Thank you. I saw that 40 seconds are left on the clock, and I thought Mr. Miltenberger would run the clock out.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
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.
Could the Finance Minister clarify: they file what with the Government of the Northwest Territories? Contractors who obtain contracts with the mining companies in the Northwest Territories provide those services. They send their employees here to the North to do the work. What is it exactly that they file with the Government of the Northwest Territories that would help us know what the earnings of those workers are?
Mr. Speaker, southern firms that want to work in the North have to of course register in the North. They have to sign up with WCB. We as the government make sure we are aware of who is working in the North.
One of the requirements is that they have to file and notify what earned income is made in the North by workers, and then there is a process. I don’t have the specific detail or sequence or the type of form that is used, but the Government of the Northwest Territories then deals with the southern firms to make sure the remittance that is due to the Northwest Territories is provided.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Time for oral questions has expired; however, I will allow the supplementary questions. Mrs. Groenewegen
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So how do we monitor that? Say if the mine gives a contract to a southern contractor; they have southern employees. I understand what you are saying about Workers’ Compensation. They would have to have that. I would imagine that the mines would not have people on their work site who don’t have Workers’ Compensation, so that may be the measure by which we know these folks are operating in the North.
Do they need anything else besides WCB? Do they need a business licence to operate in the North? How do we monitor it?
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. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So for somebody who wants to do business in the Northwest Territories, where’s the issuing office for a business licence to operate in the Northwest Territories if it’s not a community based operation?
Mr. Speaker, if companies are coming to work and are working through a socio-economic agreement and they’ve been brought in by one of the mines on a contract, then they’re required, through their commitment to us in those agreements, to make sure they’re registered, that they have all the business licences — if they work with us, along with the contractor — to comply with all the rules and regulations of the land.
