Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Transportation. I understand the Department of Transportation is currently putting through a new vehicle registration system. I’m curious: is that new system capable of facilitating a tiered vehicle registration rate system?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new vehicle system we’re about to implement into the department’s main office here to upgrade our system…. I’ll have to get back to the Member regarding the capabilities in terms of upgrading to a two-tier system.
I hear the Member’s comments on how we could benefit people in the North in terms of carbon emissions and vehicle registration. I will certainly take his comments into consideration and pass that on to the deputy to work with the Member regarding his suggestion as to our vehicle registration system.
I look forward to finding out whether that system is actually capable of doing a tiered system.
Obviously, the reason I ask is I think it’s time for us to re-examine how we do registration rates in the Northwest Territories. Currently we have one rate. All vehicles are the same. If you look at other jurisdictions, like I said in my Member’s statement, some jurisdictions use different systems such as carbon emissions, mileage or gross vehicle weight.
I was wondering if I can get the Minister responsible for Transportation to commit to exploring the possibilities and conducting some research into tiered vehicle registration systems to see which one would be the most appropriate for the Northwest Territories in order to help us help consumers make more productive, environmentally responsible, choices when it comes to purchasing and registering motor vehicles.
Mr. Speaker, certainly the Member raises some very interesting, good ideas in terms of our service and what we can do to help the consumers in terms of the carbon emissions in relation to their issue with the vehicle registration. I will be happy to sit down with the Member to talk with him and bring forth other ideas we could implement in our new system to help our consumers in the Northwest Territories with the vehicle registration system.
I look forward to sitting down with the Minister to talk about a tiered vehicle registration system.
I guess the one question I need to know before we move any further forward on that is: what is the timeline on implementing the new registration system for vehicles? Is it something that’s going to happen in the next two, three, six months, or is it something scheduled for a year or two down the road?
Mr. Speaker, if all things go according to plan, we hope that within less than two years we would have our system iron out the kinks, iron out the things we need to have a smooth transition of our new vehicle registration system.
Also, this will allow us some time to have some discussion. I have heard about the two-tier system for some time. I have talked to my deputy about it and asked if it’s possible. Anything is possible in terms of ideas that would enhance our program and certainly enhance the ability of our consumers to reduce some of the carbon emissions in the North here.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
