Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will deliver the Budget Address on Wednesday, March 17, 2004. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As required by Section 32.1(2) of the Financial Administration Act, I wish to table the following document entitled List of Interactivity Transfers for the Period April 1, 2003, to January 19, 2004. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for that question. It’s an area that has been a bit of an issue through a number of Assemblies from the day the payroll tax was put in place. Many northern businesses felt that it was an added cost to them. The government itself wanted to ensure that we tried to encourage employees who were working from other jurisdictions to live in the Northwest Territories so we could benefit in a number of ways by them taking up residence in the Northwest Territories, and also to encourage businesses to hire northern residents and put them into gainful...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, I would be glad to sit down and look at the information provided. We are, as government, looking at a whole number of options to enhance our budget or look at creating and stimulating some development in the Northwest Territories, provided that we do not lose from our revenue base and impact other programs and services that we deliver as a government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated, the government is going to have to look at the whole expenditure side, as well as the revenue side, to try to come up with a balance of how much debt we’re going to carry and go forward from there. Mr. Speaker, there are some options that are out there that we can look at. Mr. Speaker, our problem right now is that we don’t have enough revenues to deal with our fiscal situation. So we’re going to have to look at how we can come up with revenues, and if Mr. Allen has some suggestions for areas that we can look at that would create some more...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To address and do audits, it would come down to follow-up on that kind of information. If in fact there are a large number of people at one residence, it's something that would trigger an enquiry and is it in fact being used by a multiple number of people who fly in and use that address as a mailbox. That's something that has been raised in this Assembly. We don't have right now something that we can pull out besides more inspections or more audits on files.

The other side of it is if we are going to enhance that area, I would have to look at increasing staffing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would gladly meet with Members of this House in their communities or in committees to discuss options that are available to us as government that could enhance the programs and services we have available or lessen the impact of the cost of living in the Northwest Territories. At the same time, we must look at the whole picture as a government and see what balance we can strike. I would gladly meet with the Member and discuss the initiatives he’s discussed and see how we can move those along. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Definitely, I would be interested in looking at our tax policies and see how they could spur some further economic development, for example, or how they could impact on social wellbeing of residents of the Northwest Territories. But we must also understand that there’s a cost to doing some of these things and because our revenue base isn’t a very large one, those have an immediate impact on other programs and services. I’m willing to look at tax solutions out there that could lessen the impact to the residents of the Northwest Territories, but at the same time we must...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide an update on our budgetary process and some brief comments on our fiscal situation. Despite the fact that the NWT is one of the fastest-growing economies in Canada, the Government of the NWT is facing a growing gap between its expenditures and revenues. Resource development is placing large pressures on our expenditures. We need to provide infrastructure, we need to prepare the people of the NWT so they see a positive benefit from development, and we need to counter the less positive effects of development which can cause social disruption in our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do everything in my power to ensure under my watch that we do not get into another scenario of pay equity that has cost the Government of the Northwest Territories millions over the years. Thank you.

---Applause