Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure which question to start with. I wasn't expecting them today. I am receiving quite a number of inquiries, and we are working through each one with respect to this program. This was a program that we started up quite at the last minute in the midst of the evacuations. And building on the last exchange that the Premier just spoke to, we were faced with an unprecedented situation and we're doing our best to try to create a program to support individual residents in the midst of our own staff having been evacuated in most cases.

So I am aware that there's quite a number of payments that have been missed. Sometimes we receive bank information that is incorrect. It gets inputted incorrectly. In other cases, I know payments have been sent out only to then be returned. Whether that's returned by a bank or returned through cheque or through mail. A lot of the requests that come through my office, Mr. Speaker, as I said, a number of different reasons for the delay. So right now we are trying to work through each one. I do encourage people to continue to use the online information about making inquiries or to certainly send their inquiry through their MLA. As I said, I know that when they come to me, they do get it rectified in general. It shouldn't be taking this long. I hope it doesn't. But we also very importantly are looking to change the system and the process so that if people are faced with a similar situation this summer, they won't be facing similar delays. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wasn't quite clear, and maybe no one else was, is how are they actually tracking these particular things, because Yellowknife Centre can't be the only riding who gets these questions from constituents, and I'm seeing nods here. So, Mr. Speaker, does the Minister track these things, and how are they monitored to make sure that they close the loop on these applications? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. I think there was two questions in there, so two -- but I will turn to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I suppose if I'm not clear it's because the question is not clear what is being asked about the tracking. Every application that is sent to the department is logged, and every inquiry that is being sent in with respect to say that there's been an issue, that one, they are also being monitored. And to the best of my knowledge in terms of the tracking, most of those that have applied and have been processed are, indeed, paid and have been paid. So there's been some late payments. But, I mean, as far as someone saying that they made an application and haven't, again, I'm not -- because I'm not sure what it is I'm going asked to track. We tracked all the applications. We're tracking and they're at the process when they're being approved. And then we are watching and monitoring when an inquiry comes in to see that it does get resolved. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And by the way, I apologize, earlier I just restated the question, so it might have sounded like two. Mr. Speaker, my question -- the Minister says they track them, so then why do we have the department saying that they've issued payments when they haven't if they're tracking them?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, again, Mr. Speaker, some people are finding that if they've sent incorrect banking information or if the banking information has been sent or has been inputted incorrectly as I've noted, so there may be a time where a payment doesn't get issued or that it's been delayed, so again, yes, in those instances, someone wouldn't receive a payment. They then -- there is a notification e-mail and phone number that folks can make contact with to confirm whether or not they have been -- had their payment issued or whether or not their payment has gone through. In those cases, those inquiries are then tracked. So at this point, I would like to hope that there's only a small number that are outstanding of individuals who made an application, who had their application accepted, and who still haven't seen a payment, and certainly would encourage them to use the resources available. The ones that have come to me do get resolved and generally get resolved quite quickly. And, again, the applications -- or the reasons for the errors or the reasons for the delays are noted. So in each case, there's -- I've seen a number of different -- or variety for those reasons. Some certainly reside with the department. Others may have other explanations. But if people are still waiting, I'd encourage them to contact us. We are working through any errors that arise. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is I see the program is closed for people to make their applications to apply for the program. Why did it close so early before at least -- the very least, that is, the end of the fiscal year? And I want to understand why they closed it and when did they publicly announce it so it's transparent to people? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the details of this program, which I don't have standing in front of me right now in terms of the specific policy, but the details were communicated back in August when the program was announced. That included the timelines for making applications, the process for making applications. The initial evacuations when the programs that we had for those who were evacuated early in the year, we actually had staff attending at the facilities within the Northwest Territories to help people make their applications and to explain the process to them. And so all of those details were announced at that time. The intention was to make it so that this was a sometime -- somewhat time sensitive but not so time sensitive as to make it prohibited for those who were under evacuation as, again, tried to send out staff where they were available to help people through the process. That certainly have been intended also this coming year. But it was really about the evacuation timeline. And I believe it was within a certain amount of days thereafter the time when somebody was evacuated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member for Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to carbon pricing and the home heating exemptions. So the Minister said that there's no need to backdate the exemption because residents have received their rebates. So can the Minister confirm that a hundred percent of the fuel charge related to home heating fuel related to the carbon tax in the Northwest Territories is being rebated to Northerners, a hundred percent? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, firstly, the carbon tax rebates goes to those who are tax filers. So I would encourage everyone, even if they're getting rebates, even if they don't think they have to pay taxes on whatever they're receiving, they should be filing their taxes or at least filing a notice of tax with the government, and then that would give them, first of all, access to these rebates and, I believe, probably others, such as the child care -- or child rebates. But, Mr. Speaker, what the carbon tax offset payments by the Government of the Northwest Territories does is there's three parts to it. The first one looks at the cost of fuel, the cost of tax on fuel not associated to home heating, then there's an indirect taxes that we calculated based on what is estimated businesses would be charged and paying for carbon tax on their various forms of fuel usage knowing that that might well be passed down to consumers, and then the third currently in place is for the tax on home heating fuel paid by an average household, and that's at this present time is still based on the use of heating oil. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure I heard a clear answer, but I'll ask what is that number; what is the amount of revenue, tax revenue is being collected off home heating oil in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. If it's the amount of home heating fuel -- home heating oil revenue, I can certainly get that number for the Member. For the current year, that's the taxation -- just to be clear, so I can get the correct information, it's the tax -- the number I'm going to get is the tax being collected for home heating fuel in the Northwest Territories. We can certainly provide that in due course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I suppose if Northerners have already received their rebates, this isn't going to make a difference. If our system's already taking care of home heating fuel carbon taxes, why are we exempting this? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is arguably more convenient for residents to not have to pay the tax at the front end and to simply then to have that exempted from them rather than to have to get the rebate. That was certainly the source of much debate at the last time. And so given that that's now the approach that's being taken by many other jurisdictions due to the federal government's change, we were prepared to offer the same type of approach under our system so that the tax rebate -- or the tax itself on heating oil is not to be paid, won't have to be paid at the front end, and there will still be some heating -- or rather tax rebate being provided by the GNWT but adjusted to the fact that, as I've said, that heating oil component will now be exempted. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member for Range Lake.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I won't weigh into what I think of our system, but I think we can do some improvement here. My question is the federal government has also doubled the rural rebate supplement for Canadians under the climate action payment systems, the one that's administered by the federal government. Have we also doubled any of our -- or increased our COLO payments to follow suit and make sure that we're benefitting people who are paying in rural or remote areas for our high cost of fuel? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our residents were already receiving a much higher rebate than what many residents in other parts of the country were. What we did in our system was, and what we understood would not have been offered had we come under the federal modeling, was to zone the three types of rebates that were being received. And under the home heating oil tax situation, that meant that those living in zone C who were really in some of the communities that are the most remote, most rural, they would have been receiving a much higher benefit to account for the fact that the amount of carbon tax paid on their home heating was much higher. So that is how we adjusted our system to account for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up a little further on the evacuation travel support program. And I suspect -- now, the Minister was saying I didn't expect the question but that said, to be all fair -- in all fairness, she is the Finance Minister of this government and the last government and oversaw the programs, so I expect her to know some elements of the program.

So that said, the evacuation support program paid out $750 to people as a one-time sort of payment. How did they actually come up with that specific $750 for the impacts of individuals obviously per vehicle? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I say I wasn't expecting the question, I don't necessarily have the policy documents in front of me. I certainly wouldn't want to mislead anyone with respect to what was the specifics of the policy.

As far as the $750, again, firstly, these were efforts being made in response to emergencies and often by staff who themselves had been evacuated and were under somewhat difficult conditions. We were making an effort at the time, I believe with respect to the evacuation payment, to align with the income disruption payment that had been decided upon earlier in the season. Thank you.