Michael Miltenberger

I would argue quite strenuously that the $82 million investment in the Fibre Optic Link is just the kind of investment that the Member is talking about. We’re putting in critical economic infrastructure that helps create the conditions for development.

When you are in business, there are all sorts of write-offs, depreciation, capital investments, construction investments that can be written off. So, once again, the Member is making a fairly sweeping statement. He’s decided that the focus should be a certain aspect of the telecommunications industry and it’s not clear enough to me how he would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we are doing as a government is investing over $80 million in a Fibre Optic Link that’s going to go all the way up and down the valley. It’s going to hook in all the small communities. It’s going to create tremendous business opportunity for the final mile piece in the communities in terms of all the services that need to be provided for, the infrastructure to support those services.

So we see this approach, and the Member touched on it in his statement, about it’s not so much the taxing, it’s the creating the conditions for economic development and that’s what we...

Once again, we agree. We have the private sector that’s churning out about half of our $3.6 billion GDP. Half of that comes from the diamond mines. We have the private industry hard at work on a P3 process, putting that Fibre Optic Link in that’s going to create a whole industry, telecommunications, IT-focused industry in Inuvik. It’s going to provide that same advantage to every community down the valley. I believe we’re doing the same thing that the Member is asking us to do, and I appreciate him raising repeatedly the issue of the need to have the conditions for economic development. Thank...

We’ve had this discussion now going back and forth. I’ll keep coming back to the investments we’re making in economic infrastructure, the conditions that we want to create for that economic development, to do the same thing the Member wants. If the Member has a specific tax he wants to talk about… Is he talking about a tax rate, not 11.5 but some other number lower, tax holidays as he calls it for some specific sector? Then stand up and give us a number. Thank you.

Two thousand people in five years is part of a broader strategy where there’s an enormous focus by this Assembly now and in the past, but definitely going forward on the cost of living. That is where we’re going to want to make the investments in critical economic infrastructure, infrastructure like the Fibre Optic Link, infrastructure like the energy infrastructure where we want to go into the thermal communities and come up with ways to cut the cost by getting folks off diesel with biomass and solar and batteries, other alternative energies, LNG where it’s appropriate, as well as the other...

The decision to make the change was a political decision. The decision on how it was going to be done was worked through so that it would come at a time that makes logical sense, which the board was involved in and which the board supports. Thank you.

I, as well, would like to acknowledge that the work that was done by the current board members is not the question. Their ability is not being questioned. The fact that they have the skill is not being questioned. What we have is an opportunity with the changing of the bylaws and putting in terms, that there’s a natural transition point that we should take advantage of because there’s a fundamental underlying priority that we have Northerners who can do those jobs and can fill those positions and they should be there. Current board members live in other jurisdictions, other provinces south of...

The erosion of our tax revenues is an issue of concern, as I pointed out in our budget address. Our corporate taxes are down many tens of millions of dollars. So, once again, the Member is standing up saying we should make an investment. I’m saying an $82 million investment in digital infrastructure, fibre optic infrastructure, gives tremendous benefit and ability for people to do business, for telecommunication people to do business with cutting edge, top-of-the-line facilities is the kind of investment that government should be doing. If we just said we were going to give an $80 million tax...

Thank you. Our corporate income tax is, I believe, 11.5 percent, which puts us somewhere in the middle in terms of corporate taxes across Canada, middle to the lowest, I think on the low side. Our small business tax is, I believe, very modest, as well, 4 percent I believe. So when the Member talks about a tax holiday for telecommunications, for certain telecommunications, he’d have to be clearer. It’s maybe not that easy to say that there’s going to be a lot of implications and why we would focus on one particular industry when I’m sure that we would be able to hear a very strong case from...

Mr. Speaker, last year I spoke on the government’s Service Innovation Strategy. Today I would like to provide an update. The Service Innovation Strategy has many parts and is ultimately intended to improve government services to the public, whether online, by phone or in person. It supports our 17th Legislative Assembly goal of effective and efficient government.

Last fall the Northwest Territories hosted the annual meetings of the Public Sector Service Delivery Council and the Public Sector Chief Information Officers. The two councils, composed of members from jurisdictions across the country...