Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 25, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2011-2012, be read for the third time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 26, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 5, 2010-2011, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriations for infrastructure expenditures for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 27, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2010-2011, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 25, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2011-2012, be read for the first time. Thank you.

The Member has touched on a key point in terms of the risk and the tangible benefits. We do have an extensive list of feedback from the committee that we received in December and that work is still being reviewed in looking at how we can incorporate it into the policy going forward.

Thank you. We appreciate the Member’s point and we are of the same mind, that whatever we do has to be tailored and reflect the realities of the Northwest Territories as an individual and unique jurisdiction. We are doing the work in both areas, both on the Finance side and Environment and Natural Resource side, to pull together the best information that’s available so that we can set all the pieces in place for the incoming Assembly to make an informed decision, hopefully as quickly as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the third time.

Mr. Speaker, the issue of our carbon emissions targets taxes has to be seen within the broader context in which we are trying to do through the Greenhouse Gas Strategy and the recognition that we all see as Northerners, the majority of us Northerners see of the rapid and dramatic and visible effect of climate change and what is driving that climate change in terms of world population and, of course, the anthropogenic or human-caused emissions.

In the North, we are very carbon dependent, as the Member indicated. The question is, what do we do in order to be responsible citizens of the country of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent has been and continues to be right from the start, that any taxes that we were looking at, but in this particular case, the carbon tax, it was premised on the assumption that we would be looking at it within the context of making it revenue neutral so it didn’t raise the cost of living. It would look at dealing with carbon emissions and such but making very carefully structured if it was going to be considered, but it was always within the context in the North. Anything we do with taxes, anything we do in terms of revenue generation, we have to be very...

In the next number of weeks we will conclude looking at what feedback we got from committee and we will look at how we can adjust the policy which we will then send back to committee for their review.