Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We worked with Canada; we understood there are processes, and the process we had to go through, we had not been able to deal with this in June, and the July 1st implementation was the original date, so we worked with Canada and they understood that, after this particular session, we might have been in a position where the September 1st deadline would apply. I'm not too concerned about -- I'll stop there, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the implementation date is a crucial factor of this, which is why I'm raising these concerns. I also have concerns with the clarity provided in Tabled Document 497-18(3). It seems that the differences between these letters, Tabled Document 497-18(3) does more to support the government's position than the original piece of correspondence sent out, and the Minister did confirm that he directed his staff to bring forward amendments to that correspondence. I think it's highly leading that that exchange took place and that that is the letter that was, in fact, tabled before the House. It impedes our ability to properly debate the coming-into-force date. Northerners have not been consulted on this plan. Northerners have had no say in this plan, Regular Members have had no say in this plan, and that is why this is a crucial component of when this comes forward. I am not convinced by the arguments that have been put forward, and I think that we need to give our citizens more time to weigh in on this crucial decision for our economy and not leave it up to governments, both the federal government and the GNWT, to decide on the future of this plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let's just be very clear on something. I did direct my staff to reach out to Canada and work with them on further clarification at the wish of committee. I have done that.
To the Member's comment about the people of the Northwest Territories not having an opportunity to comment on this, well, first of all, this piece of legislation was given second reading in March and given to committee. They have had six months. They determined that they weren't going to take it on the road, and that would not allow the people of the Northwest Territories to comment on this critical piece of legislation. Through the process that we went through in our public engagement and doing a "what we heard" document, we heard from residents of the Northwest Territories, and I believe that one of the Members quoted from it the other day. Of course, they weren't happy with the proposed tax, but I think that, in most cases, they were more concerned with addressing the cost of living, and I think that we have done that.
It is unfair to blame the department for committee's failure to bring this out on the road. I think that there was a public news release that they had sent out a little while ago, and people have not had the opportunity to tell them exactly how they feel because they didn't give them that. We couldn't. We did our public engagement, but beyond that, it was in the hands of committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Further? Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to clarify that I am in no way implicating the department in my criticism. I am criticizing this Minister for his approach to carbon tax and his willingness to engage or not engage. The cost of living issues are well-canvassed, but I did some number-crunching today and after the GNWT's plan is fully implemented, a family of four will receive $1,120 versus the federal backstop rebate under climate change incentive payments of $1,200. The federal plan is more generous in the form of personal rebates based on known information. I think that it is misleading to say that we did the best job that we possibly could do. Furthermore, committee tabled a lengthy report explaining our consultation process and how the information that Northerners most care about, namely how the plan would work, was not allowed to be shared with the public due to confidentiality concerns.
We can cherry-pick the facts as much as we want, but what we have before us today is a process that was pushed directly onto the Legislative Assembly without the same kind of cooperative, collaborative approach that other bills have had and that other committees and the working relationship between committees and the government that have been enjoyed in other major pieces of legislation. Those comments speak for themselves. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. A wide-ranging conservation on this clause. With 38 seconds of the Member's time remaining, the Minister would like to respond. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the time. We started working with committee in June of 2017, and it is misleading to tell the public that the federal approach is superior to ours. The Member failed to mention that our point-of-sale rebate on heating fuel, the rebate at the point of purchase, is an additional $400-something per household in the Northwest Territories. We give bits and pieces of information, but we need to give all of the information, the correct information, and committee has had a lot of that information.
Thank you. Clause 22. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions, if I can, and then I think I feel compelled to say some remarks in response to what I have heard from the Minister. If the bill is passed, what date does the Minister intend to bring this into force? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
September 1st, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Why wasn't that date actually put into the bill itself? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The original date of implementation was July 1st, but because we needed to work on our legislation, we had approached Canada to see if we can delay the implementation. They understand our process, therefore we agreed to it. We had hoped to deal with this during our clause-by-clause so that we wouldn't have the debate on the floor of the House. I will be moving a motion later to change the implementation date from July 1st to September 1st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before, so I appreciate the heads-up moments before it is going to come to the floor. As I understand it, Alberta had a carbon tax change in government there. They took away the carbon tax. Can someone explain to me what the implementation date is for the federal backstop in Alberta now that there is no carbon tax in Alberta? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. That is a little bit out of our jurisdiction, but I will allow the Minister to give a response if he would like. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with you. Alberta is a different jurisdiction than ours. We have been doing the work on our particular one. To say that, giving the heads-up on the motion, I have been discussing it with committee, and I think that we did ask committee if they would be willing to move the motion to change the implementation date as we went through clause-by-clause. I take issue with the fact the Member keeps saying that these things are being sprung on us in surprise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. There is a rule against anticipation. For any future motions, I would ask all of the Members to refrain from discussing future motions until we reach that point. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I didn't get a response to my question, of course, but as I understand it, the federal government has indicated to the Alberta government that they intend to implement the federal backstop in that jurisdiction effective January 1, 2020.
I do feel compelled to make a few remarks in response to what I believe I heard the Minister say. The Minister talked about the failure of the committee to take the bill on the road. I think it is also fair for the public to know, and I would suggest anybody who is really keen to look at the committee report, the committee really didn't have any information to enable it to take the bill on the road. The Minister had changed the approach to large emitters and the implementation date and hadn't bothered to tell the public about that. Committee knew that information, but there was no way for the public to know. Taking a bill on the road on a faulty set of assumptions would not really be a great way to proceed with public consultation.
I guess, Mr. Chair, I would also point to my attempts, even in this review in Committee of the Whole, to make two small changes to the bill: one with regard to requiring some public reporting, and secondly, to require --
Mr. O'Reilly, those are matters that have previously been dealt with by the House. Similar to the rule against anticipation, there is also a rule against discussing matters that have been dealt with. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it would be fair to say that the way that this bill has been crafted is that the committee, Regular MLAs, are not able to make any changes to it. The only thing that this bill does, and I have said this before, is set out what the carbon tax rates will be. All of the decisions around what the rebates, the grants, how the money is going to get spent, are made at the total and utter discretion of a future Minister of Finance and by Cabinet. What's the point? The bill could not be changed anyways the way that this had been put together. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just so that we are clear, this is, for me, it's something that hasn't anything to do with an election. I take what the federal government has written to our Minister, and what the Minister tabled as something that is a route. I believe that the federal government was in a position to put the act in place on July 1st, and have now indicated to us that they will be putting it in place on September 1st. If we don't put our federal tax in place on September 1st, then, we are passing at least four months' worth of the federal tax on heating fuel onto the people of the territory. I just wonder whether that's a wise thing to do, considering the feds have advised us that they will put the tax in place.
The other thing that I think no one is talking about is the pollution. The whole idea of carbon tax was because of what our country is seeing, especially in the NWT, what the greenhouse gases are doing to our country and our territory. I think in 2000, when a house in Inuvik fell over because the permafrost melted, people began to realize that this was a pretty serious matter. I think the federal government made a decision for the whole country. They made a decision that they are going to price pollution. We are going to be pricing pollution, no matter whether we send the bill to our people or the federal government is the one to send the bill to our people to pay for the pollution and to pay for the cost of using your vehicle, heating your house. Unfortunately, heating your house is something that we can't avoid in the Northwest Territories, so I think the government has put in place something to protect the people on heating fuel.
If we are very concerned about gasoline, which many of us are because, in the small communities, the people have no option but to go out on the land to try to reduce their cost of living, I guess other people that can curb the way they do it. If it is not essential to drive, than don't drive. I think that right now, we all take positions because we are taking some positions because we feel that the federal government will not put the act into place on September 1st. That's how I felt this morning coming to work, but after getting something in writing saying that they will, I believe that they will. Unfortunately, we have to have a carbon tax, and it is better to have ours than theirs, the federal government's, I mean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that clause 22 of Bill 42 be deleted and the following substituted:
22. This Act comes into force January 1, 2020.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. It is being distributed. The motion has been distributed. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose of this motion is twofold: one is to immediately provide up to nearly four months of tax relief to NWT taxpayers, because that would be the time between the passage of the act pass and to be implemented January 1st, especially during the cold winter months. I believe the savings are in the public's interest.
The second is a more fundamental question which is, who should decide on such a fundamental change as adding a significant tax to a jurisdiction whose number one public issue is the cost of living. Members have spoken at length about how dissatisfied they have been in the approach this government has taken; not universally, but certainly, even the sponsor of this bill has criticized the fact that it is a tax. This motion allows, fundamentally, the people to decide by putting it off until January 1st and allowing a general election to take place in between that time. This is consistent with where the Alberta federal backstop is going to be implemented also on January 1st.
I will point out that that is a hostile government to the federal government in terms of this public policy direction, and they scrapped their carbon pricing plan. Even in that circumstance, the federal government allowed them January 1st. I think in our case, where we have a plan that is compliant that meets deadlines, the federal government will be sympathetic to that concern that, in our system of government, there can be no guarantees over legislation, that they need to go through each legislative step, and the outcome is largely unknown until they are finally passed. This would be a change to do exactly that.
Mr. Chair, until 1:01 p.m. today there was no firm deadline for implementation that had been issued by the federal government. It was not until the sponsor of the bill, the honourable Minister of Finance, directed his staff to request that a deadline be imposed on the Northwest Territories that a deadline was clearly communicated to the House. We asked during our previous review of that for a clear deadline for clear confirmation, and it could not be produced.
Mr. Testart, I will interject and, since no point of order was raised, I am going to caution you on assuming the motives of the Minister. You are unaware of what the Minister requested. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, we have an implementation date today at the 11th hour. That was not known until now. I believe firmly that we can negotiate a later implementation date, give Northerners four months of tax relief, and ensure that the next government is the one that decides this, and not this government that is sitting on a last-minute plan that hasn't had adequate public consideration, that hasn't had adequate cooperative development through our legislative processes inherent to this building. I encourage Members to consider carefully how they proceed on this, as this will be a live issue in both the coming federal and territorial elections. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion? Seeing nothing, I will put the question to committee. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time. The Member makes some comments there and some accusations. We have worked with committee. They were aware of the September 1st deadline, and I think the fact that we wanted to get it in writing is because committee had asked us to provide it, and we did.
I'm not going to get into that debate. There are a number of debates that we could get into, but the bottom line is the federal government has informed us, and this had been out there for a while, that September 1st was our deadline. We worked in collaboration with them to go from the original July 1st deadline to September 1st, and they agreed.
The Member talks about the Alberta model. They have been paying carbon tax for a while, and then, when a new government came in, they made some changes. There is no comparison. They are a different kettle, and we are not too concerned about how they go about their business. As long as we go about our business in trying to do what is best for the people of the Northwest Territories. One of those things is taking an approach. This is not the carbon tax bill. The federal government has got the federal carbon tax bill. This is our approach to carbon tax. As one Member pointed out before, our approach is superior to the federal government approach.
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to use a couple of examples. Mr. and Mrs. Hardworking Constituent, paying a mortgage, paying for their own fuel. Under our backstop, if they bought $1,000 a month worth of fuel, they would be charged carbon tax, but it would be rebated at the point of purchase, so it would only cost them $1,000, as it did before. Under the federal system, the federal approach, they will pay tax on that $1,000 worth of fuel; they may get it back at the end of the year; they may not; they will not know until income tax time. The same with businesses; our heating fuel rebate applies to businesses, who would have to pass that extra cost on to someone. Who will they pass it on to? The consumer in the Northwest Territories.
So our approach, I believe, is the better of the two for the people of the Northwest Territories, and it's something that we need to do. I think Members should take all of that into consideration, and the Member said it himself. Nobody likes a tax, including myself, but we have to try to do what we feel. What we were elected to do is to protect the interests and the well-being of the people of the Northwest Territories. Because a lot of us have lived in small communities, we know the challenges that are there, and sometimes I believe some Members are out of touch with the realities of the high cost of living in many parts of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Question.
To the motion, and I have cautioned Members to keep the comments to the motion, which is relating to clause 22 and the amendment to clause 22, which relates to the date the carbon tax would come into effect. Mr. Thompson, to the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to support looking at it to move to January 1st. However, we see this in writing, and it says September 1st, and, in my small communities, our elders and our seniors are already seeing an impact on the seniors' heating subsidy program. We have changed it to a monetary value, which reduces the amount of fuel we can put in the community, into their homes. I have residents who presently have to fill half a tank. They cannot even fill the full tank because of the cost of living on this, so I cannot chance what could be to what the reality is. As of September 1st, from my understanding reading this tabled document, September 1st, the federal government is imposing their bill, so it's going to have a huge impact on the residents of the Nahendeh riding, especially the elders. At the end of the day, I cannot support something that is going to have an impact on the elders. If the federal government said, yes, we can go to January 1st, that would be great. It saves us four months of it, but, right now, from what I read here it's September 1st. I really wanted to support the January 1st, but now we have it in writing.
The chair of P&P went and got this from the Minister and put it in front of this, so listening to the debate here, for me, it's about the residents of Nahendeh and the residents of the Northwest Territories and, most importantly, our seniors because our seniors are on fixed income. By at least having the tax rebated back at the pump or the truck that is delivering it to their homes, they are not going to be impacted further. For that reason, I cannot support this part of the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion that is on the floor. Mr. Nakimayak.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion looks good on paper, but, you know, given the information that we have here, I am just going to read a sentence here: "failure to complete the process will require us," which is like the feds put in place the federal backstop on September 1st. Mr. Chair, we had discussions about this earlier, and I will not really reiterate too much. As the Member for Nahendeh mentioned, this is about elders and it's about remote communities. I for one come from a remote community, and this is one thing that definitely has an impact, a negative impact, on the cost of harvesting and basically people's livelihoods. If we go with this motion, you know, Mr. Chair, this is something that we do not want to do but this is something that is being imposed, and, at the same time, I look at this and I think it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't. The devil we don't know: if we move this motion to January 1st, it could have some really negative impacts for the territory as a whole, and it would just be nothing good, so, for that reason, Mr. Chair, I do not think I can support this motion with the information we have. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Mr. McNeely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am still of the opinion of the original motion, in support of the original bill, and this paperwork before us just kind of supports your original judgment. On the email in question on the last sentence, it says, "Our preference remains for the NWT to put in place its system," and the system the government has negotiated in this case, so it has full control over revenues, and, as the Minister mentioned in the past here, ease the impact of the tax on to the residents of the Northwest Territories, and, in doing so, it's better to understand the impacts of the tax. When I first heard about this and coming from an area with no road system other than seasonal and we depend largely on aviation, so I went and had some discussion with our largest courier to have some discussions with the Minister, and they did to better understand that because you do not want to see an increase in aviation and pass that cost along to the customer, which in 10 out of 10 cases always happens. The customer ends up paying. There is an exemption, so, if you add on the exemption to support the cost of capital, your annual rebate, as the Minister mentioned, it is going to come in at your tax return season, which is kind of like once every 14 months by the time you get it in your account.
The other bill coming would help adjust the rebate system to our territory from the tax collected as identified in that last quoted sentence I mentioned earlier. So the cost of capital is going to be somewhat eased onto the residents, seeing that the residents are going to see payments, multi payments, per year compared to annual payments on the federal backstop, plus add on the exemption of aviation fuel. I think those are evidences enough for me, and other heating fuel rebates, that we are trying to ease the burden of this tax onto the residents. So I feel comfortable with that. I feel comfortable that our government has negotiated in good faith and came back with a package that I am satisfied with. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To the motion. I will put the question to committee. First, we have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The motion before us, I support the idea because I think, as Northerners, sometimes we are given what we receive and sometimes we do not have a choice. What we are facing is an imposition of a tax, and, seeing people struggling in small communities, you know, a further tax on their household income is crazy, I mean, if I could just put it bluntly, especially at this point, as we kind of move towards the idea of an election. People will gauge your performance on whether you support a tax or not, and that is what we are facing at this point. Besides that, I serve on the committee that was tasked with doing the consultations, and I have to disagree with the Minister saying that we are to blame because of the lack of consultations. I take exception to that because I think the Minister and Cabinet had all of the authority and power and influence with the federal government in terms of trying to rationalize the imposition of this tax and how it could work for Northerners. Have we exhausted every effort? Have we done our best for the interests of all Northerners? In the meantime, as a committee, we were expected to take that on the road and tell people, well, this was the best thing that we could come up with? I'm sorry. I don't buy into that. For those reasons, we are left with the debate at this point.
We have to stand up in terms of where we are as Northerners, especially in small communities. This imposition of this tax to further burden people who are struggling in small communities is unbecoming. That's where I stand. At the same time, in terms of this motion, we have to try and at least see if there is a way that we can buy some time, perhaps for the next Assembly, to make some modest improvements on the tax. Mahsi.
Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In reality, it would be nice if this motion was true, and we were going to give our residents a four-month tax break, but it's really not true, because we have a letter here stating that, on September 1st, if the NWT doesn't put their package in place, the federal government will implement theirs. That means that home heating fuel, for example, as the Minister mentioned, will be taxed. We have a lot of small companies in our territory, small businesses, large businesses, and homeowners who use a lot of home heating fuel and fuel during the winter months. Everybody will be seeing a tax if we go by the federal backstop. With our approach, it is a little easier for the residents of the Northwest Territories.
You know what? I don't support any taxes. Being from the second-highest cost of living in the Northwest Territories, which is the Mackenzie Delta next to Nunakput, we pay the highest costs. Gasoline is up to $1.72 a litre. Home heating fuel is $1.62. If we had $1.30 like it is here, people wouldn't notice it as much, but when you're paying $1.75 a litre, it is probably going to go up to close to $1.80 is just my rough guess in some communities.
You are going to see a lot of upset people here come September 1st, and for sure, we are going to get the most flak, but it's really not us who are implementing this. This is the Liberal government's approach to what they campaigned on when they ran. This is almost like the cannabis bill which we had to implement. I know our committee got a lot of flak over it, but like I said, we never put that in place. We just dealt with making sure that it is in place for the Northwest Territories. Right from the start, I said that I don't approve of any tax coming to our territory, but in this case, this is a much better deal for residents of the Northwest Territories. I will have to not support this one. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Vanthuyne, to the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like many of us in here, I regret that we are even in this position right now and that we even have to give consideration to this kind of a tax on Northerners. I am very aware, every time I speak in this House, that folks from Ottawa are listening closely. Sometimes I am open to sending messages to them just as much as I am sending messages to colleagues here in our chamber.
It is troubling that here we are, at the eleventh hour, and it is still unclear, and that we have to undertake this debate as it relates to even the coming-into-force date. Everyone knows that I don't support these bills to begin with, and I won't be supporting them even though I sense that they are likely to pass, but if I can be seen even as making some legitimate attempt to even delay the coming into force, even if it is for four months leading into the winter, then I will certainly attempt to do that.
I am not convinced by today's letter from a staffer in Ottawa that that is the actually authority that is going to tell us that September 1st is the coming-into-force date. I am now convinced that the Minister is now the authority, who has said that earlier today, has now said it is coming into force on September 1st. Now what I am trying to do is convince my colleagues in this House to delay that by four months. I think that that is the attempt that I am trying to make here, and so I will be in support of the motion.
