Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my right, I have Mr. David Stewart, deputy minister of Finance, and to my left, I have Mr. Ian Rennie, who is the legislative counsel.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We thank you for the opportunity to present Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, to the Committee of the Whole. This bill responds to our commitment approved in the 2016-2017 budget to provide further financial assistance to low and modest-income families to raise their children through an enhancement to the Northwest Territories Child Benefit.

The amendments to the NWT Income Tax Act will allow us to enhance the NWT Child Benefit by providing a total of $2.2 million in direct support for children in families with annual income up to $80,000. This enhanced program...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize two residents from Inuvik, Mr. Paul Komaromi and Mr. Tom Zubko, who will be inducted into the Order of the NWT, I believe, tomorrow. Welcome to the House.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to the first point, and that goes to Member for Yellowknife Centre's question as well on the communication. We do have communication people on staff now under the Corporate Shared Services, so communication efforts should improve. To Mr. O'Reilly's question, we work with CRA. CRA had a bit of a promotional campaign. We worked closely with them to try and get people to understand that they need to file their income tax because this is based on their income tax filing. The fact that there is an opportunity for more money in their pocket, I think, would be...

Yes, I would, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. We currently have two, but, as I said, we have 50 more that are outstanding, awaiting signatures. I am not quite sure where those are. I can find out and see how many we put into the Member's riding. As I said before, I will have to get the exact details on the actual advertising for summer students, but this is a program that has been going on for a while, as the Member has said. The numbers are improving this year. Two years ago, the numbers were 341. We are hoping to exceed those numbers.

If you count the other agencies that are funded by the Government of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have set the rates this year based on the 2015 NTCL rates, along with CPI. That is what has given us this rate. We have to do this first year of operations to determine what it will cost us to run this operation and what is going to be the ongoing funding to make this thing sustainable. At the end of this coming season, we will be able to have a look at what the rates are, and, if there is an opportunity to pass on the cost-of-living relief to residents of the NWT, we will do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As all Members know in this House, we bought the assets of NTCL in late December to bring the shipping season. The most important critical thing for us this year was to concentrate and get supplies to all of the communities that rely on the marine transportation industry. We have had to outsource the work force hiring, and that was to the company in Newfoundland the Member is referring to, ORSI. They subsequently had people sending resumes to Newfoundland, but, since then, I can update this House that they have a staff member sitting in Hay River that will receive resumes, and you can just go...

Thank you. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Monday, May 29, 2017, I will move that Bill 27, An Act to Amend the Environmental Protection Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we had a meeting recently with Health Canada and the INAC regional office, Environmental and Climate Change Canada, Department of Fisheries, and ENR and we do recognize that there may have been some, the communication was not as good as it should have been, and I think we've taken steps to address that. We're working more closely with Health and Social Services to address this and to make sure that all their information is up-to-date and correct, and we will provide them up-to-date information.

I can assure the Member and members of the public that this government is working very...