Lesa Semmler

Member, your time has expired.

Are there questions? Member for Monfwi.

Thank you, Minister. President Young.

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 23, Bill 29, Minister's Statement 26419(2), Tabled Document 68119(2), Tabled Document 69419(2), and Tabled Document 81319(2), and would like to report progress. And, Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I'm going to go back to that 25 percent. Mr. Speaker, our municipalities are not even included. We already know our municipal governments are underfunded. You know, they need to keep the lights on. Every one of us have either had family, friends, or anybody, or we take part in any kind garbage, you know, snow removal, all these things are going to cost more for the municipal governments. So why are we not giving any of this money back to our municipal governments out of this 25 percent that we're holding back for our government slush fund? I don't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we've been talking about is carbon tax this week and so my questions are for the Minister of Finance.

You know, I also want to know, like, how we're ever going to grow the Northwest Territories' population when the federal government is forcing the NWT to create a new logo I guess, is what I'm thinking, is move to the Northwest Territories where you can wear a parka eight months of the year in your house just so you could feed your family. You know, that's what carbon tax is going to make people do, is choose.

Mr. Speaker, can the...

Thank you. All those in favour? All those opposed?

Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, the federal government, like I said in my Member's statement, is forcing the hand of all of us to do their to do this work. They want us off oil. Our MP has said we need to move from oil. Okay, so what are we going to use? We've heard from other people, like pellets. We're sending our pellets in Canada to the UK. So oil and gas, we can't even use our oil and gas. Inuvik, we've had we had natural gas but now we're on truckedin propane. We're trucking it up on diesel fuel trucks. Like, this is not an NWT madeintheNWT. I mean, if Justin Trudeau wants...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the question I asked is why is this $15 million, or 25 percent, being held by the GNWT to go into general revenues? Where is it going; why is it not going back so we're carbon neutral for some of our businesses? I know I had this discussion on Yukon, the way that they're rebating with the Minister. You know, they have got small businesses, medium businesses that are being rebated, but I guess it's a little bit more complicated than just being rebated.

So will the Minister look at our plan, a madeintheNWT plan, that will include businesses, and if it's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about carbon tax. I specifically want to talk about what we're doing as a territory to mitigate the cost of living and the cost of business impacts on carbon tax. I understand that we don't have a choice about imposing the tax. If the GNWT doesn't impose the tax, Ottawa will do it for us. But we do have a choice about how we spend the revenues from the carbon tax.

The government has decided to go with a madeintheNWT approach. But this approach leaves some residents, most businesses, and all community governments, Indigenous governments, and...