so the money that's showing up here in -- under the management board secretariat is the -- is related to the service payments that we have to maintain the line or -- for over the cost of having built the line but not necessarily connected to what is happening in terms of connecting communities.

So the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Line does create the point of presence of the fibre in the communities and we do pay for that and receive revenues for its use. But there is, meanwhile, work happening, led by Northwestel, with respect to delivering on a 50/10 level of service to every community in the Northwest Territories. I had the opportunity to speak with representatives from Northwestel within the last month or two. I gather there's been some delays as a result of the Anik F2 failure, but they are still expecting to be on track for a 2026 delivery date and are being monitored by CRTC in that regard. Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am now thinking that would be more in the capital area, so I do appreciate the Minister answering my question regardless.

So I guess I -- I'm going to touch the really big elephant in the room is the carbon tax offset. Again, I still -- I'm not on the committee. I do struggle at times to understand everything that is going on around the carbon tax. And given that there is $47.8 million here, and yet it's my understanding that we can't use these for rebates, where does this money end up going given the changes come April 1st? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5846

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. So the increase on expenditures here is the increase to the grants that are for various rebates benefits associated with offsetting. So there is the grant -- I mean, and this is, of course, all projected and premised on the notion that the -- what we anticipated in Bill 60 would pass which, you know, obviously is not -- is not guaranteed by any stretch. The largest amount would be for the large emitter program that we have, which is not a complete or a total remission of taxes paid by large emitters but only the amount that is planned for under the 72 percent. They right now pay roughly 50 percent of the tax as compared to other residents or businesses that are paying carbon taxes. There's also the rebate for the generation of electricity. There's the rebate for cost of living to individual residents. And so that -- yes, so that's the different pieces here. And, I mean, maybe I'll leave it to see what the next question might be, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5846

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you. If I can come up with one that makes sense. I guess -- yeah, so my understanding is that we can't give back then the direct money to people at the -- or going forward, based on what the government is changing, but we can still give rebates and things under other programs; is that what the Minister's saying? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5846

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, again, it's federal government rules that we're working within and, you know, I'd like to suggest it's -- we're basically putting up a shield to try to ensure that the full force of what the federal government is doing doesn't impact residents and businesses in the Northwest Territories. The total grants and rebates that are proposed here are $47.18 million. There's also almost $700,000 that is required to administer the program largely through the Canada Revenue Agency. We don't have necessarily the manpower to do it but it does still come with a cost. And then the breakdown is we cannot rebate heating fuel anymore. So that's certainly a big one that we and other jurisdictions have been very vocal about but to no avail. And, yes, you cannot -- right now, people when they pay, when they're getting their heating fuel or whatever other sorts of fuel, it's right at the point of purchase. So at the pump so to speak. That is also not allowed anymore. You cannot negate the carbon signal meaning you can't make it seem to someone that they're not paying it when they're paying it. It is now needs to be apparent to a person that they're paying the tax even if we, as the GNWT, are going to try and step in and actually completely mitigate that tax later through the payment. At the front end, the federal government is saying they want people to know what they're paying. At the back end, we're saying we're going to prevent them from actually being impacted by it financially.

Now, look, one of the benefits of that is that it hopefully will motivate people to, in fact, take steps, whether it's through Arctic Energy Alliance or otherwise, to reduce GHG emissions. Then they get more money in their pocket when they get their cost of living offset. But it just means that you can't upfront know what -- you have to upfront know what you're paying. There, thank you, Madam Chair.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do appreciate that the Minister's a bit verbose but I did understand from the first sentence what the answer to my question was, so. I just want to -- one thing there that twigged me in that comment was the $700,000 to administer the program. So I have to say that feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth from the federal government. Not only are we imposing this all on you, we're now going to charge you another $700,000 to administer it for you. So is there any opportunity perhaps for us to go back to the feds and just say, please, at the very least remove the $700,000 admin fee and give that back to us? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5846

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there are costs associated with having the Canada Revenue Agency administering our tax collection in general. So I don't know that this is necessarily unique or distinct. The reality is it would cost a significant amount of money for the GNWT to do that and human resources capacity. And if they didn't do it, we'd have to do it. So it's sort of a one way or the other. It might actually be more expensive for us to have to start up our own entire tax collection and administration system. CRA is actually a fairly large -- I think surprisingly large part of the federal government that might just sort of swing under the radar. But I don't have their budgets in front of me nor do I intend to defend them, but just to say that that part of ours is -- yes, it's something that has to happen one way or the other. Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Are there any further questions to the management board secretariat from Members? Seeing none, please turn to page 161.

Finance, management board secretariat, operations expenditure summary, 2023-2024 Main Estimates, $110,692,000. Does committee agree?

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Some Hon. Members

Agreed.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. We will now turn to page 166, Office of the Chief Information Officer, with information items on page 167. Are there any questions? Member for Kam Lake.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions and, I mean, the Minister and I have had conversations about this before. One of the things that I am finding increasingly frustrating lately is when I go and talk to another Minister about integrated service delivery and the barriers to being able to provide integrated service delivery to Northerners because of our systems that we use within the government. And so I'm wondering if -- you know, we've got $21.8 million here in expenditures for this office, and I know that they do far more than just purchase software or, rather, manage the purchase of software. And so is there funding within here to work on an interoperability framework? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5847

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5847

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. There's not necessarily a line item that associates to interoperability but, Madam Chair, as the Member knows that's one of my new favourite words. It certainly is, I think, the goal in speaking -- in speaking with our new chief information officer, to get to a place of having more interconnectedness. There are, for example, SAM and DIIMS and programs such as that, that are now being rolled out across the whole of government which will hopefully support but also simply making it more of a priority in general because it takes people, and it does take resources to pay for these rather complex and expensive systems. So, again, not a line item per se but really is -- you know, doesn't need to be because it's a big focus of what the chief information officer is expected to deliver. Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5847

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, you know, something like interoperability framework is not likely something that we're going to see show up in the priorities of the 20th Assembly as a line item so to say, and so I'm wondering what suggestions the Department of Finance would have to the next Assembly coming in to be able to push this item to be able to actually deliver results across the government? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5847

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm conscious of time so, look, I can say there is again -- yet, again, there's another framework being developed, Madam Chair. But, again, you need a framework to know within what -- how to -- what the parameters are of what you're trying to achieve. Interoperability, again I completely share this as being a priority. I have drank this Kool-Aid. We can't -- the systems around going to work together if they're not designed to work together and you can't train people to have them working within the same systems if they don't know what they're working within, so it does take a framework to achieve those things. It's -- enterprise architecture is probably is another one I'm going to introduce you to as being the thing that is used to actually create that interoperability. So it's being worked on, and I'd be happy to perhaps provide a bit of a written update to Members rather than trying to do it in limited space of time here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 9th

Page 5847

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.