Debates of February 10, 2005 (day 33)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, there is a song from Sesame Street that goes, “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong."

---Laughter

It’s a simple but sensible approach, Mr. Speaker; one I hope the Minister of MACA will take in looking at Fort Simpson’s long-standing request to go back to hamlet status. I think it would become clear to the Minister that the time has come to admit that Fort Simpson just doesn’t belong within the tax-based municipalities.

The value of property in Fort Simpson is about $40 million; the next smallest tax-based community, Fort Smith, has more than twice the tax base, a difference of over $50 million, Mr. Speaker. By comparison, the difference between Fort Simpson’s tax base and the tax base of the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk is less than $2 million. Yet Tuktoyaktuk enjoys the benefit of the more generous municipal funding formula from both the GNWT and the federal government.

Because of its tax base status, Fort Simpson receives a lower level of municipal funding from the GNWT than it would as a hamlet through formula financing. As a tax-based community, it is also treated differently under the new federal partnerships. Cities, towns and villages, unlike hamlets, are expected to match federal dollars along with the GNWT under the one-third/one-third/one-third arrangements. If, like Fort Simpson, a tax-based community does not have the reserves to come up with that one-third share of the money, it is left out of these wonderful new programs, Mr. Speaker.

The village has been trying for years to make a go of it as a tax-based community. The numbers just aren’t there. It is time to put Fort Simpson with the Hamlets and Settlements Act where it belongs. Mahsi Cho, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause