Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given the increasing cost of heating our homes and the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, wood pellet heating is an economically and environmentally friendly alternative. This week, October 3 to 4, the Arctic Energy Alliance, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is hosting the Wood Pellet Fair in the Greenstone Building in Yellowknife.

Wood pellets are a Canadian renewable resource made from forest industry waste wood and are used in wood pellet stoves, boilers and furnaces. Burning at a very high temperature, wood...

When they register in the North, they have to have a business licence to work in the North. They have to sign up with WCB. We know where their offices are — they are not necessarily in Yellowknife; it could be in Camrose — and we follow the process to get the money that is owed to the Northwest Territories, as I have indicated. But once they come to the North, they have to have all the requirements that any other firm does to work in the North. We use those processes to make sure the Government of the Northwest Territories gets remitted to it what is owing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Firms from the south are required to file their earned incomes for the employees who are working in the North. Then the Government of the Northwest Territories deals with the southern company to make sure the payroll tax is remitted to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we have before us the challenge of cost of living in the Northwest Territories, one of the costs we all bear. But every country, every other jurisdiction is also facing the rising cost of energy. The market forces are hurricanes in the Gulf. In Yellowknife it’s freeze-up and breakup; those are two of the forces that affect the cost. There are free market factors here. We don’t have government levers that allow us to involve ourselves in that market, nor do I think we would really want to — rack prices and all those types of things.

I will honour the commitment to provide the...

Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to point out that only Alberta and the Yukon have on highway gasoline tax rates lower than the NWT, and only Alberta and the Yukon have lower diesel rates. We haven’t touched our fuel taxes since 1997. Five other jurisdictions currently have regulation, with what could only be called mixed success.

The Conference Board of Canada has determined that while there may be some initial benefits, the long-term benefits are not there. In fact, in PEI, for example, in spite of all their regulation they end up with the highest before tax gasoline prices in Canada. In 2005, for...

Every worker who works for a wage in the Northwest Territories pays the payroll tax, including the migrant workers, as referred to by the Member. They take with them the rest of the pay they make, and they file their income tax in the jurisdiction where they reside, which is one of the major concerns we have, of course, as a Legislature and as a government: that revenue is not here. They’re not living in the North. They don’t have houses. They’re not paying local taxes. They’re not paying income tax, and they’re not supporting the northern infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a 2 per cent payroll tax, which was designed with the goal of trying to in fact be able to recoup some of the money that the fly in/fly out workers are taking with them as they head back to the other jurisdictions where they live.

We’re going to be starting the business planning process, and Members will have an opportunity to comb through the plans of each department. We are looking for efficiencies; we are looking for savings; we want to control our costs; we want value for money. At the same time, we want to be able to communicate in the best way possible using as many local resources as we can. That is a discussion we’re prepared to have across the board so that there are no sacred cows, as it were, or Ministers or departments. We’re prepared to look at all that through the business planning process.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the value of the printed word is very important as part of the way we communicate. The actual dollar figure, in terms of how much we advertise and what our printing costs are, I don’t have with me today. But I will commit to getting the best numbers we can for the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next collective bargaining is going to be in the next number of months with the UNW. I understand they have to go through their convention and election process, and then right after that we’re all gearing up for that round of collective bargaining. If we assume that the length of the agreement will be similar to the one we settled with NWTTA, it would be possibly a four year agreement, which means it wouldn’t come this way again until sometime in the life of the 17th Assembly.

As I’ve indicated to Ms. Bisaro, if there’s a better way to book and account for the money...