Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I spoke earlier today about royalties and transparency around royalties. Mr. Speaker, we know that industry is doing a good job, and they are working with organizations like Publish What You Pay to be a little bit more transparent. We know also that other jurisdictions, provinces, are publishing annual reports on the revenues and benefits that they receive from the mining industry.
I would like to ask the Minister today: will the GNWT publish each year the amounts of royalties and taxes and other payments to governments by companies in the mining and oil and gas sectors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct that we do not do that. The complete number is shared as a whole in our books, but this is a conversation since devolution has taken place that we need to have with all residents of the Northwest Territories.
It's a very important one that we have to take. Royalties directly impact the profitability of these mines, and we know we want to get our fair share, but at the same time, we have to protect the industry that we have in the Northwest Territories so that residents can benefit from these economic opportunities. We will continue to look at this as we move forward. It has been separated out of the Mineral Resource Act because we know this is a very big conversation that needs to take place with the residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. The Minister alluded to the fact that we are undertaking the development of the Mineral Resource Act right now. We have been doing some consulting in regard to that, but more specifically, I am talking about our royalties regime and the taxation regime.
I appreciate that the Minister has indicated that there is some work to be done around that, but I guess the question, then, is: when? When will the government consult with Indigenous governments and the public, for that matter, about the possible change to our taxes and royalties?
We have already had some discussions when we brought the Mineral Resource Act legislation to the intergovernmental council, which looks at lands and resources of the Northwest Territories. The Premier sat down with them, and we have had that discussion. They have agreed with us that we need to pull this out and have a separate conversation about it, and that is why it not a part of the Mineral Resource Act. We want to make sure we get both of these things right, as they are very important to the residents of the Northwest Territories.
There is more than just the royalties side of it. When we have these discussions, people have to look at the whole framework as a whole and consider the fiscal context of this conversation, because there is a lot of misinformation out there. When you start talking about royalties and what these mining companies pay, there is a big difference from one province to province to territory to the other, and there are a lot of things that need to take place.
Again, I appreciate the complexity of this issue. I did not really hear from the Minister as to when they are going to undertake this, but I am going to move ahead for a moment. I think we all recognize that non-renewable resources are very important and the fact that, when we extract them, then that's it. They're gone. I just want to know from the Minister: what work has GNWT done since devolution to evaluate our resource tax and royalty regime to ensure that we are both encouraging development, but also getting our fair share for extraction of publicly-owned resources?
That is exactly what we are doing. As all Members of this House know, we have been moving forward with the Mineral Resource Act since devolution. We want to make this a leading-edge made-in-the-North act that will benefit all Northerners, and in discussions with the intergovernmental council, it was decided that this needs a very detailed comprehensive review of royalty side of things. This is the legislation that we inherited from the federal government. The last time I believe it was updated when it was in their hands was in 2007-2008 roughly. My understanding is most jurisdictions do a 10-year review, but that is not saying that is what we are going to do. We have already said that we want to have a review of this, just that we have separated it out from the Mineral Resource Act, and it has to have its own separate conversation with all residents in industry in the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for the additional information. I guess, then, I would like to ask the Minister about how much it is that we are receiving, and does the Minister feel that it is a fair portion? It is estimated that the NWT receives a little over 20 per cent of the resource revenues. Does the government plan to increase the future revenue rates, or do they think that that 20 per cent is fair as is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can't tell you exactly the percentage that we get. I would have to get the details from the department, but I can reassure Members in this House that we are about right down the middle of the pipe here with the rest of the country, particularly around the regions that surround the Northwest Territories, and as I have said, we have to take into the context, when we have this review, we have to be able to look at the whole picture and bring in everybody to have this conversation, be it, fuel tax, property taxes. The future of carbon tax in the industry. The lack of infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.
We are very fortunate to have the mines that we do have right now, where they can take their commodity out in a suitcase, but as that context rolls out, where do we want to go with this industry in the Northwest Territories? That's a conversation that we're going to have to have in this House, but also with all residents.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
