Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It made my day. We’ll see how Cabinet feels about it, but you made by day.
I appreciate the Minister of Finance’s ability to distract the House where we got talking about the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link. That wasn’t the issue; it was about creating a climate for investment such as infrastructure. So my question really is to be focused in on let’s not talk about oil and gas, let’s not talk about the mining sector or the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link.
The Minister is quite right; we have declining revenue through corporate taxation, so what is the Minister doing to attract investment from industry to new investment into infrastructure so we can tax it and create opportunities and jobs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also feel like I’d be chewing everybody’s cabbage twice here if I repeated my long, fulsome answer that I just gave the Member for Sahtu that captures all the pieces that we’re putting in place to promote economic development, create conditions for growth, grow our population. All those things combine to do the things that the Member has asked about and I won’t repeat them in the same detail that I just did. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that because I’d hate to see the Minister wrong twice, so I’m really glad we got through that.
The Quebec government has worked very hard to create a taxation scheme that develops and accelerates private sector investment in their economy through strategic sectors they’ve targeted, such as industry, manufacturing and data processing hosting. They realize focused tax opportunities create investment.
What is this government doing about creating investment in targeted sectors for growth? Thank you.
We’ve had this discussion now going back and forth. I’ll keep coming back to the investments we’re making in economic infrastructure, the conditions that we want to create for that economic development, to do the same thing the Member wants. If the Member has a specific tax he wants to talk about… Is he talking about a tax rate, not 11.5 but some other number lower, tax holidays as he calls it for some specific sector? Then stand up and give us a number. Thank you.
Why am I the only one that’s trying to do work here to create investment? It’s not my job to come up with the number. He has all the machinery. He has a multi-million dollar department that can come up with the right balance to create investment. I’m saying, I‘ve given the communications sector as an example to stimulate new investment, because if it’s not here you can’t tax it. So, how do we encourage investment? We have a good taxation structure. Sometimes it means tax holidays; sometimes it means those types of concepts.
Will the Minister invest a little time in his job and stop finding excuses not to do it and find a way to get to the bottom line, which is find a way to get investment in the Northwest Territories from top to bottom in every community?
From my learned young colleague from Yellowknife Centre, I appreciate his passion sometimes verges on bavardage, but in this case I will respond.
We share the same interests and I put as much time in my job, I would venture to say at least as much time as the Member does.
So, we have laid out the discussion here fully. It’s now getting to where we are being repetitive. We are doing the things we think are necessary to promote economic growth, grow the population. The Member wants some kind of tax holiday. I would like him just to specify what exactly that means when we know our corporate tax rate is 11.5 and the business rate of small business is 4 percent. What specifically is he suggesting that would give us advice to be able to possibly look at? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I say to my very senior Member across the way, who probably didn’t hear me for various reasons, I don’t know why, I’m saying let’s create a tax holiday for infrastructure investment that’s new. I gave a targeted sector such as the communications sector a way to help stimulate new growth. I’m not talking about lowering the business tax on any other sector, for any other reason on anything. I’m talking about creating any investment climate, such as a tax holiday.
Quebec can do it. They have the courage to attract new investment. Let’s target sectors that work. We can’t do it all on our budget. Let’s get the private sector in on part on the solution. Thank you.
Once again, we agree. We have the private sector that’s churning out about half of our $3.6 billion GDP. Half of that comes from the diamond mines. We have the private industry hard at work on a P3 process, putting that Fibre Optic Link in that’s going to create a whole industry, telecommunications, IT-focused industry in Inuvik. It’s going to provide that same advantage to every community down the valley. I believe we’re doing the same thing that the Member is asking us to do, and I appreciate him raising repeatedly the issue of the need to have the conditions for economic development. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Time for oral questions has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
