Floyd Roland

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...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will deliver the budget address on Thursday, February 2, 2006. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Friday, February 3, 2006, I will move that Bill 18, Appropriation Act, 2006-2007, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our fiscal responsibility policy that we put forward to the federal government, and how we deal with the federal government, is based on their terms that this overpayment situation has occurred. They're aware of it; they have the repayment plan that affects every jurisdiction. It's the same plan. It's a three-year plan, and it's also based on your population, of how much is repaid on an annual basis until the third year, which is coming up in the next fiscal cycle we have.

Everything we do is processed in accordance with the rules, and so on. So I think...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for that awe-inspiring question.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, this issue is not a new one. We've been trying to deal with this, and how we can deal with our federal counterparts around this issue. We have looked at a number of issues around our fiscal policy, and what we've looked at putting forward is a fiscal responsibility policy that would look at the overall fiscal situation of the government, our ability to borrow and finance that borrowing.

The issue of the overpayment itself, as the Member stated, was a decision made by a previous...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I won’t be following on my colleague’s statement about student financial assistance.

---Laughter

Instead, with it being Friday and knowing that the Pages that have been serving us here in this House for the last week are from Inuvik, I thought I would just recognize their efforts and the time they have spent with us. I have heard from many Members how they liked the service they provided, and how polite they are. That shows you that the students from Inuvik are representing their community well here. I would like to recognize the six Pages we have here. Both Mr...