Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Finance Minister for his creative way of describing my oral question back in June. Quite interestingly enough, I don’t think Michael Moore could have painted it more creatively. The fact is that I was asking about what we are doing to make up that $15 million loss in corporate taxes and how come we are not considering raising the sin taxes in balancing the fact that we are cutting and firing employees.

So to put it in context — my question to the Finance Minister is again almost similar to the question in June: what are we doing to expand the growth of our...

Speaking on that line, has he heard anyone out there say that they wanted a sales tax? Because if we open that door — whether it’s 1 per cent, 8 per cent, whatever per cent — we’ll never shut it. Has he heard anyone glowingly say that this was a good idea? Where did this crazy idea of a sales tax come from?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I am hearing is the Finance Minister conceding on most of these tax initiatives. I am really curious about why he is wasting everyone’s time. It seems quite clear on that side of the House that they don’t even think all of these are going to be taken seriously by them, let alone the public. So why didn’t the Finance Minister put the test to committee, one by one on these suggestions, and ask if committee would support these or not? Can I get that answer? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we need a program review. Of course, it’s obvious we can’t review all the government all at the same time, but we could start, as other Members have said here, with two or three departments to see how we could achieve business by doing things better. It’s true that not all programs are bad, but let me tell you, a number are working properly.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I don’t want to see us raise taxes just to bail out health boards to the tune of $217 million in write-offs without going to the taxpayer and saying: we tried our very best. We’re not trying our best. Pay attention...

Now I’m nervous about giving the fire suppression budget too much money, because who knows where it’ll end up.

Would fire suppression money be considered one of those earmarks of dollars that are strictly to be focused in on that type of line item only? Or if there was a surplus, could the fire suppression money be used, say, on Human Resources or maybe jet boats somewhere? If that’s the case, how many months would it take for this Assembly to get notice that the money was used for some other purpose and in what detail?

I’ll wait until I get that level of detail from the Minister of Finance, and I’ll provide a suggestion after we have that comparison data.

Sorry. The terminology of “revolving fund” might not be exactly correct. I guess I mean put a fund in place that, for example, we funded to the tune of $5 million. They draw down on that $5 million. A good year means they only drew down $3 million. Then, of course, the normal appropriation process tops it up back to that fund and they draw down to it. The surplus wouldn’t be lost for the intent. It would almost be doing the same thing that we’re doing now. We’re just funding it after the fact, which often causes me to wonder why we bother even budgeting anything under the fire suppression...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I started off in my very first question to talk about how I seem to be so unquoted that it’s messy, I want to ask the Minister what he is going to do to continue to consult. That’s all I was asking. What are you doing to consult with Members as a discussion paper on these tax initiatives before you run out to the public and scare them?

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be little effort to go and attract new investment. It talks about playing with the tax numbers, but it wasn’t that long ago that we had people go out and look for businesses to file their taxes in the North. That has actually led to problems because we haven’t created a stable tax base. So what is this Finance Minister doing to attract big tax filers to come to the North and file their taxes in the North, and will we be the beneficiary of those corporate taxes that they pay?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know what? A lot of people want to know how much this is going to cost when they find out what a waste of time has been conceded by Cabinet. I mean, you could have spent a lot of time…. Just an extra meeting with Regular Members to say that these are the good ideas you should maybe take to the public. We’re not saying that it has to be these ideas, but we’re saying these are the ones that I’m sure they’ll be willing to listen to.

So how much is this little fiasco going to cost the general public to just hear no, no, no? Thank you.