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 economy and encourage businesses to file corporate taxes here in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, the corporate income tax is one of the options that is listed in the revenue options document. That has been looked at over the years. We have raised it in the past; we have lowered it in the past. We have the challenge of living immediately north of Alberta, which has, I believe at this point, the lowest corporate income tax in the land and a huge budget surplus and revenue stream that allows them to do that. Clearly that is one of the options that’s out there for consideration as we look at the discussions ahead.
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?
If the Member were to check over the past number of years, there has been a fair adjustment up and down to the corporate tax, firstly, and to the amount of money made through corporate taxes or taxes filed in the Northwest Territories. This whole process that we’re engaged in with revenue options is set up to get that kind of feedback to make sure we explore every opportunity, consult with Northerners and come forward with recommendations here in the next number of weeks.
I’ve read those numbers very closely in the five years I’ve been here, and I notice the one thing that sticks out very evidently is that there’s no tax stabilization policy that levelizes our taxes, sets some aside for the rainy day and certainly is there on the good days. What is this Minister doing to help levelize and stabilize our tax policies that will help so that when big business decides to file somewhere else, it doesn’t cause a crumble like it did in our last budget?
I suppose the first challenge would be to agree on the definitions or come to understand the definitions of the words that the Member is using — stabilize, levelize — in relation to corporate taxes and those types of things. Clearly, the goal of the government, as laid out by the Premier and that I as well spoke to in my fiscal update, is to come up with affordable government that has new revenues coming in, where we have a government that we can afford, yet we maintain the high level of services that people have come to expect. We’re working diligently to reach that point.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
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, I recollect, I believe, it was the Member saying this just today in this House: just do these specific taxes; don’t bother; let’s just get at it; we know which ones are the right ones.
This whole process we’ve laid out with the revenue options paper, the mail-out across the North, the two day round table, the briefing of committee, the business planning process which we’re going to feed all this information into, is all geared to engage fully the wisdom and advice that we’re going to get from the committees and the Members, even the Member opposite from Yellowknife Centre, and their feedback into this process to make sure we come up with the best decisions possible.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
