Robert Bouchard

Question is being called. Motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next I have on the list Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I’ll have one question about the Hay River Health and Social Services Pension Plan. My colleague was asking about rolling them into the GNWT. I guess the Department of Health is working on this. Do we have knowledge about what other departments, such as Finance, would be involved in the assessment of this, or are we using outside pension people to give us an estimate on what the cost will be?

Like I indicated, I don’t have a problem with the demolition in Inuvik. I’m just wondering what other projects were deferred. What list do we have of this type of project that we selected from and Inuvik was chosen? Were there any other projects that were high on the Public Works and Services list to spend that $900,000?

I’m just wondering: obviously, the Department of Public Works and Services has been able to scramble together the money to do this and I’m not debating the merit of the demolition of this unit. I guess the question is where the money is coming from and how many other departments do we know of that have this type of a surplus sitting waiting for a project that they can transfer to any department or use for themselves. I guess, where are the checks and balances as far as when there is money that hasn’t been accounted for? Where would we see that in a reporting process?

I guess the question is Public Works had the demolition budgeted in this amount, or did they have this in their budget for other things and this is a surplus? If I can get detail where Public Works is finding $1.4 million.

My understanding of this tax is it was created to tax those people who work in the Northwest Territories, but we give those taxes back to the residents of the Northwest Territories. When did the Government of the Northwest Territories change the payroll tax? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Do we actually know how many people in the Northwest Territories, what percentage of people that file taxes get their payroll tax back in any form? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 1993 the Government of the Northwest Territories established the NWT Payroll Tax at 1 percent. In 2005 we upped that percentage to 2 percent. Currently our government collects $42.7 million in payroll tax.

This tax was originally created to tax everybody who worked in the Northwest Territories and then rebate the residents of the Northwest Territories their 2 percent. Since that time, the GNWT has begun to keep that tax from some of the higher paid individuals, higher income earners. We are collecting taxes from out of province, but now were taxing our residents.

In...

I will leave that point for now. My next question is adult and child care in the southern facilities, it seems we have this on an annual basis. I know it’s been talked about in the House, as well, but this is a very expensive cost to the GNWT. I am wondering what we are doing to repatriate some of these individuals or find specialists to come to the Northwest Territories so we can repatriate these individuals.