Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member from Hay River North, that Bill 60, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.
Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Kam Lake.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday during Committee of the Whole's review of Bill 60, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, I had too much to say and ran out of time. So I am thankful for this added time.
Mr. Speaker, we can all agree that increases the cost of living for NWT residents is not what we want. But that is not why we are here. This bill does not decide if we want a carbon tax or not. The federal government imposed the carbon tax on January 1st, 2019, and only the federal government can choose to get rid of the carbon tax. This bill is to decide who will administer the carbon tax revenues in the NWT. Our choices are either the GNWT, through Bill 60, or the federal government through a federal backstop.
In a published letter from the NWT Chamber of Commerce in regards to Bill 60, they stated, quote, "The GNWT boasted in 2019 its cost of living rebate program could see some residents receiving more than they spent on increased energy prices; however, the feds have now moved the goalposts, hiking carbon, national carbon pricing targets for 2023 to 2030, and Ottawa has closed the loophole and will prohibit carbon tax rebates that directly offset, reduce, or negate the impact of the carbon tax. With operating costs for NWT businesses increasing after the carbon tax rebate on heating fuel is removed, logic dictates that some or all of those costs will be passed to consumers. Does the federal government not understand there are no economically viable energy alternatives currently available here? Does it not understand the damage that will be caused to the private business sector and the overall economy if the NWT can't be exempt from the proposed changes from the bill?"
Viable alternative energies, while not in the bill itself, is a critical part of this conversation. We are being taxed for using old infrastructure through an energy monopoly, a tax that wants to force us to make better choices. But better choices for energy alternative options don't exist in the Northwest Territories. The tax shows the reality that those making the decisions at the federal level do not understand the realities of life North of 60. The big city privilege assumes that we have alternative energies we simply are ignoring. This is not the case and this government, along with the federal government, needs to work together to make alternative energy solutions affordable and accessible in the North. This means realistic cost sharing agreements and applicable criteria that reflect northern realities. This also means the GNWT needs to review its and NTPC policies to support alternative energy solutions.
Mr. Speaker, on one hand we have Bill 60 where the GNWT administers carbon tax. Regular Members have negotiated revenue sharing for community government for this year along with the regional cost of living offsets depending on where residents live. But the revenue sharing is not in legislation and does not include small and medium business, NGOs, or Indigenous governments. This means there is no guarantee that the next government will continue the precedent, for example of revenue sharing, with community governments.
On the other hand, there is the option to vote down Bill 60 and the federal backstop kicks in and the federal government will administer the carbon tax. From what I have seen, it appears the federal government does not want to administer carbon tax revenues and in other jurisdictions, like the Yukon, they have implemented a backstop similar to what we're some of us are requesting through committee work.
Cost of living offsets, revenue sharing, and reporting. But we can't say for sure what the federal government will do come April 1st because they have refused to share with the NWT what the federal backstop will look like.
Mr. Speaker, we are in what feels like a no-win situation. I want, I want a GNWT administered carbon tax with a law that requires all carbon tax revenues to be rebated to households, businesses, community governments, Indigenous governments, and nongovernmental organizations, along with clauses that address accounting and annual reporting expectations. But because the current bill does not speak to revenue sharing, once tabled this information cannot be added to the bill that is before us today and would be deemed out of scope. So I am being asked to choose between something I don't like and that asks me to trust, not this, but every future Cabinet in the GNWT, or an unknown federal backstop.
Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. I trust Minister Wawzonek. She has made great efforts in the past couple of months to try to find ways to collaborate with committee within the unfortunately too narrow scope of the bill. This Minister is an incredibly smart person who has proven herself capable and worthy of her role, and I trust her heart. But, Mr. Speaker, could I stand in this House and say that I trust every Minister equally? No, I could not. Could I stand in this House today and say that I trust every Minister that is elected by future Assemblies? No, I could not. It is our job to pass legislation that can stand without us. So while I trust Minister Wawzonek, I cannot say that I trust who may serve after her and make revenue sharing decisions on behalf of the Department of Finance in the future.
Yesterday in Committee of the Whole, the Minister was sincere and clear in her attempts to make reparations with committee, and I sincerely appreciated this. The Minister indicated that she would like to find a way to bring forward some type of regulation or legislation that documents revenue sharing, and I appreciate this. But, Mr. Speaker, as I read from the 18th Assembly Standing Committee on Government Operations report on the carbon tax bill, the similarity of feedback from the 18th and 19th Assemblies was glaring. Much of the same concerns were raised in the last Assembly. And here I was, standing in front of a different Minister with the same department who, again, brought forward a mirror image bill, that does not address any of the concerns raised and did not make attempt to address any of them in the 19th Assembly's bill.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not have a statutory review clause, meaning it could continue as legislation without review or opportunity for review for as long as the government chose. And because the amendments I want to see deal with money, proposed amendments can't even come from this side of the House.
I would like Ministers and the GNWT to learn from my words today. I am not supporting Bill 60 because of the government's missed opportunity to open a committee report tabled in the previous Assembly that discussed the same topic with the same concerns and the same unwelcome response. This bill was just as contentious in the 18th Assembly, and no effort was made to amend the bill, to improve the bill, or learn from what happened last time, and history repeated itself.
So how can I believe that now things will be different? Committee reports are the words of stakeholders, Mr. Speaker, the residents of the Northwest Territories, and need to be responded to with more effort and care and read with greater openness to hear, reflect, and grow.
It gives me zero satisfaction to not support the bill. I'm going to repeat that, Mr. Speaker. It gives me no satisfaction to not support the bill. But I am committed to pursuing the best possible option for the people I serve. My constituents, including business owners, NGO operators, and community governments, deserve the certainty and transparency this year and in future years of consistent revenue sharing that reflects future increases in the carbon tax and transparent reporting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know I'm dead set against Bill 60. Cost of living in my riding. The heating fuel and gas over the last year, diesel and gasoline have gone up in Nunakput. Our heating fuel has gone up 25 percent. Our automotive diesel, 24 percent. Gasoline an average 12 percent. Food prices. The price of food going up, we can't afford to buy food in my riding with the monies that we get from getting help. Nunakput communities are the highest food price index in the Northwest Territories. Over 50 percent of families in Nunakput are worried about having enough money for food. Almost half of the residents in Nunakput are worried about they don't have enough money for food all the time or often. We have to hunt; hunt to eat. 67 percent of households in Nunakput eat country food. Half half of them or half the time all families eat straight country food. The price of power continues to go up in the NWT. The cost of power in my riding, amongst the highest rates. For example, again, Sachs Harbour $2.02 a kilowatt. Housing, the insufficient housing. They're old. They're 40yearold Webber units. Residents have to pay the price for poorly built housing units. Housing NWT are doing renovations only in 20232024, only approximately eight percent of the houses in my region. Housing NWT renovate units not fast enough to keep up with the housing problems. 30 percent of Nunakput homes are overcrowded. Inflation across Canada is at an alltime high. In the NWT inflation is higher than Canada's seven percent. Household income. Nunakput has the highest living costs in the difference in the NWT. 18 percent people in Nunakput considered to have low incomes. Nunakput is over $50,000 below average. Families have in the NWT prices on all goods and services in our region is the highest. Over 10 percent of the families in my riding live on less than $30,000 a year. 344 people in Nunakput live on income assistance. That's 17 percent.
You know, Mr. Speaker, our employment, we have no employment opportunities in my riding. You know, the offshore moratorium is still a go. Everything's on hold. In the outlying communities, there's only so many jobs that go around. And people are those jobs are taken until retirement.
Impact on Nunakput communities on Bill 60. An estimated total household carbon tax burden for Nunakput averages $899 for 20232024. People in Nunakput can barely live, put food on the table, find employment and earn income to pay for the heat, the power, and the housing. How can we tax people who have nothing to give, Mr. Speaker? Small communities can't afford the carbon tax. Residents should be penalized for where we live? It's not providing the GNWT is not putting enough offsets into this carbon tax. The cost of living offset in is a step in the right direction. Some small some people in the small communities struggle. Our elders, single parents, our widows, our low-income residents all struggle. Ottawa and the GNWT is out for the Beaufort Delta isn't working isn't looking out for the Beaufort Delta. Ottawa is squeezing us financially with this tax while it imposes a moratorium on our resource development but doesn't return nothing back for that.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT, let's not do their dirty work. We're doing their government's dirty work here. I don't want to be painted with that brush when this carbon if it goes through. We should be speaking up in all all of our Members should be standing together and standing up against Ottawa. Let's take that federal backstop. Let them deal with it. It's really concerning to me, Mr. Speaker, that, you know, this side of the House we've been hearing last six weeks of how we're all struggling across the North with COVID and everything that's been going on and the impacts that it's been having socially, mentally, on our youth, the suicides, all that stuff that we deal with, and yet we're going to stand here and tax our own again? It's not it's not a bad thing to let Ottawa take this carbon tax, Mr. Speaker. It's not bad. I know my Minister. I trust her too. She's good at what she does. But at the end of the day, let's not take that the burden on us because that's what we're doing. We're lightening the load for Ottawa. We have to stand up for each other as 11 Regular Members, as this side of the House, I wish when the vote comes we all stand up together, be united, and that's going to show the Liberal government in Ottawa that we stand together and united to work for the betterment of the people and not take this tax on.
If Ottawa insists on this tax, Mr. Speaker, it should impose a tax throughout the backstop. The GNWT isn't taking a meaningful control. If anything, the North should be paid for cleaning southern air. Our carbon emission across our territory is 0.05 percent, Mr. Speaker. They should be giving us more.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, this bill will impact all residents of the Northwest Territories, especially those in small communities, in the High Arctic, who already face the highest cost of living.
Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill. I encourage anyone who is concerned about this bill and these Members have been hearing about it all day today to stand up and be counted and stand up for the small communities in the Northwest Territories and let's work together to let Ottawa let them do their dirty work and then we could we could start off on the right foot tomorrow morning.
Mr. Speaker, this is so near and dear to my heart. You know it as well as I do, people are going without. Again, our elders I worry about, our widows, our single parents. Everybody's struggling across the North but yet this government's going to take, impose this tax, impose it on the people that we're here to stand up for them. Stand up for them and be counted.
I want to thank all the Members in this House in regards who's going to stand up with me in regard to opposing this bill. And I wish my colleagues across the floor, I wish that was a free vote. I wish it was a free vote so that they could be able to stand up for their people who put us here. Not our deputy ministers, not our Premier, not anybody in the back and your employees, the people who voted you in put you here to represent them. Representing them? This is not representing them. We're doing Ottawa's dirty work. We have to stop it. We got to kill Bill 60. I urge my Premier and her Cabinet to stand up with us and send a message to Ottawa, and we'll work together, and we'll take the brunt of it from Ottawa. And I'll be standing right behind her. But, Mr. Speaker, I oppose Bill 60.
I thank all my all the Members here that we've been it's been a long six weeks, and it's been a long, few days. We've been working long days. And, you know, we get emotional about what's happening. There's a lot going on in our home communities. Just think about it. Somebody's hungry tonight, cut off income support, can't get nothing, when we could do so much. They have the authority to do so much but they choose not to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to talk about the reality for our people in small communities; and I represent majority of Tlicho people from four communities.
Yesterday we talked about which colonial government to trust, the federal or territorial government. As an Indigenous person, we have trust issues because we know what the colonial government did to our people. Through the colonization, they tried to assimilate us. In the process, they ruined our life and we are still feeling the impact of it. Not only that, pushing us aside while they exploit our land.
Mr. Speaker, we are struggling with limited economic activity and high cost of living. The health status report of our people from 2018 report has not changed much. When you go to our community, you will see it and feel it. We have a lack of essential services that require people to leave the community to access those services. People leave the community to access health care services, get supplies and materials from Yellowknife. This, while all the cost of living continues to increase. Not only are those supplies more expensive but the gasoline to get those supplies is also more expensive. Residents obtain these more expensive supplies, spend more money on gas to get them, and then they are being impacted by higher heating fuel costs when they get home as well. Now a carbon tax, another tax that our residents in small communities must pay while they struggle to make ends meet.
Mr. Speaker, I am not certain the government understands what this carbon tax means. Due to climate change and the mines, our traditional way of living is impacted. Due to the restriction in place on caribou and the mobile hunting zone, our residents must travel further than ever to be able to hunt. The ability to hunt for caribou is becoming more difficult. Now it is also becoming more expensive. I feel for all the Tlicho people because of the restriction. They cannot hunt the caribou in their backyard but travel hundreds of miles towards the mines to hunt caribou and spend more money to gas, wear and tear on the hunting equipment, more cost and more cost for them. This, all while trying to look while trying and looking to hunt in a sustainable way to access the land and harvest animal for their family and community. We are putting more roadblocks on our hunters through this tax.
How will my residents benefit from the carbon tax? I looked through the budget. I see nothing for my region that will make the changes we need. We need housing and health care. Mental health is a huge concern. Getting people on the land helps promote healthy lifestyle. This carbon tax will stop people from going on the land and limiting people from getting on the land as well.
Our winter roads are becoming less reliable. Our climate is changing. And we are being charged this tax as if it is our fault; the people who are causing these emissions. This is not fair, Mr. Speaker. This tax is coming, I understand that, whether it is GNWT or federal government, however I want to see benefits going to people, not to the mines who make so much money already. I want to see community government get support and people get support as well, more on the land programming to offset the high cost that this tax is creating. This tax should support our community government and help them deliver recreation program, which is something our youth are calling for. It should promote getting on the land, which is something all people are asking for.
With this in mind, Mr. Speaker, I do not support the carbon tax proposed by this government. They can do a better job by working with the Indigenous government and people. That is consensus government. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ever since this bill was introduced, this Bill 60, I have been opposed to it and I continue to be opposed to it. I think as elected Members, we are elected by the people that we represent within the communities, ordinary people, people who will never be able to go through the door, okay. We speak for those people, for the middle class, for the poor, for the seniors societies, you know, for the senior population, for small business, for the Indigenous groups, and for everyone. And I just cannot vote for Bill 60. I think that we have an obligation to the people of the NWT to do the right thing, and the right thing is to not support Bill 60. It's going to come back and haunt us if we do. And, you know, I can't understand how, you know, we elect we elect Cabinet, you know, and I have a lot of faith in a lot of Members across the room here. You know, we elect them and yet they don't vote for whatever they don't want to vote on; they all stay together and there's no you know, there's not an open you know, you have to start I know there's a lot of compassionate people on the other side and it must be very difficult sometimes for people to not understand that we are in this, at the 11th hour at this stage. It's just it's not acceptable. And for that reason, I don't waiver. When I say I'm going to do something, and the people of the Northwest Territories and all these groups that submitted submissions with regards to Bill 60, those groups represent a lot of people. And nobody wants Bill 60 the way it is right now. So I'm sticking to my guns and I support I do not support Bill 60. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the carbon tax. Unfortunately this vote is not about removing the carbon tax. The carbon tax is here. It's you know, it's a federal initiative. It's being you know, it's been taken to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court upheld its legitimacy. This vote is basically on who will collect and administer a tax that is being pushed on not just us but all Canadians. And what are we gaining, I guess, by using the federal backstop? Nobody here can tell me, nobody on this side and, really, nobody on that side. And even the federal government. You know, when I talk to people, you know, in Ottawa, they don't have any idea really. I don't think they I think they think that we're going to continue to administer it and more likely we are. So, you know, we talk about, you know, you're throwing it back it to the federal government and not doing their dirty work. You know, and maybe that's maybe that's the way to go, you know, especially when we see that, you know, we have a federal minister coming in supposedly this week that doesn't have time to meet with Regular MLAs, yet on the other side I can meet with these people any time I want, you know, in trying to work with them. So, you know, really, at the end of the day, from the beginning, I looked at what the scenarios are and, you know like, my colleague here from Thebacha, I made my choice at that point, and I'm not about to waiver from it either. And because of, you know, the statement I made the other day, or yesterday about how I'd vote, I'll stick with that and I'll vote in favour of the bill. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I listened to all my colleagues speak. I was chair of Committee of the Whole; I wasn't able to speak so now I get to speak. I get to say my opinion. I tried to keep my cards close during the time because I wanted to, you know, make sure that debate went on and I'm not I'm sitting in the chair. So now it's time for me to actually vote, and I have to say it. But I'm going to give I'm not going to really repeat everything everybody says because, you know, with my colleagues on this side of the House, whether they're for it or against it, I agree with you. But, you know, I have to listen to my constituents as Member for Thebacha says. And the only constituents that I heard from are against taxes. And we as a government, we know that we're going to have a tax whether I say yes or no. So at this point, you know, I think my mind the way that I look at things is that sorry, my notes, my everything has been scattered all over. I've been doing this for, like, bouncing back and forth because, you know, I so, you know, with all the things that the Minister has done with us, you know, I applaud that she's been trying hard to make sure that this bill could meet the needs of the North. I even look at what the seniors has brought to it, and I look at our Minister of education and all the things that he's done in income support, and even identifying the area that we need to support our seniors. Home heating subsidy, we've increased. We've done all these things for our seniors to try, you know, and I don't know if that was for Cabinet to try and you know, implement this to make a little bit more of a cushion. But what I do know is that the things that we asked for in our report, we didn't get. We got the things that we talked about prior to and then knowing that this government didn't even take the recommendations from the 18th Assembly and consider them, or did they? Maybe they did, but they didn't even try to do any of those before putting this bill forward. And I want to give it to my colleague, who is not here who is I'm sure wishing he could vote tonight, that he raised this. He raised this and maybe in his way of his own red alert, he raised this in the fall and, you know, us as Members, we're drinking from a fire hose and, you know, we had a lot of catchup to do after COVID, and I'm sure the Ministers as well. And we had so much legislation and so many things that we were reviewing that trying to prioritize what are we what are we reading, where are we at, you know. Why didn't we push harder to have this legislation taken off the table, fixed, and then brought back to us. Now we're in the 11th hour and we don't even have time for new legislation to come through.
You know, I talked to my colleagues about who do I trust? Who do I trust? Do I trust the Government of the Northwest Territories? Do I trust the federal government? Right now, you know, there's so many things that we've asked for and we've not gotten. We've asked for different types of things from these Ministers we haven't got. And so do I go with as somebody had told me yesterday, if they say that I still have hope. As a new Member, of course I have hope. I'm here because I have hope that this government will listen to me. But time and time again that hope has been stepped on. So, you know, after everything that I've got to contemplate, I have to stand with majority of my colleagues as you guys do together, and I will not support this bill. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. The motion is in order. To the motion. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the carbon tax fails to recognize that the Northwest Territories residents, the majority of whom are Indigenous, do not have access to alternative heating fuels, have no ability to lower their heating costs. Some of our communities are literally falling into the Arctic Ocean and others are being washed away by unprecedented flooding. All are facing the increased financial burden of adapting to and mitigating the risks of a warming climate. But none of our communities contribute meaningfully to Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, and none are responsible for the history of greenhouse gases released during Canada's industrial development when northern Indigenous people were still living traditional lifestyles.
Despite this, the residents living in remote communities, like Sachs Harbour or Paulatuk, pay over $8,000 to heat a year to heat their homes before application of the carbon tax. Furthermore, there is no opportunity to switch to clean electricity for heat since most Northwest Territories communities the have no choice but to rely on dieselgenerated electricity supply at their local community. The current approach poses a system that puts remote communities, whose residents are primarily or entirely Indigenous, even further behind the rest of Canada at a time when geopolitics and reconciliation suggest we should be making every effort to support them. It ignores the history that led to the disadvantages they experience and ignores their current lived realities.
Mr. Speaker, I've quoted some of that letter before. It was a letter that I wrote to the federal minister after the public hearing that committee convened. I thank committee for their hearing. It was in hearing them that emboldened me to write that letter. It wasn't the first letter I wrote. I wrote several letters. We spoke. I spoke. Other Ministers spoke. Other jurisdictions spoke. I'm not reading the entire letter. I have shared the entire letter, not because I was asked; I shared all of those letters at my own decision to do so because I needed to try to show that we have raised the voice of the North. We have tried to show the realities of the North. And I'm certainly not in favour of the carbon tax, of the federal carbon tax and the way that it applies to the North. But, Mr. Speaker, just as my colleagues and I appreciate that today's tone is certainly trying to demonstrate we have worked together. I do hope the public realizes we have met. I have tried to with the timing the way it's been to make some concessions. And I think it's made the carbon tax or Bill 60 much better. But at the end of the day, the idea of what is best for the Northwest Territories is also something that Cabinet and myself are also faced with a decision upon, that we too have to navigate the government waters and navigate our relationship with the federal government in the best interests of the Northwest Territories.
So having wrote that letter, having signed that letter, and others like it, having raised the issue at the finance table, at the finance FBT table under similar tones, pointing to the fact that federal ministers attended international conferences, acknowledged that other countries, other countries developing nations should, in fact, see some sort of benefit. The developing countries are not the reason that the rest of the world is now facing a climate crisis. They were they're underdeveloped. And now we're telling them that rather than developing, they have to pay carbon taxes and carbon burdens. We as a westernized country, we're acknowledging that. And yet in our own country, we're not acknowledging that reality. We're not acknowledging that in our very own country, that in the North we didn't benefit from industrialization. We are facing all of these challenges and yet we have to pay. I've said all those things, Mr. Speaker. I want my colleague and I want the public to know that I have said them, and my colleagues have said them, and we've raised the issue. It's not for lack of raising it.
So when I keep saying that I want to hang on to the responsibility and the authority to collect and control revenues under the carbon tax, it's because despite saying all these things, despite raising all these issues, I am not getting responses. We are not getting responses. We are not seeing a flush of alternatives coming to the North. And so I want to do what I can to hang on to as much revenue as I can to be able to recycle it in a way that keeps it in the North and that keeps control of it in the North, whether it's me or another Minister. I can't promise what's going to happen in the future. I don't as far as consistency or certainty, Mr. Speaker, the moratorium wasn't supposed to be reviewed the way it was, or rather not. Mr. Speaker, in 2016, the carbon tax was supposed to be collaborative, it was not. So I don't have a lot of faith in what that process from the federal government might look for. The best that I have extracted most recently is an understanding that federal government, federal government departments should meet, should in fact meet with communities in the North. I will, for the remaining time that I have here, certainly make sure that I follow up on that offer that I've had from them that we do everything we can to get those federal Ministers to the North so they can, in fact, see the lack of alternatives we have, and if there is federal money, that it starts to come here so we can get off fossil fuels. We need to do that for climate change reasons, and we need to do that for the cost reasons, and to do it because it's the right thing to do. And I will certainly continue to pursue that.
But in the meantime, in the meantime, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to hand over control of this money to the federal government. I do think this is the best possible option. It is where I'm left. And I am sorry for the process that we faced as, again I said, I am accountable for the process on this one. We shouldn't have come to the point where people are feeling compelled to vote against carbon tax by voting for Bill 60. It shouldn't have come to this. I hear where people's frustration is, and I know they want to represent their constituents. I do understand that.
So all I'll say, to conclude, Mr. Speaker, one last time, I'm going to give the pitch of what it is that we are saying is the benefits and the not. I also I'm going to start with the large emitters program because this does seem to be fairly not, I don't know if "misunderstood" is the right word. I'm going to take that back, Mr. Speaker.
There's a lot of reporting that's done with the carbon tax. Let me start with that one. I realize there was a request for further and more reporting in the committee's report. There's already a fairly detailed report that goes out every year. It's on the website. It details all the different types of fuel, how much by volume, how much by cost, how much which different entities residents, small businesses, government, large emitters, who pays what, who uses what volume. Part of my struggle is not understanding what more needs to be reported upon but we've made a lot of changes to reporting in this government, and if there's more that somebody wants us to do that we can do within the boundaries here, I'm happy do it. I can't promise that the reduction and use of fuel is because of the carbon tax, because there's a lot of other reasons that someone may not want to use fossil fuels. But if we can make some changes to this report, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to do that.
Mr. Speaker, the large emitters, in 20212022, they paid $19.7 million, three months. Mr. Speaker, residents, small businesses, and governments collectively paid only $16.9 million. The large emitters are the ones paying the most, and they will continue to pay the most under the large emitters program. Keeping our program doesn't give them a discount. It actually keeps them paying, and it keeps them paying in line with being roughly 50 percent users as compared to everybody else, paying a little bit more.
The OBPS system, the federal backstop system will have some sort of nationalized standard, which may or may not just be our three mines, it may be other mines lumped in, and to the extent that they're over, they pay, and to the extent that they're under, they don't. So I don't think they'll be paying as much under the federal backstop. We'll see how that unfolds.
But besides that, Mr. Speaker, I am worried for the future of our mineral resource industry. I'm worried for future smaller mines that won't qualify under the federal system and those smaller mines I want I want the North to be the critical minerals/metals supplier of the future. But it's going to be making it very difficult if we aren't competitive in that space.
Mr. Speaker, there's two big parts for residents that committee has had a very direct hand in improving. The cost of living offset. The cost of living offset right now is now a tiered system such that the average resident in every community, including the high cost communities, will see that they will not be seeing an increased cost as a result of carbon taxes and that is thanks to committee and to their feedback for having us find a better solution. Similarly, Mr. Speaker, the community revenue sharing approach, again, put to us to find a solution, a solution was proposed and then in fact told no, you've got to go make that even better. And we did. 10 percent of net revenues, again, based on the current usage that we have and being able to evaluate the current use of fuels more than compensates the impacts of the carbon tax. But, Mr. Speaker, that's not necessarily the point as I think that was made a point of yesterday. Mr. Speaker, it's frankly just the right thing to do to help support communities to get off fossil fuels. At the end of the day, that is the point.
So, Mr. Speaker and, Mr. Speaker, one last one last one in addition to, again, saying that the reporting can still be looked at, with respect to getting some of this into legislation and regulations, as already has been said, part of it is the scope of the bill as drafted, which was drafted after our public meeting in the fall. But, Mr. Speaker, I did, in hearing colleagues still yesterday, speak one more time with the department. It is possible to draft a bill that would be very narrow in scope, so certainly not addressing everyone's issues in their entirety, but at least to get the purpose of having the cost of living offset and having the community revenue sharing portion put into a form of legislation or regulation. There is pathway by which we could do that, with committee's collaboration, and certainly if this were to pass tonight, I will go back to committee and ask if that is still in fact their wish. It will be narrow, it won't answer everything, but it will at least enshrine that portion that they fought so hard for into legislation.
Mr. Speaker and then besides that, again, I'll be following up with the federal government. I know my colleagues do as well. It won't just be me. I do hope that our federal government colleagues attend here, that they can be stand in the small communities and offer us offer a pathway by which to find alternative energies and alternatives to fossil fuels. We don't want to be on fossil fuels. It's not helping the climate. It is expensive. It is not the way of the future. But we're going to need help to get there. And no matter what may happen tonight, Mr. Speaker, that really fundamentally is what we're going to have to do.
For now, Mr. Speaker, I do hope, again, I know people have made their positions write clear and quite firm. Nevertheless, I do hope that what we do going forward gives us control in a measure by which we can help support residents, businesses, and small communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
