Merci, Monsieur le President. I'd like to ask some questions of the Minister of Finance about the renewal of our territory formula funding arrangement. Buried on page 317 of the federal budget, there is this set of curious numbers and so on. It says, "Proposed renewal of equalization and territorial formula funding for a five-year period, with technical changes to improve accuracy and efficiency of calculation of entitlements," and so on. So this seems to indicate that our territory formula funding arrangement is going to be renewed for another five years, as is. I'm just wondering if the Minister of Finance can shed any light on what this commitment from the federal government is all about? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in this year's federal budget, they announced that we were going to get an additional $1.7 million toward our formula financing as a result of the negative impacts of the review of the territorial formula financing that they just completed. The current deal expires on April 9th. The Member is correct. We are getting renewed for the next five years, and my understanding is for the next five years we should get incremental increases, actually, to our budget, to offset the negative impacts of the review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'd like to thank the Minister for that. I'm just worried about the renewal of the agreement for another five years. There are issues here in terms of the carbon pricing. There is a commitment from the federal government to ensure that any impacts on the TFF with respect to carbon pricing are going to be dealt with. We know that we don't get to keep enough of our own source revenues under the TFF, so I would like to ask the Minister of Finance if there is still going to be an opportunity to make further changes for the funding arrangement with regard to carbon pricing and own source revenues:
In my response to the questions to Members previous, I had talked about the carbon pricing and the effect it might have on the territorial formula of financing. Part of the discussions that we will have with Ottawa is on how that may affect our territorial formula of financing. I know we have had commitment from the federal government that they were going to recognize the uniqueness of the North, so we are hoping they take that into consideration. As we proceed into those discussions, again, I will commit to keeping Members updated on the discussions that we have. On the own source revenue, we keep all our own source revenue except for the resource royalties, which we just started receiving a few years ago. A part of that goes back to Canada. We get a portion of that, but all the other own source revenue, we keep within the territorial government.
I would like to thank the Minister for that. My understanding was, and look, I'm not an expert on the territorial formula funding arrangement, but my understanding was that, if we introduce a new tax, we get to keep the revenues from that for the first three years and then it gets rolled into our base and sort of clawed back through the arrangement. Is there going to be the ability to change that sort of provision of the arrangement, so that we get to keep more of our own source revenues in the future?
Again, I'm positive that we get to keep all of the revenue that we generate, but I will confirm that and have a conversation with the Member. I have raised in the last Finance Ministers' meeting that our concern about the impact on some of the technical changes that they have, and so I have started those discussions with the federal Finance Minister. I'm sure that we get to keep all of the revenue that we generate. Again, I will confirm that and if I was wrong, then I will let the Member know.
Thank you. Final question. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to get a briefing. I think the standing committee should probably get a briefing on the formula funding arrangement pretty soon so we better understand this, but even with regard to, say, the resource revenues that we get to keep under the devolution agreement, there was an independently commissioned study by the Department of ITI that said that that arrangement wasn't the greatest and that we should be able to keep more of those sorts of revenues as a result of changes that could be made to the territorial formula funding arrangement and maybe the devolution agreement. Is the Minister aware of opportunities there are going to be to renegotiate other provisions of the territorial formula arrangement if it's renewed for five years? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
On the resource royalty revenues, I mean, we started receiving those revenues at devolution before that were a number of years before that; I don't believe we got any revenue at all from the resources that were extracted from the Northwest Territories. It was a long time coming, and it's a start. I hope we will continue to see that pile of money increase in the future, which would mean that there would be more jobs in the Northwest Territories.
Again, the Member makes a good point, though. The territorial formula financing that we have with the federal government is quite complex. There are a number of different components to it. If it's a wish of committee, I would be glad to provide them with a briefing, be it a written briefing or an in-person brief, a technical briefing, and then we can all understand the territorial formula financing. My understanding, again, is that we get to keep all of our own source revenue that we generate. Otherwise, why would be raise taxes or anything like that if we are not able to keep it? Again, I will have that discussion with committee and we will see as we go forward that we are all better informed on the territorial formula financing agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
