Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure which question to start with. I wasn't expecting them today. I am receiving quite a number of inquiries, and we are working through each one with respect to this program. This was a program that we started up quite at the last minute in the midst of the evacuations. And building on the last exchange that the Premier just spoke to, we were faced with an unprecedented situation and we're doing our best to try to create a program to support individual residents in the midst of our own staff having been evacuated in most cases.
So I am aware that there's quite a number of payments that have been missed. Sometimes we receive bank information that is incorrect. It gets inputted incorrectly. In other cases, I know payments have been sent out only to then be returned. Whether that's returned by a bank or returned through cheque or through mail. A lot of the requests that come through my office, Mr. Speaker, as I said, a number of different reasons for the delay. So right now we are trying to work through each one. I do encourage people to continue to use the online information about making inquiries or to certainly send their inquiry through their MLA. As I said, I know that when they come to me, they do get it rectified in general. It shouldn't be taking this long. I hope it doesn't. But we also very importantly are looking to change the system and the process so that if people are faced with a similar situation this summer, they won't be facing similar delays. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wasn't quite clear, and maybe no one else was, is how are they actually tracking these particular things, because Yellowknife Centre can't be the only riding who gets these questions from constituents, and I'm seeing nods here. So, Mr. Speaker, does the Minister track these things, and how are they monitored to make sure that they close the loop on these applications? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. I think there was two questions in there, so two but I will turn to the Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I suppose if I'm not clear it's because the question is not clear what is being asked about the tracking. Every application that is sent to the department is logged, and every inquiry that is being sent in with respect to say that there's been an issue, that one, they are also being monitored. And to the best of my knowledge in terms of the tracking, most of those that have applied and have been processed are, indeed, paid and have been paid. So there's been some late payments. But, I mean, as far as someone saying that they made an application and haven't, again, I'm not because I'm not sure what it is I'm going asked to track. We tracked all the applications. We're tracking and they're at the process when they're being approved. And then we are watching and monitoring when an inquiry comes in to see that it does get resolved. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And by the way, I apologize, earlier I just restated the question, so it might have sounded like two. Mr. Speaker, my question the Minister says they track them, so then why do we have the department saying that they've issued payments when they haven't if they're tracking them?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, again, Mr. Speaker, some people are finding that if they've sent incorrect banking information or if the banking information has been sent or has been inputted incorrectly as I've noted, so there may be a time where a payment doesn't get issued or that it's been delayed, so again, yes, in those instances, someone wouldn't receive a payment. They then there is a notification email and phone number that folks can make contact with to confirm whether or not they have been had their payment issued or whether or not their payment has gone through. In those cases, those inquiries are then tracked. So at this point, I would like to hope that there's only a small number that are outstanding of individuals who made an application, who had their application accepted, and who still haven't seen a payment, and certainly would encourage them to use the resources available. The ones that have come to me do get resolved and generally get resolved quite quickly. And, again, the applications or the reasons for the errors or the reasons for the delays are noted. So in each case, there's I've seen a number of different or variety for those reasons. Some certainly reside with the department. Others may have other explanations. But if people are still waiting, I'd encourage them to contact us. We are working through any errors that arise. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is I see the program is closed for people to make their applications to apply for the program. Why did it close so early before at least the very least, that is, the end of the fiscal year? And I want to understand why they closed it and when did they publicly announce it so it's transparent to people? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the details of this program, which I don't have standing in front of me right now in terms of the specific policy, but the details were communicated back in August when the program was announced. That included the timelines for making applications, the process for making applications. The initial evacuations when the programs that we had for those who were evacuated early in the year, we actually had staff attending at the facilities within the Northwest Territories to help people make their applications and to explain the process to them. And so all of those details were announced at that time. The intention was to make it so that this was a sometime somewhat time sensitive but not so time sensitive as to make it prohibited for those who were under evacuation as, again, tried to send out staff where they were available to help people through the process. That certainly have been intended also this coming year. But it was really about the evacuation timeline. And I believe it was within a certain amount of days thereafter the time when somebody was evacuated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to carbon pricing and the home heating exemptions. So the Minister said that there's no need to backdate the exemption because residents have received their rebates. So can the Minister confirm that a hundred percent of the fuel charge related to home heating fuel related to the carbon tax in the Northwest Territories is being rebated to Northerners, a hundred percent? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, firstly, the carbon tax rebates goes to those who are tax filers. So I would encourage everyone, even if they're getting rebates, even if they don't think they have to pay taxes on whatever they're receiving, they should be filing their taxes or at least filing a notice of tax with the government, and then that would give them, first of all, access to these rebates and, I believe, probably others, such as the child care or child rebates. But, Mr. Speaker, what the carbon tax offset payments by the Government of the Northwest Territories does is there's three parts to it. The first one looks at the cost of fuel, the cost of tax on fuel not associated to home heating, then there's an indirect taxes that we calculated based on what is estimated businesses would be charged and paying for carbon tax on their various forms of fuel usage knowing that that might well be passed down to consumers, and then the third currently in place is for the tax on home heating fuel paid by an average household, and that's at this present time is still based on the use of heating oil. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure I heard a clear answer, but I'll ask what is that number; what is the amount of revenue, tax revenue is being collected off home heating oil in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Sorry, Mr. Speaker. If it's the amount of home heating fuel home heating oil revenue, I can certainly get that number for the Member. For the current year, that's the taxation just to be clear, so I can get the correct information, it's the tax the number I'm going to get is the tax being collected for home heating fuel in the Northwest Territories. We can certainly provide that in due course. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I suppose if Northerners have already received their rebates, this isn't going to make a difference. If our system's already taking care of home heating fuel carbon taxes, why are we exempting this? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is arguably more convenient for residents to not have to pay the tax at the front end and to simply then to have that exempted from them rather than to have to get the rebate. That was certainly the source of much debate at the last time. And so given that that's now the approach that's being taken by many other jurisdictions due to the federal government's change, we were prepared to offer the same type of approach under our system so that the tax rebate or the tax itself on heating oil is not to be paid, won't have to be paid at the front end, and there will still be some heating or rather tax rebate being provided by the GNWT but adjusted to the fact that, as I've said, that heating oil component will now be exempted. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I won't weigh into what I think of our system, but I think we can do some improvement here. My question is the federal government has also doubled the rural rebate supplement for Canadians under the climate action payment systems, the one that's administered by the federal government. Have we also doubled any of our or increased our COLO payments to follow suit and make sure that we're benefitting people who are paying in rural or remote areas for our high cost of fuel? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our residents were already receiving a much higher rebate than what many residents in other parts of the country were. What we did in our system was, and what we understood would not have been offered had we come under the federal modeling, was to zone the three types of rebates that were being received. And under the home heating oil tax situation, that meant that those living in zone C who were really in some of the communities that are the most remote, most rural, they would have been receiving a much higher benefit to account for the fact that the amount of carbon tax paid on their home heating was much higher. So that is how we adjusted our system to account for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up a little further on the evacuation travel support program. And I suspect now, the Minister was saying I didn't expect the question but that said, to be all fair in all fairness, she is the Finance Minister of this government and the last government and oversaw the programs, so I expect her to know some elements of the program.
So that said, the evacuation support program paid out $750 to people as a onetime sort of payment. How did they actually come up with that specific $750 for the impacts of individuals obviously per vehicle? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I say I wasn't expecting the question, I don't necessarily have the policy documents in front of me. I certainly wouldn't want to mislead anyone with respect to what was the specifics of the policy.
As far as the $750, again, firstly, these were efforts being made in response to emergencies and often by staff who themselves had been evacuated and were under somewhat difficult conditions. We were making an effort at the time, I believe with respect to the evacuation payment, to align with the income disruption payment that had been decided upon earlier in the season. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But that actually didn't answer the question in any way. Like, how did they actually come up with the $750 mark? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the income disruption support payment, that was the first one that was provided and that was really meant to be an opportunity, really, just to acknowledge the fact that individuals who had been evacuated at that time may be in situations where they didn't have anything to provide some of their daytoday costs and to sort of mitigate some of those daytoday costs. $750 was we were looking at we certainly did do a jurisdictional scan of what was going offered elsewhere. It was very clear at that time that very few jurisdictions, indeed I think perhaps at that time initially only one, were providing any kind of direct payments to residents. As the summer wore on and other jurisdictions faced similar challenges of evacuations, there was at least one jurisdiction, if I'm not mistaken, that did ultimately provide a payment, and we tried to ensure that ours was not too far off of what was being offered, noting that, of course, there were some differences in how they were being allotted and who was eligible. And at that time, the evacuation travel support payment was introduced to try to further offset some of the costs that were being incurred for individuals knowing that accommodations and some fuel and food were available for those who were registered through the other evacuation programs that were available. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let's use some easy numbers. The CERB payment was about $2,000 a month. That's about $500 a week. So the fire was about three weeks, and so if we use their $750 mark, that's 250 a week. So there's quite a bit of a disparity. There's a standard, a considerable one. But CERB was during COVID and people stayed home, so they didn't have to worry about driving out. That said, how can we justify and explain that $750 was an impact payment worthy of the expense that many people paid considering they pulled the government ordered people out of the Northwest Territories. It wasn't like an encouragement saying hey, got nothing to do, go to Edmonton and Calgary. So how do we justify that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, people were asked to evacuate in the face of wildfires that were threatening communities. So as far as being ordered to leave, it was not done lightly. It was done in the interests of safety to protect residents but also to protect first responders, to protect firefighters, to protect infrastructure. So just to draw a distinct line, there this is not the same as the situation under CERB. We are also not the federal government and don't have the deep pockets of the federal government and we're doing our best to try to make our programs such that they could be affordable for the GNWT, that if possible, we could still see reimbursement by the federal government. In the case of both of the support payments, it is unlikely that they're going to be supported back by the federal government's disaster assistance programs, and with respect so I gather that this is now with respect to the travel subsidy. Mr. Speaker, so the travel subsidy is really was meant to be for those folks who didn't have access to the flight evacuation option or who had didn't have access to, you know again, there was accommodations being offered, food being offered, and some fuel costs being offered. So it was really just meant to be if there were some additional costs being incurred that we weren't aware of or hadn't accounted for. That's what that was supposed to be. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to either give a ministerial statement or table some documents that demonstrate how many people actually applied and received this program, be it the numbers of people applied and the amount paid out? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, certainly I can provide those numbers. Thank you.
Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is for ECE Minister. Mr. Speaker, residents tell me in the especially in the small communities I went to Wekweeti about two weeks ago. So it's not just them, but there are others, elders, that have been saying this too, that residents the home heating subsidy is not enough support for many of them in the small communities. So I just wanted to ask the Minister, can the Minister commit to reevaluate the monthly home heating subsidy for elders to assess whether the subsidies is meeting their needs?
ECE.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you very much to the Member for the question. There was an increase to the seniors home heating subsidy that was recently done, and that was able to ensure that seniors receive up to 80 percent of the estimated 2023 fuel costs associated with heating a home in the Northwest Territories. And so there was an increase that was recently done, and the intent of the policy is to cover up to 80 percent of the fuel costs on average of Northwest Territories seniors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the questions for the answer. Okay, well, then I've been hearing from a lot of residents out there, especially the elders. If there was an increase, I don't think they are I don't know when. Can the Minister tell us when this is going to take effect? When's this change is going to take place? Like, is it the next fiscal year, or did it already happen? Because the residents in small communities are saying the fuel subsidies that they are receiving right now is not enough. It's not enough. It's not going a long ways. It's some of them said the fuel that we get right now today will last me a week.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The fuel subsidy increase that I was referencing has already been implemented; however, the increase to the income assistance payments and the changes to the income assistance payments that the Member for Great Slave was asking about earlier are forthcoming and will also help with this. And those changes are expected to come this coming summer and so residents will see who are on income assistance as well will see increases to their bank accounts as well, and that will help as well with monthly costs as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister adjust the income threshold for seniors' fuel subsidy program based on higher costs of living for elders in small or remote communities?
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how the thresholds are currently set up, they're divided into three separate zones, and these zones take into account the size of the communities and where the communities are located within the Northwest Territories. So, for example, zone 1, which is where Behchoko is located, has an income threshold of $56,000 versus a community like Gameti, which is zone 2, which has a threshold of $64,000, and zone 3, which, for example, has communities like Wekweeti, has a threshold of $73,000. But I really welcome the conversations with the Member and learning more about how these subsidies and also access to income support are impacting her residents in her communities. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ECE. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.
I don't have any more questions, but from but I will sit and meet with the Minister on the fuel subsidy program for elders.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Standing Committee Terms of Reference. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. Tabling of documents. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table an open letter dated September 2023 from the Yellowknife Women's Society board of directors following the Yellowknife evacuation experience. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
