Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services
Inuvik (Aug 31/01) - Presenters urged that the brakes be put on a proposed toll on commercial vehicles earlier this week during public hearings on Bills 9 and 10.
Together the bills, which have passed second reading in the legislature, would impose a toll (or permit fee) on all commercial vehicles weighing at least 12,000 kilograms and carrying freight on NWT public highways (but not ice roads).
The permit fee will be based on the axle configuration of the vehicle and the route travelled between pre-determined zones on the highway system. Vehicles that remain within a single zone will not pay the fee.
A public highway improvement fund will also be established.
Judy Harder, co-owner of Wrangling River Supply, expressed concerns about the toll on Monday.
"Of all bad ideas, I think this is the worst," Harder said.
She presented a petition bearing 200 names of people opposing the toll.
The territorial government plans to use the tolls to pay for an additional investment of $100 million -- over and above the $48 million in planned expenditures -- in reconstruction and upgrading of highways within the NWT over the next four years.
About $10 million is earmarked for the Dempster Highway. Under the tolls within the Highway Investment Strategy, an additional $20 million would be spent on Dempster maintenance.
Inuvik marked the first stop for the standing committee on governance and economic development. The members held public hearings Monday and morning.
Those on the committee are chairman Floyd Roland, MLA for Inuvik Boot Lake, as well as Mackenzie Delta MLA David Krutko, Range Lake, MLA Sandy Lee, Tu Nedhe, MLA Steven Nitah, and Hay River North MLA Paul Delorey.
Harder explained her company operates a mobile grocery store, in the form of a tractor trailer van, which sells groceries in Tsiigehtchic, Fort McPherson and Aklavik.
"It's going to discourage us from going to these communities to sell groceries."
Different zones
Harder said that of particular concern was the way the zones are laid out, from the Yukon border along the Dempster Highway, up to Fort McPherson, is one zone, but then there is another zone.
Truck drivers travelling the Dempster would pay a toll upon entering the NWT and then would pay the toll again upon reaching Tsiigehtchic or Inuvik, and would be tolled again if they returned to Fort McPherson while still carrying cargo.
Using figures supplied by the Department of Transportation, Roland said that it's estimated the toll would incur a cost of $320 for a tandem truck with tandem trailer going from the Yukon border to Inuvik.
Roland and other committee members pointed out that earlier this year the government, in a separate initiative, raised the cost of the living tax credit, so that it's up from $645 to $822 at the high end of the scale.
Inuvik resident Linda Graf, and town councillor George Doolittle, both asked the committee why the larger industries aren't being targeted, as they account for much of the truck traffic within the NWT.
Lee said the government has to be careful before targeting one group. She alluded to last year's proposed hotel tax, which did not become law, and said that companies do not stand alone.
"Taxing them does not mean it does not affect the rest of us," Lee said.
Doolittle said he doesn't like to see the general public paying for enhanced highway investment.
Wood objects to toll
Fellow town councillor Clarence Wood agreed. He appeared before the committee Tuesday morning. He also is a member of the Inuvik District Education Authority, and is vice-president of cities, towns and villages within the NWT Association of Municipalities.
Wood said any costs imposed on shipping companies will be passed on to consumers. He suggested increasing the payroll tax up from one per cent, and said Inuvik is already having trouble attracting professional workers like teachers and nurses.
