Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the third time; and, Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 42, An Act to amend the Petroleum Products Tax Act, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think what we need to do is clarify, because I think he is thinking that I said something which I didn't say. Let's read this exactly here again so that everyone is quite clear on it. Confidentiality was identified as an issue, so we chose to tailor this provision to have a positive obligation to circulate the notice to Indigenous governments as a way to demonstrate our commitment to the inherent rights and relationship to the land. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am here to present Bill 43. This, along with Bill 42, is a critical piece of legislation that will allow the Government of the Northwest Territories to meet its carbon pricing commitment under the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change through a carbon tax on all petroleum and natural gas fuels except aviation fuel. The purpose of Bill 43 is to amend the Income Tax Act to partly offset the impact of the carbon tax by providing residents a cost-of-living offset benefit. Bill 43 also includes some administrative changes to non-refundable tax credits...

My apologies; I did say "habitat," and I would assume that "habitat protection" would also be part of that discussion, as well.

We are committed to implementing the new Bathurst Caribou Range Plan, now that it has been approved by Cabinet. The range plan was developed collaboratively with 21 organizations, including Indigenous governments, industry, environmental groups, renewable resource boards, and the federal government.

Again, I have to give a shout-out to Ottawa Aboriginal partners who understand that the preservation of the caribou herd is very important to people across the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a motion that Bill 42 be amended by deleting the schedule set out in the appendix to the bill and substituting the schedule attached to the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I always appreciate the Member's questions on the caribou, because it gives us an opportunity to speak of our dedication to the preservation of the caribou across the Northwest Territories, because they are very important to our existence. We have to do what we can to protect them.

Having said that, I did say that we met with the Nunavut Minister. I appreciate their dedication to the preservation of the caribou herds across the north, because they are very important to their people as well. We did ask our officials to initiate some technical discussions on the proposed...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with you. Alberta is a different jurisdiction than ours. We have been doing the work on our particular one. To say that, giving the heads-up on the motion, I have been discussing it with committee, and I think that we did ask committee if they would be willing to move the motion to change the implementation date as we went through clause-by-clause. I take issue with the fact the Member keeps saying that these things are being sprung on us in surprise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We will have to have those discussions with our co-management partners, because, as we know, a number of years ago, they implemented the grizzly bear tags because there was a lot of hunting of grizzly bears, but it seems like it has done what it is supposed to do and brought the population back up. We will have to have those discussions with our co-management partners to see if they would be receptive to maybe increasing the amount of tags. We will have those discussions and see where that takes us.

September 1st, Mr. Chair.