Hay River

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Probably the two biggest drivers for small business that will be provided offsets is 100 percent of the heating fuel carbon tax is being rebated back to the user, whether it is a resident or it is a small business, and then electricity generation, as well. We are not charging carbon tax on electricity generation using diesel fuel. There are also other programs that are being looked at under the Low Carbon Economy Fund, I believe, that will help businesses in terms of some of the things that they may want to do to help reduce their consumption. I know that that work is...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In the initial design of the program, the assumption was that there were certain things that were going to be more heavily impacted, that would hit families more than it would hit, necessarily, people without children. The decision was made to make it slightly larger for children than it would be for adults, and therefore families would end up, on a per-person basis, with a little higher amounts. That was the original design that was done around the carbon tax cost-of-living offset. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, absolutely, I can read the numbers. In 2019-2020, the heating fuel rebate is estimated to be $2.4 million. The large emitter rebate will be $3.8 million. The industry trust will be $1.3 million. The rebate for electrical generation is $1 million. The cost-of-living offset benefit is $3.4 million. There will be $0.6 million or $600,000 for administration, and that leaves a total off the total revenues of around $3.5 million that will be going towards the contribution towards the Inuvik wind project. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The total amount is $12.5 million, as the Member noted on page 151. On 152, the grants portion is $11.9 million. The other $600,000 is the administration side of that, the cost. We are proposing to have a couple of positions to help administer the fund, and then we also have to pay the fee to the CRA to do the cost-of-living offset benefit, so we identified for Members when we presented on the carbon tax approach that there would be some administrative cost, and it is $600,000. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It probably won't happen right on April 1st. I think we are doing a staging plan now. We certainly want them all in place by June 1st, but office moves and those sorts of things, as you know, are a little bit complicated. We are getting down into that detailed office layout. We kind of have a rough sense of where everyone is going at this point, and then we will start to get that detailed planning, but we do not want to get too far into the fiscal year without having everybody in the locations they need to get to. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The main estimates reflect the restatement from various departments, but I can provide for the Member a little detail behind that. Sixty-nine of those positions, of the 88 positions for 2019-2020, are transfers from other departments, so it reflects that consolidation. Eleven positions were existing in finance because the office of CIO was already there. As well, we had a couple of these types of position in the department already. There was one position that was re-profiled from existing resources to create another project management position. There was initiative funding...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 65)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe we can provide some additional detail on that, as well, but I will say that I think the Member hit on a couple of big areas. One, the Hay River franchise. They're still going through that process, but there will have to be some borrowing to be done to be able to purchase the assets when the franchise turns over for Hay River. There are two other resource projects that I know they put in a request for proposal. There was a request for proposal to be the power provider for the NICO project, should it proceed. This gives them the capacity, if they were successful in...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 42)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are three positions related to this activity. Two of them are related to the implementation of cannabis sales and distribution, so they will be involved in the review of any vendor applications that we get to open additional locations; they will also be involved in the overall corporate cannabis-related activities; and then, thirdly, to support the future policy changes. The federal government has indicated that there will be some decisions made around things like edibles, for example, within the year, and that will require some additional policy work.

The second...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 42)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As well as a supplementary reserve for infrastructure, we also have one for operations funding, and then there is an estimate that goes into the Main Estimates on how much will be lapsed by departments over the year. As part of the public accounts process, all of that is reconciled, and we will know whether we end up with a different cash position than what was forecast at the time of the main estimates. It is really after the end of the fiscal year, and we get a final accounting of all three of those pots that we will be able to know what the impact would be overall on the...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 42)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, obviously, we're fairly early into days of the legalization. We've done some estimates around the expected volumes for cannabis sales, and, based on the pricing model that was used, we certainly think that it will add to the overall amount that comes back from the revolving fund into general revenues and would be able to cover off these types of expenditures. Thank you, Mr. Chair.