Michael Miltenberger

With regard to the previous question, over the past five-year period from 2009-2010 to 2013-14, the average payroll tax generated was $38.7 million per year. In 2013-14 the GNWT collected $41.245 million in payroll tax revenue. Thank you.

Seventy-five federal, 25 territorial. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is correct.

I wish to table the following two documents, entitled “Natural Resources Conservation Trust Fund Annual Report 2013-2014” and “Waste Reduction and Recovery Program 2013-2014 Annual Report.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My understanding is that, in fact, not a lot of jurisdictions set themselves up to regulate the mushroom market after fires. So we are looking at some places like, I believe, Alaska, but there aren’t a lot of best practices out there.

The issue of contaminated soils, I have to commit to the Member that I will follow up with the department to see what the intention is in the areas around Yellowknife that the Members have highlighted so that we, in fact, avoid issues if we’re going to get into this in a big way of having one batch of contaminated mushrooms possibly ruin the market for the whole...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are going to build off of the work that was done last summer as we started to mobilize to be more efficient, organized and coordinated with morel mushrooms. Just today we have a legislative proposal to make a modest amendment to the Forestry Act that would give authority to do the work and address some of the issues that the Member raised. That will be making its way to committee. If there is willingness, we can get that operational by May. The Member raises good points about timeliness. We are also at work in terms of policies and regulations, one way or the other...

If the Member can rattle off that name without looking at his paper again, I will commit to looking at that. All joking aside, I will add that to the list that I have to follow up on with the department. Though, I would be interested to see if the Member could actually rattle that name off without looking at that paper.

Mr. Speaker, we believe it’s doable. Whether it will be fully operational with everything that needs to be done is an issue of some debate, but we do commit to getting the work done. We will be better than last year. If we get that legislative change through, it will allow us to really structure ourselves over the next few years as we rewrite the Forestry Act in its entirety. Thank you.

Thank you. I’d have to check Hansard. I understood the question to be that since we’re taking it back over, would we look at the prices and see if we would consider moving it from $45 to $50 and I said yes, we would consider looking at that as we get this back into ENR’s authority. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The prices are set at a five-year rolling average and they’re reviewed every year. However, I’d be happy to sit down and talk to the Member about specifics if he has any dollar figures that he’s looking at. We have to manage the money that’s available to run this program, and the beaver prices are very low at the market values. Thank you.