Robert Hawkins

It’s nice to see, for a change, that the other side of the House is listening to our side of the House, but I don’t seem to remember seeing a fuel tax. I remember a sales tax in that list.

Mr. Speaker, I think I heard from the Finance Minister’s little special speech there, which he had seemingly prepared, that he recited carbon tax and resource tax. Why aren’t you putting your focus into those ones that we suggested as opposed to some of these red herrings, such as sales tax? You’re really wasting our time, your time and the public’s time. Why didn’t he do that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the Assembly Elder Samuel George and Elder Jeff Anderson. They are missionaries doing good work in our community. My wife and I have had the pleasure to get to know them while they are here. Elder George is from Utah, I believe, and Elder Anderson is from Idaho, if I am correct. Anyway, they are here to do good work in our community.

Mr. Speaker, now that we’ve clearly defined that power rates haven’t gone down, wouldn’t you think that management bonuses would be tied or reflective of the direction that the rate is going?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to our Premier, Floyd Roland, who is the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corp. I’d like to ask our Premier today: have the power rates in the Northwest Territories ever gone down?

Mr. Speaker, would the Finance Minister agree a good place to start, when he considers his tax initiatives and the cost of living, would be maybe to start collecting on some of the IOUs — that money owed to us by the federal government, that $100 million of health money for NIHB? Wouldn’t that be a good start to this rather than firing people or adding new taxes?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government is flirting with a trend to encourage business as well as people to leave. We’ve all heard about the silo of government, and I am just curious. I’m just trying to get a sense. Does the Finance Minister, Minister Miltenberger, understand that there is a cost of living committee out there?

My question to the Minister of Finance is: how do his potential tax initiatives dovetail with the cost of living committee, which is intended to lower the cost of living of the average citizen up here? How does it dovetail? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, let me give this Finance Minister a lesson. If we encouraged 2,000 people to our territory, that would cover our shortfall. By the way, that means 60 people per community. We can encourage a grow with the North policy, as opposed to taxing them to death. Let’s start on some of those migrant workers, as has been articulated clearly here.

In closing, the financial gaps are big; imagination is low. As one person told me yesterday, it’s time that we start showing some backbone with some mineral tax instead of milk tax. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Why aren’t bonuses tied to rate increases? In other words, if rate increases keep going up, why do bonuses keep going up? Why do bonuses keep getting awarded?

I didn’t really hear the answer. I heard that if the rate rider they want doesn’t get approved, it has to be taken back. It’s seen as a shell game that appears as if it went down, but it didn’t. My question really is, once again: have the actual base rates, including the riders, et cetera, over the long term actually gone up or gone down?

Mr. Speaker, who is really going to pay this? It’s not going to be the rich, because they can afford those big, fancy accountants. It’s not going to be the poor, because they don’t have anything to take. So this is going to keep coming down to the middle class groups that will keep paying this.

And you know what? You haven’t broadened the base. I’ve not heard of one single initiative in my lifetime so far out of this Finance Minister that will see us broaden the base. What is he planning to do for us to see real results in broadening the tax base of people of the Northwest Territories?