That's correct, Madam Chair.
Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. I know I keep asking this question, and it probably is kind of annoying - as I can be. The Northwest Territories Heritage Fund, why is there just this placeholder figure of $7,600,000 for, it looks like, you know, last year the revised estimates. Surely to goodness we must know what that figure is by now? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that is it's the number that's put in here is based on historical averages and so that's why you see $7.6 million there, and it does obviously vary year by year. But based on historical averages, that's the number that is used. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. So when do we actually know how much is in the heritage fund? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So when royalty payments come in, you know, end of the fiscal year and are reported upon and, again, keeping in mind the fiscal year for the mines themselves, then that is when the total contribution is known. So you would see it you know, probably this is an occasion where looking at the actuals and not just the budget is the way to go to understand what is actually in there. This is just the budgeted amount, again based on an average. It's not obviously what actually comes in. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. So yearend, March 31st, when do we actually have some sense of what is going to go in for the previous year? Is it like June, July, September, December, when do we kind of know how much is going to go in there? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The contributions or payments are made over the summer months, so either between July to before the end of August.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. And is that when the funds go out to Indigenous governments under the net fiscal benefit arrangement? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, that's correct. Approximately so, again, sometime in and around by August and let's say early fall at the outset. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, okay, thanks. I don't think I have anything else. Thank you.
All right, thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is about the aviation sector support. I do know obviously that was the money that was put in during COVID to help keep our airplanes afloat, for lack of a better word. And so I note that there was an additional amount of $2 million put in in the revised estimates that we hadn't planned on. Can the Minister speak to I probably should know what that is, but if she could explain why we ended up putting in another $2 million last year that we didn't plan? And then I guess I'll ask my other question after. Thanks.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That was the last round of funding received from the federal government under this initiative. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So then I'm just guessing it wasn't in our predicted mains because we didn't know we were getting it, and I see the Minister nodding yes so thank you for that.
Given that there was a recent article about Canadian North and issues perhaps around financing, without getting too much into their financial details, does the Minister anticipate there's going to be another need for any aviation sector supports coming? Like, I recognize that the pandemic has played its course as far as being like an emergency, but, you know, our travel industry, our airlines are still quite fragile, and I'm just wondering, you know, given supply chain issues and all of that, cost of fuel, are we going to be bailing out our airlines again coming up? Thanks.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope not. And, you know, Madam Chair, I do have the opportunity to meet, and have been taking the opportunity myself and Minister Archie to meet with all the major airlines that are servicing the Northwest Territories, arising actually more from the lack of access to routing as oppose to worrying about their finances. And in doing so, it gives us an opportunity to have a better handle on what is happening in that industry. We've certainly not had any asks; I can say that. And if anything, Minister Archie and I are more concerned with seeing what they can do to expand services in the North. So there are routes being added and I'll take that as a good sign for now. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I mean, yeah, I take that as a good sign too of an expansion but then we all know in the past too, sometimes if someone expands too much too quickly, they can't financially keep up with that. So I'm a little concerned we're in a little bit of a teetery position here when it comes to our airlines. And I guess it's worth noting as well that, you know, the issues that Canadian North faces, or Air Canada for that matter, are obviously a lot different than what our small regional carriers face and such and I know that's a bigger conversation. So I will leave that one there.
My next question is around the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link. I guess I'm not super up to date on where things are at currently with that and the redundancy and tieing all of the some of these communities onto the fibre optic loop. So can the Minister speak a little bit about what the plans are next for the $12.25 million that's slated here? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, Madam Chair, I was looking for something different there. Because this so the money that's showing up here in under the management board secretariat is the is related to the service payments that we have to maintain the line or for over the cost of having built the line but not necessarily connected to what is happening in terms of connecting communities.
So the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Line does create the point of presence of the fibre in the communities and we do pay for that and receive revenues for its use. But there is, meanwhile, work happening, led by Northwestel, with respect to delivering on a 50/10 level of service to every community in the Northwest Territories. I had the opportunity to speak with representatives from Northwestel within the last month or two. I gather there's been some delays as a result of the Anik F2 failure, but they are still expecting to be on track for a 2026 delivery date and are being monitored by CRTC in that regard. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am now thinking that would be more in the capital area, so I do appreciate the Minister answering my question regardless.
So I guess I I'm going to touch the really big elephant in the room is the carbon tax offset. Again, I still I'm not on the committee. I do struggle at times to understand everything that is going on around the carbon tax. And given that there is $47.8 million here, and yet it's my understanding that we can't use these for rebates, where does this money end up going given the changes come April 1st? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the increase on expenditures here is the increase to the grants that are for various rebates benefits associated with offsetting. So there is the grant I mean, and this is, of course, all projected and premised on the notion that the what we anticipated in Bill 60 would pass which, you know, obviously is not is not guaranteed by any stretch. The largest amount would be for the large emitter program that we have, which is not a complete or a total remission of taxes paid by large emitters but only the amount that is planned for under the 72 percent. They right now pay roughly 50 percent of the tax as compared to other residents or businesses that are paying carbon taxes. There's also the rebate for the generation of electricity. There's the rebate for cost of living to individual residents. And so that yes, so that's the different pieces here. And, I mean, maybe I'll leave it to see what the next question might be, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you. If I can come up with one that makes sense. I guess yeah, so my understanding is that we can't give back then the direct money to people at the or going forward, based on what the government is changing, but we can still give rebates and things under other programs; is that what the Minister's saying? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, again, it's federal government rules that we're working within and, you know, I'd like to suggest it's we're basically putting up a shield to try to ensure that the full force of what the federal government is doing doesn't impact residents and businesses in the Northwest Territories. The total grants and rebates that are proposed here are $47.18 million. There's also almost $700,000 that is required to administer the program largely through the Canada Revenue Agency. We don't have necessarily the manpower to do it but it does still come with a cost. And then the breakdown is we cannot rebate heating fuel anymore. So that's certainly a big one that we and other jurisdictions have been very vocal about but to no avail. And, yes, you cannot right now, people when they pay, when they're getting their heating fuel or whatever other sorts of fuel, it's right at the point of purchase. So at the pump so to speak. That is also not allowed anymore. You cannot negate the carbon signal meaning you can't make it seem to someone that they're not paying it when they're paying it. It is now needs to be apparent to a person that they're paying the tax even if we, as the GNWT, are going to try and step in and actually completely mitigate that tax later through the payment. At the front end, the federal government is saying they want people to know what they're paying. At the back end, we're saying we're going to prevent them from actually being impacted by it financially.
Now, look, one of the benefits of that is that it hopefully will motivate people to, in fact, take steps, whether it's through Arctic Energy Alliance or otherwise, to reduce GHG emissions. Then they get more money in their pocket when they get their cost of living offset. But it just means that you can't upfront know what you have to upfront know what you're paying. There, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do appreciate that the Minister's a bit verbose but I did understand from the first sentence what the answer to my question was, so. I just want to one thing there that twigged me in that comment was the $700,000 to administer the program. So I have to say that feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth from the federal government. Not only are we imposing this all on you, we're now going to charge you another $700,000 to administer it for you. So is there any opportunity perhaps for us to go back to the feds and just say, please, at the very least remove the $700,000 admin fee and give that back to us? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there are costs associated with having the Canada Revenue Agency administering our tax collection in general. So I don't know that this is necessarily unique or distinct. The reality is it would cost a significant amount of money for the GNWT to do that and human resources capacity. And if they didn't do it, we'd have to do it. So it's sort of a one way or the other. It might actually be more expensive for us to have to start up our own entire tax collection and administration system. CRA is actually a fairly large I think surprisingly large part of the federal government that might just sort of swing under the radar. But I don't have their budgets in front of me nor do I intend to defend them, but just to say that that part of ours is yes, it's something that has to happen one way or the other. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further questions to the management board secretariat from Members? Seeing none, please turn to page 161.
Finance, management board secretariat, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $110,692,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will now turn to page 166, Office of the Chief Information Officer, with information items on page 167. Are there any questions? Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions and, I mean, the Minister and I have had conversations about this before. One of the things that I am finding increasingly frustrating lately is when I go and talk to another Minister about integrated service delivery and the barriers to being able to provide integrated service delivery to Northerners because of our systems that we use within the government. And so I'm wondering if you know, we've got $21.8 million here in expenditures for this office, and I know that they do far more than just purchase software or, rather, manage the purchase of software. And so is there funding within here to work on an interoperability framework? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There's not necessarily a line item that associates to interoperability but, Madam Chair, as the Member knows that's one of my new favourite words. It certainly is, I think, the goal in speaking in speaking with our new chief information officer, to get to a place of having more interconnectedness. There are, for example, SAM and DIIMS and programs such as that, that are now being rolled out across the whole of government which will hopefully support but also simply making it more of a priority in general because it takes people, and it does take resources to pay for these rather complex and expensive systems. So, again, not a line item per se but really is you know, doesn't need to be because it's a big focus of what the chief information officer is expected to deliver. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
