Debates of March 15, 2018 (day 27)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a few things that I am really passionate about; education is one of them, and that's why I always tell the young people, that makes me sound old, but I always tell the young people that we have great student financial assistance in the territory. It has gotten better recently with their Bring It North initiative, which rewards people for coming back to the North, or even if you weren't from the North, moving here. It helps with student loans.

Recently, a lot of people started receiving their T4A slips for one of the initiatives in Northern Bonus. I have some questions on it. People are worried, well, they are not worried, but I mean they are a little concerned that this is something they're going to be taxed on, this loan remission is something they're going to be taxed on, but I would like some clarification from the Minister: is this T4A that the students are receiving from the Department of Education a taxable item? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I believe our program has a lot of incentives for our students who do have a forgiveness loan. We also have zero per cent interest on loans, and the Northern Bonus, as the Member alluded to. Mr. Speaker, because the Northern Bonus is classified as a grant, therefore it is a taxable benefit and recipients are issued actually a T4A slip.

I want to let the Member know that our department is currently reviewing this program, the Northern Bonus program, to determine if there are any alternative ways to provide this benefit without the tax implication on the students. For Members, the Northern Bonus is to try to bring students to the Northwest Territories and they are allotted up to $2,000 per year to pay off their student loans, to a lifetime maximum of $10,000. As I said, we will be reviewing this specific Northern Bonus program to see if there are any changes that we can do to include it without a tax implication. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm glad the department is taking that step to look at this. I understand maybe why it rolled out like this, because this is even offered to people who aren't from the territory, who didn't get SFA, who may have got other student loans, so I can see maybe why this happened. Does the Minister have an idea if this might be changed for the upcoming year?

As I mentioned, we are currently reviewing this Northern Bonus program. Once we get the results and that review completed, I will share it with Members, and most likely it will be put up on our website as well.