Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment made a Minister's statement, and I will quote from it: "Royalties directly impact the profitability and viability of resource development projects in the NWT" and that, "further, we will not be reviewing our resource royalty regime as part of the work on the proposed act."
One of the stated public goals of the act is to create a cuttingedge mineral resources regime in the Northwest Territories. If royalties affect our competitiveness so much, why is the Minister indicating that we are not going to address that? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated before in this House around the Mineral Resource Act, there are a number of complex issues that we are moving forward working with intergovernmental council on these issues. The question about resource revenue coming into the GNWT was asked yesterday. This is a very complex issue, as I've stated in this House, and it needs a whole-government approach, and along with intergovernmental council, we have decided to defer that to a later date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When is that later date?
If I had a crystal ball, I would let the Member know the exact date, but I suspect it will be in the next Assembly.
I'm just going to remind the Minister that the GNWT is in a revenue crisis right now, a massive shortfall that is unpredicted at this time around. It seems like now is the time to do it. Will the Minister reconsider that in light of a significant shortfall in revenues?
I take a little offence to the Member's comments. We are in support of the mining industry in the Northwest Territories. This is our biggest revenue generator. It employs probably the largest number of people outside the bureaucracy. As I stated yesterday in this House, this is a very complex issue. People focus in on the resource royalties. There's much more than that, that these mines contribute to the Northwest Territories, social economic agreements, land taxes, IBAs, gas taxes, employment. This is a whole-government approach, and it has to be something that's taken seriously, and we will look at in due course in time.
Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, support the mining industry. I don't think my question was insulting. I think what's troubling is that the Minister won't present those significant contributions to our government's revenues and our economy in a transparent annual mining report. Will the Minister commit to putting those facts on the table in an annual report so we can stop having this debate and properly acknowledge the contributions of the mining sector to our economy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Member has his own take on how we're moving this forward. As I've said, the mining industry is the biggest part of our economy. We will continue to support it on this side of the House. Some Members on that side maybe don't clearly want to support it, but we do. Our approach is, we need to support the sector that contributes the largest part of our economy. We will continue to do that, and working with the intergovernmental council moving forward, along with Members of this Assembly and the public, we will move these things as a time as needed. We are working on a Mineral Resource Act at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
