Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Finance and Health will be working together on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The payroll tax is administered under the Payroll Tax Act and is levied at the rate of 2 percent of employment earnings. The low-income earners get back the tax when they file. The question is in earners; as well, the answer is that the payroll tax is non-refundable. Although the refundable cost of living tax credit was introduced at the same time as a payroll tax, it is viewed as an offset to the payroll tax. The cost of living tax credit is calculated on the basis of net income and can be claimed by tax filers regardless of whether payroll tax is paid. Thank you.

The Member is correct, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

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.

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...

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.