Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I say I wasn't expecting the question, I don't necessarily have the policy documents in front of me. I certainly wouldn't want to mislead anyone with respect to what was the specifics of the policy.

As far as the $750, again, firstly, these were efforts being made in response to emergencies and often by staff who themselves had been evacuated and were under somewhat difficult conditions. We were making an effort at the time, I believe with respect to the evacuation payment, to align with the income disruption payment that had been decided upon earlier...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is arguably more convenient for residents to not have to pay the tax at the front end and to simply then to have that exempted from them rather than to have to get the rebate. That was certainly the source of much debate at the last time. And so given that that's now the approach that's being taken by many other jurisdictions due to the federal government's change, we were prepared to offer the same type of approach under our system so that the tax rebate or the tax itself on heating oil is not to be paid, won't have to be paid at the front end, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, firstly, the carbon tax rebates goes to those who are tax filers. So I would encourage everyone, even if they're getting rebates, even if they don't think they have to pay taxes on whatever they're receiving, they should be filing their taxes or at least filing a notice of tax with the government, and then that would give them, first of all, access to these rebates and, I believe, probably others, such as the child care or child rebates. But, Mr. Speaker, what the carbon tax offset payments by the Government of the Northwest Territories does is there's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, again, Mr. Speaker, some people are finding that if they've sent incorrect banking information or if the banking information has been sent or has been inputted incorrectly as I've noted, so there may be a time where a payment doesn't get issued or that it's been delayed, so again, yes, in those instances, someone wouldn't receive a payment. They then there is a notification email and phone number that folks can make contact with to confirm whether or not they have been had their payment issued or whether or not their payment has gone through. In those cases, those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure which question to start with. I wasn't expecting them today. I am receiving quite a number of inquiries, and we are working through each one with respect to this program. This was a program that we started up quite at the last minute in the midst of the evacuations. And building on the last exchange that the Premier just spoke to, we were faced with an unprecedented situation and we're doing our best to try to create a program to support individual residents in the midst of our own staff having been evacuated in most cases.

So I am aware that there's quite a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't change the cost of fuel. I can only impact on the costs of the tax and rebates for the tax. And to that extent, our rebate system was taking into account the higher costs of the tax. So the rebate system we design in fact more than paid for the average cost of impact of carbon tax on average residents in the Northwest Territories. Anyone that paid or filed their taxes saw that rebate in October, saw a rebate again in January, and they will see another rebate coming in April adjusted with the heating fuel impacts here.

So, Mr. Speaker, we aren't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, home heating fuel will also be exempt in the Northwest Territories as it is now being allowed by the federal government for us to do so. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly I can provide those numbers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the income disruption support payment, that was the first one that was provided and that was really meant to be an opportunity, really, just to acknowledge the fact that individuals who had been evacuated at that time may be in situations where they didn't have anything to provide some of their daytoday costs and to sort of mitigate some of those daytoday costs. $750 was we were looking at we certainly did do a jurisdictional scan of what was going offered elsewhere. It was very clear at that time that very few jurisdictions, indeed I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our residents were already receiving a much higher rebate than what many residents in other parts of the country were. What we did in our system was, and what we understood would not have been offered had we come under the federal modeling, was to zone the three types of rebates that were being received. And under the home heating oil tax situation, that meant that those living in zone C who were really in some of the communities that are the most remote, most rural, they would have been receiving a much higher benefit to account for the fact that the...