Everybody who works in the North pays payroll tax, except for the self-employed. Then what we do is refund through the cost of living program to Northerners. So folks who don’t live in the North pay the 2 per cent, and that comes back to the government.

As I committed to in the House yesterday, we’re going to pull together the information. We do have policies as they pertain to print advertising for jobs and such. We’ll share that with the committee as we move forward into the business planning process and as we look at the upcoming business plans, which are going to contain expenditure reductions for the coming year. Then, yes, we can have that discussion. We can try to make sure that we give the clearest political direction as a Legislature as to how we think these dollars can best be spent and at what level of expenditure.

Mr. Speaker, over time there has been. There have been checks to see how we advertise jobs in different newspapers. There have been attempts to centralize that type of work to save costs, of course. There is great consternation at the community level among the community newspapers and regional newspapers when they get cut out of the advertising business.

Clearly, there is a pressure for us to communicate and consult with our constituents across the land. The tendency is, as we look at saving money, to say, “Let’s just try to advertise in the News/North, because everybody reads the News/North.”...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, October 6, 2008, I will move that Bill 20, Supplementary Appropriation Act No. 2, 2008–2009, be read for the first time.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That suggestion has been made. We believe, as the Member does, that there is potential there. That matter is currently under review to see how we could do that to meet all our obligations and to put a cost on not doing it as opposed to doing it electronically to make sure that we have the proper records and such. That is a suggestion that we think is a good one.