Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are based on learning that in North Dakota, workers pay income taxes to the state of North Dakota regardless of where they reside. I’d like to direct my questions to the Minister of Finance exploring our situation. Early in the previous Assembly, we learned that we were losing about $300 million per year to high salary workers flying in to work in the NWT mines from other provinces.
Would the Minister have any update on how much this figure is currently for mine workers and what additional we are losing now for oil and gas workers?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can commit to get that information for the Member.
Thanks very much to the Minister for that commitment. I think he would probably agree that it’s a substantial number and not something we’d like to see. A report published in 2008 by the Parkland Institute pointed out that the GNWT does collect the payroll tax from all workers, including those who fly in and out, which I think is beneficial, but I don’t believe we have increased those payroll taxes in the last five years. Now, this could be done in a way that does not change things except increase the tax we collect from fly-in/fly-out workers.
Would the Minister be able to confirm that raising the payroll tax for high-income workers while lowering the income tax by an equal amount, or the payroll tax, or income tax for those at lower income would allow the GNWT to collect increased taxes from fly-in/fly-out workers without changing the tax burden on NWT residents? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t have access to the document that the Member is quoting from the Parkland Institute. I can indicate to the Member that we have looked at increasing the payroll tax in nearly every Assembly that I’ve been in. We’ve broken it down in great detail; we’ve looked at it from every angle. The bottom line determination to date has been that increasing the payroll tax, when you look at all the administrative costs and the complexities and the amount of money spent making sure that there is no negative impact on Northerners has made it not worth pursuing at this juncture. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I would be happy to provide him with a copy of the report, although this isn’t totally from the report. The Minister mentioned it has to have a benefit to it. There are some costs associated with this. Right now we have the federal government collecting income tax for us. That’s a bit of a deal, because it’s an expensive process. At some point, you hit an inflection point where it becomes worthwhile paying the administration and doing the collection yourself.
Has the Minister looked into that at all to decide when it would be… I appreciate his commitment to find out how much we are losing. Maybe he would be interested in doing some projections. Has the Minister looked into at what point we might consider collecting those ourselves? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, we would be more than willing and interested to appear before a committee to lay out in detail the specifics of the payroll tax as we have it set up now and the work that we’ve done in looking at alternatives and options to increasing. We have, in fact, done that in the past and it may be time to have another look at it. I would be interested in looking at the Parkland Institute paper, to see if there is something new that hasn’t been contemplated. As well, I think the big issue is the leakage and what is the best way to prevent that leakage of all that money going directly south, and is the payroll tax increase the only or the best way to do that. I know we have had, and are having, discussions with Dominion Diamonds, for example, to look at ways that we can encourage and incent more people to stay and come to the North to live and work, not just work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister. There has been a lot of work done and I supported that and appreciated that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting us where we want to go.
Just following up on my last, what action is the Minister taking to discuss this topic with our neighbouring jurisdictions, particularly Nunavut and the Yukon? Certainly, they have to be having similar issues and maybe they will more and more. So there’s an opportunity, maybe, for northern Canada to have a special dispensation where we can actually collect income tax from dollars made here. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, in fact I do believe, as well, that Alberta has the same challenge with a significant amount of workers it brings in mainly from eastern Canada on an ongoing basis. We have had discussions about the challenges they face. I haven’t had any immediate or recent discussions with our northern territories. I have had more discussions with Alberta as they struggle to come to grips with the same issue. They may have come up with no surefire solutions, either, because the planes still fly on a weekly basis full of workers returning home or on shift change. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
