Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we’ve been doing, building on the discussions we’ve had to date, is as a result of the election, the direction we’re going, putting out our budget, the Premier is meeting with the regional leaders across the North to discuss some of the strategies we may engage to put our issues at the forefront for the new federal government. That is the latest situation we’re facing and working towards. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to proceed with first reading of Bill 18, Appropriation Act, 2006-2007.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure today to introduce in the gallery my wife and daughter. My wife, Shawna, and my daughter, Courtney.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has referenced cooking and so on and so forth. I guess one could say there's a new chef in the kitchen now when it comes to the new government in place. We need to get an understanding from where they may come from initially. From that, we will know how much we'll have to push and how much harder.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, as Minister of Finance for the Northwest Territories, and I look down in our fiscal forecast, if we do not get the changes that were requested, and ultimately those changes can be made and should be made in Ottawa because they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess there are all types of avenues one can consider to the point of taking our tents and setting them up on the front lawns of Parliament, but, more realistically, what we need to do and we have been doing, but we are going to have to enhance it more, is how we have got the message out there. We have a business case. We believe our business case is an adequate one and it’s clear that we have delivered the message to Ottawa about our fiscal situation in the Northwest Territories in the unique situations we encounter being this far north and the conditions that we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First and foremost, the message today being sent to the companies doing business in the Northwest Territories is, don’t shift your payments out of our jurisdictions. Keep them in the Northwest Territories and continue to look at filing in the Northwest Territories for those companies who do business in the North. The tax arrangements in Canada allow flexibility for where they can file their income. Ultimately the message today is being sent to companies in the Northwest Territories to file their tax in the Northwest Territories because we will be as competitive with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess we should provide a little bit of background because as we sat down initially as Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly, our fiscal picture was significantly different, as well as our arrangement with Ottawa on the formula financing, which had attached to it the tax effort adjustment factor. In that case, we would be penalized. As we look at transfer payments across Canada, there’s a measurement done on tax across jurisdictions. We were deemed to not be taxing our residents and businesses comparable to the rest of Canada in some areas. If we had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we proceed the next few weeks through the budget process, we’ll be able to show how already the money that we received from Canada and our own sources, that we are spending it across the board to deal with all individuals in the Northwest Territories. More importantly, on the work that’s going ahead now on the Mackenzie gas project, our involvement from the broad perspective of all the residents of the Northwest Territories is going to go through our representations of the JRP, or Joint Review Panel, as well as NEB, the National Energy Board, and what we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the debt situation that we face is a serious one and a critical one for the Northwest Territories. It’s an issue that we’ve raised before. The reason why we developed our fiscal responsibility policy is to show our counterparts in Ottawa, with federal Finance, that we can deal with the issues given the right tools. So we need to continue to work with the federal government and push it, and push hard, to have them remove that debt limit because, ultimately, when you look at what’s before us, the repayment of the 2002 corporate tax overpayment from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the relationship we have built to this date with the aboriginal governments and groups across the North has been a positive one and growing, and I think with the spirit and intent of that in place, the Premier is having his discussions with the leaders about where we need to go, the next steps that need to be taken. So they’re involved. We feel they’re important to the development of the Northwest Territories as we look further down the road to self-government agreements that come in place and are enacted. Thank you.