Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do support this bill because it does three things. It provides that pension credits can only be claimed in the Northwest Territories by Northwest Territories residents. It also allows a pension and dividend credits to be claimed by NWT residents with business income earned outside of the Northwest Territories. So I support it because it will help accomplish those things, and I think those have a clear public purpose. The other thing that it does provide is a mechanism for a cost-of-living offset benefit related to something that shall not be named, so I do support this. I...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I also referenced the Cabinet-approved Department of Lands Establishment Policy that references some of the same sorts of things that you see in the purpose section, so these are the reasons why the Department of Lands was set up, the principle that should guide how they operate. I am just going to read some of these: land management decision making should recognize and respect Aboriginal treaty rights; decisions about public lands should take into consideration ecological, social, cultural, recreational, and economic values; decisions about land and resources should be...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don't want to prolong this, but this is the age-old debate of Regular MLAs trying to ensure that there is an opportunity for the public to have some engagement or opportunity to comment on draft regulations in another post-devolution bill moving forward.

We have raised this issue numerous times in the House. Cabinet has not developed any kind of framework or approach for this, and we are trying to respond to what we heard in committee from Indigenous governments, from municipal governments, and NGOs about their interest and willingness to try to work collaboratively with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it would be fair to say that the way that this bill has been crafted is that the committee, Regular MLAs, are not able to make any changes to it. The only thing that this bill does, and I have said this before, is set out what the carbon tax rates will be. All of the decisions around what the rebates, the grants, how the money is going to get spent, are made at the total and utter discretion of a future Minister of Finance and by Cabinet. What's the point? The bill could not be changed anyways the way that this had been put together. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

That's all I have, other than I think that it was unrealistic for committee to have do all of this work and provide quality results for our residents. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am not going to flog this one any further, other than to suggest that the department should develop some kind of an implementation plan, share that with Regular MLAs in the next Assembly, and make that available to the public so that they know how the bill itself and the provisions in here are going to roll out over time. Some pretty high expectations have been set, and maybe some expectations have been crashed. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before, so I appreciate the heads-up moments before it is going to come to the floor. As I understand it, Alberta had a carbon tax change in government there. They took away the carbon tax. Can someone explain to me what the implementation date is for the federal backstop in Alberta now that there is no carbon tax in Alberta? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think that we are going to probably have some further discussion of that. I think one of the last committee recommendations in its report was that, of course, the time is going to run out for the Minister to have to respond to committee's recommendations. Given the amount of work that the public put into commenting on this bill, and the amount of work that standing committee spent on reviewing the bill and providing comments and trying to negotiate changes, is the Minister prepared to commit to providing a response to committee's recommendations before the end of this...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I couldn't quite catch it all. I think the Minister said 24 months. Why would it take one or two years to actually bring this bill into force? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions, if I can, and then I think I feel compelled to say some remarks in response to what I have heard from the Minister. If the bill is passed, what date does the Minister intend to bring this into force? Thanks, Mr. Chair.