Thanks, Mr. Chair. Great to get that Valentine's gift from the Minister of Finance. Is there not somewhere in the business plan or in the main estimates that that total can be shown? We have got “liquor revolving fund presentation” as an information item in the main estimates, but something as fundamental as the Heritage Fund, I have to ask on an annual basis what the balance is. I am sure I could go and check in the public accounts, but, by the time we get the public accounts, they are more than a year old.
Is there not some way that we can show what the balance in the fund is through a footnote or a presentation in the business plan somewhere? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I take the Member's point, and I have had this question, I think, the last two budgets we have gone through. I will make the commitment that the balance of the Heritage Fund will show up in the business plans and the main estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for that commitment. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that commitment. I am the guy who keeps raising it and bugging you about it, so, yes, if we can find a way to do that, that would be great. One of our mandate commitments is that we are going to look at the Heritage Fund Act legislation. Concerns have been raised around making sure that there is a legislatively defined revenue stream into the fund and that there is some greater role for the public in terms of governance. Where are we at with the legislation? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Stewart.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think we are in a position to be able to come to standing committee now and talk about the options that might be available to us. I think the option that we will probably be recommending to the Minister is related to looking at the types of investments that are currently set out and then possibly getting some external help with the management side of that. When the Heritage Fund was set up, it was very conservative in terms of the types of things. You look at other funds, including some that are operated by the Legislative Assembly, that allow much more, I do not want to say “risky,” but certainly the potential for more growth. We think we can follow that model, and that extra revenue that we would generate would be more than enough to offset the cost of getting some external help on the management side.
We think that is probably the way to go in terms of improving the operation and making sure we are getting maximum value without taking too great a risk on the Heritage Fund. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I appreciate that. Is that conversation going to start with standing committee sometime in the next two or three months? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. We will come before standing committee within the next two or three months. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that, and I look forward to the discussion. Is this the place where I can ask about the Northern Resident Tax Deduction, which I know is a federal income tax area, but is this where I can ask questions around indexing of that deduction? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Is this the appropriate section, Mr. Stewart? Mr. Stewart has nodded in approval, as has the Minister. Mr. O'Reilly, do you have a question about that?
Thanks, Mr. Chair. They know what I am going to ask. Every year I come back, and I ask the same things: what are we doing about indexing the Northern Resident Tax Deduction, and what are we doing about the continuing frustration of NWT residents about audits of our travel receipts and so on? CRA will not set what the lowest northern air fare is. People have to try to guess it on an annual basis, and then we get audited.
What are we doing about those issues? I keep coming back and asking. I know the Minister says he is working on it, but what we need is for the Minister to put pen to paper and write a letter to the Minister responsible for CRA and say, "Fix this," and tell her how to do it. What are we actually doing on these two matters? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.
HON. ROBERT MCLEOD: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to the Member's point
I am going to turn it over to Mr. Stewart to touch on the second part of the Member's question if I may, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Stewart.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Member pointed out around the travel and the audits, we certainly have had several discussions with CRA about that. I am sure the Member is aware that they have proposed a solution, but it will take some time to implement that. We have followed up with them to see if there are things that we could expedite to move those changes or other options around some of the suggestions that have been made to maybe make that an easier process, but it is a federal program. We will continue to push, but, at the end of the day, the federal government will have to decide what they are going to do with that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I did have some correspondence with the Minister about that on this very topic, particularly around the audits. Maybe I could just ask: what exactly is it that the federal government has to change to be able to set the value at a fixed amount or index a fixed amount for the air fares? What exactly do they have to fix? Is it a regulation? Is it a policy? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Stewart.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I believe those are set in regulation, but I would have to confirm that. That is my understanding is that it is a regulation and under the federal system, but we will confirm that, and we can get back to the Member on that.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. O'Reilly, nothing from you? Next, Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my questions are about the NWT Child Benefit, which is referenced on page 153 and on page 154. Mr. Chair, in November, Alternatives North had an economist recalculate the living wage for Yellowknife, and it also included the additional benefits that have been offered to families by both the NWT and Canada in the form of child benefits. The result of that work was that the family with two income earners did not qualify for the child benefit because the threshold for receiving the benefits was too low, and that is in spite of the fact that the income that this calculation was based on was a very modest income. My question is whether the Minister would consider raising the threshold on the NWT Child Benefit from $80,000 to $100,000, again, on the prorated basis that it exists today? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Stewart.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Member noted, we did make the changes and increased the eligibility for the NWT Child Benefit. So far, since those changes have been made, there has been an average of 2,200 or so, approximately 2,200, families receiving that benefit. Prior to that, there were about 1,493 families, so there are about 700 more families who are now receiving that benefit than were previously. Obviously there would be costs with increasing the threshold level that would have to be considered along with other priorities, but there has been a significant expansion in terms of the number of families that are covered under the NWT Child Benefit. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Green.
Thank you. Thank you for that response. It is true that it is more widely available, but the point I am making is that this family of four, which this living wage calculation was based on, had an income of $92,000 so they did not qualify for the NWT Child Benefit, and I am sure any of us sitting here can appreciate that $92,000 annual income for a family of four is not a fortune. What I am asking is whether the Department of Finance can provide an estimate of the cost of raising the threshold to $100,000 so that we can consider what that will cost? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I can commit to having the department do a review and see how many more people might take it, some statistics if we raised it to $100,000. Again, you know, this is going to be another cost driver. Another one of the reasons we need to look at trying to generate more of our own source revenues is so that we can pay for particular programs like this, but we will do the work, and, once we get the data available or get the analysis done, we will sit down with committee and have a discussion with them on the way forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, I appreciate the Minister's commitment to do the research on that. I also agree with him that we need to find ways to generate more own-source revenue to pay for this and other things that will increase the wellbeing of the residents of the NWT. Leaving that segment aside, I am going to move on now to the corporate and administration costs of the deputy secretary of FMB. I note that costs have gone up by almost $1 million this year, and I am wondering what the reason for that is? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the increase was due to the amortization of the fibre line. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see that the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link is listed separately underneath, so what the Minister is saying is that these corporate and administration costs relate directly to that fibre line and not to anything else; is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the $13 million that you see there is the annual payment to the partnership that built the fibre optic line, and the other figure you see is the amortization of that amount. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Nothing further from Ms. Green. Next, I have Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am looking at the cost-of-living tax credit on page 154, and the amounts look to be stable between this year and the last fiscal year, but a decrease from the actuals in 20162017, so I am just wondering what was the cause of that decrease? Obviously, it is fewer people receiving the benefit, but does this number only change when fewer people are drawing from it, thus representing fewer people in the Territories as a total? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct. There are fewer people collecting this, and so that is why there was a decrease in the numbers. Thank you. I am not sure why that is. I do not know if people have left the territories, which he alluded to, but we will have to find that out. I doubt that is what it is. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Testart.
I would hate to start speculating, but does the Minister have any other suggestions for what it could be? It just seems like, if everyone is eligible for this tax benefit, then, if we are paying less into it, it must mean there are fewer people in the territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I mean, we can commit to doing an analysis once the year is over, but, again, the Member and I are both speculating that it would be fewer people filing income tax, fewer people working, but we will do the work and get the analysis done, and we will share it with the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Minister. For the NWT Child Benefit, now that it has been increased, which I greatly support, the data that has been increased, we see that it has gone up to $2.2 million, and that number is again staying consistent. Is all of the cash going out to as many people as it can, or are there some people who are not benefitting from it because they are not filing taxes? Do we have an uptake problem, or is this just as good as it is going to get for lower income people out there? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Stewart.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. It is a benefit that is done through the income tax system, same as the Canada Child Benefit. There is always concern with the filing rates, and we keep a pretty close eye on that. I can say that, by all reasonable sort of analyses based on population estimates and those sorts of things, we believe that it is certainly over 95 per cent that we are picking up. We can't know with absolute certainty around that because, obviously, population estimates are estimates, as well, but it appears like we have got pretty good coverage.
One of the areas that we do work with the CRA on, though, is: how do we do a better job making sure that residents understand that filing your income tax return is not just about the income tax but that it also lets you become eligible for a whole bunch of other benefits that are important, as well? We work with the CRA to get that information in the hands of people like the GSOs and those sorts of things to make sure we are getting the filing rates that we need. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
