Inuvik Boot Lake

Statements in Debates

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill 10 be amended by adding the following after clause 5:

5.1 Paragraph 3.3(5)(a) is amended by striking out "breakdown of their marriage" and by substituting "breakdown of their marriage or common-law partnership". Thank you.

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will look into those specific problems in that area. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I stated in my opening comments with our act, if there are sections that are not mirrored or tied to the federal act, we would have to pay Canada Revenue Agency for dealing with those differences. That is why we are falling in line; and that would be the same with every other jurisdiction. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m aware of the file that the Member has spoken of and I can inform him, and I think he’s aware, that that file has been taken care of and information has been sent out. As for why it took 13 calls, I can’t speak to that specifically. I haven’t asked for that information from the department. I was aware that the file was being looked at and being dealt with. Unfortunately, as I was saying, as a result of creating the human resource service centres, we have found a large backlog of files that were not being dealt with when all departments had control of...

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this section is dealing with special provisions that were in the federal legislation that we had mirrored. Federal legislation has removed that section and now we are just following up and removing that from ours. There were never any special provisions for trappers under the federal Income Tax Act. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, higher fuel costs are a concern for northerners and a concern for this government. As Minister of Finance today, I would like to provide some detail about how our tax system affects fuel pricing.

The GNWT does not set or regulate the price of gas or other fuel products. The petroleum products division supplies 15 NWT communities on a full-cost recovery basis but does not set the initial price.

There is no GNWT tax on home heating fuel.

There is no GNWT tax on natural gas.

There is no GNWT tax on propane, whether it is used to heat homes or power...

Debates of , (day 9)

Yes, I would like to have my witnesses present.

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll do that right now. I’ll apologize for the department in dealing with employees. We have timelines, we set our goals high to try to meet those timelines and, unfortunately, because of the work we’ve done around the corporate human resource service centres and pulling the staff together, some of the files have had to sit a little bit until we’ve had the staff in their new positions to deal with that. As well, as I was saying, because of this and pulling everybody in under one roof, it’s become much clearer now that there have been many files that...

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our relationship with our employees clearly set out their requirements in the employee handbook that we have in place with employees. As for an actual policy how we deal with those that are retiring from the government, again much of that comes out of the actual union agreements we have in place, years of service and so on. I’ll have to go back to the department to see if we have a specific policy in place for dealing specifically with retirements. I don’t believe we do have. We operate with the union agreements we have in place in how we deal with our...

Debates of , (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been doing the work necessary to bring this facility back online. We’ve had a structural engineer look at it. We have a plan together to repair the issues that have caused it to close this year. The concern was about lateral bracing. Because the foundation was in such poor shape, there was concern it would not withstand an earthquake event that may happen. Inuvik is considered to be in an active area or active zone for earthquakes, so that was one of the main considerations taken. The work has been ongoing and is almost complete in that...