Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reason we are here having this discussion on the carbon pricing and our approach to carbon pricing which would help mitigate the impact on people in the Northwest Territories is because we have already asked the federal government to give us an exemption. Because we are here, you know what their answer was. They were bent on implementing carbon pricing; it does not matter which part of the country you lived in. So the initial discussion we had with the federal government is we just want to be exempt, and, of course, their answer was no. They said, "You guys go back; do some work to tell us what your approach might be," so we did that. We came back. We did a lot of work, and we talked to a lot of people.

Again, I cannot stress this any more importantly. Nobody is a fan of a tax. Nobody is a fan of a tax. I am not a fan of the tax, but these are the cards we have been dealt, and we are trying to put the best hand together to help mitigate the impact on the people of the Northwest Territories. Is it perfect? It could be worked on. We managed to get the aviation exemption because we spoke with the federal government and told them that is one of our high cost drivers; heating fuel, one of the biggest cost factors in the Northwest Territories, especially for those from outside of the capital who are having to deal with the high cost of heating fuel; and motor fuel, they were bound and determined they were going to keep motor fuel as part of it. So we went to them with our approach, and our approach, actually, there is a lot of work that went into it from a lot of people within the Northwest Territories. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that I need to speed up, but this is an important issue, and I want the people out there --

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said earlier, any type of motor fuel is going to be subject to the carbon tax. I have to point out that with the heating fuel and propane, 100 percent rebate comes to about $9.5 million dollars. That is a substantial amount right there. We worked with Canada. We came up with an approach that we thought would be beneficial. Nobody likes a tax. That is the way a lot of people see this.

What people out there need to understand is that there is going to be a carbon tax regardless. If our approach is not used, there will be a federal backstop, which I believe will be not as good for the people of the Northwest Territories, especially a lot of those living in smaller communities, having to pay a higher cost of living. We were able to work with them to come up with the approach that we thought would be best for the people of the NWT. We need to be quite clear that the carbon tax is going to happen regardless. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any motor fuel that is burned will be subject to carbon tax. For those who are hauling it, if they have a garage that relies on heating fuel to keep their garage heated, then that part of it is going to be rebated at the pump. Any motor fuel that they use to haul is going to be subject to carbon tax. Then the cost of living offset, which we were discussing earlier, is a way to help residents try to mitigate some of the impact of those costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

No, Mr. Chair. That does not because they would be using motor fuel to haul the heating fuel. Thank you.

Again, I would assume that it would be, but I am also confident that this Legislative Assembly would support an initiative that we feel is better for the people of the Northwest Territories than the alternate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can't know for sure. Our intention is that, once we deal with Bills 42 and 43, if approved by the Legislative Assembly, then our approach would be implemented on September 1^st. Then, we would have some other provisions in the second bill that we are dealing with to deal with the interim payments on the cost of living offset. As far as writ goes, we are under the assumption that we are going to work to try and get our piece of legislation passed so our approach would be implemented on September 1^st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We were able to work with the federal government because the original implementation date was July 1^st. Because we were still dealing with our piece of legislation, they agreed to push it off to September 1^st because we were working on our approach. They could have, in theory, implemented their federal backstop on July 1^st until we had ours sorted out, but we have been working with them through all this, so they gave us until September 1^st.

If we are unable to do this implementing our own made-in-the-North approach, then I would assume, we would have to have a conversation, that the federal government would implement their backstop as quickly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We were able to get a couple of exemptions when we proposed our approach to the federal government. Obviously, a big one would be aviation, because our main mode of transportation up here is aviation. The second one, which I think will be a great benefit to folks in the Northwest Territories is the heating fuel, which is rebated at the point of purchase. I think that is huge, especially for the climate that we live in. Sometimes when you live in the Northwest Territories and you live in bigger centres, you are kind of out of touch with the reality of living in some of the smaller communities and the challenges that that proposes. They are the ones that would use the most heating fuel.

To the Member's question, though, that heating fuel rebate will also apply to the municipalities. Their heating fuel purchases would be rebated at the point of purchase. We have not considered the Yukon's model, and I am not even aware of exactly what that model is, but ours is at the point of purchase, which is a big cost factor for a lot of our municipal governments, especially in the colder climates, that they spend on heating fuel. We were able to propose that in our approach to Canada, and they accepted that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.