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Stephen MacGillivray/The Canadian Press
The New Brunswick government announced today it won’t renew its current tax collection agreements with First Nations and is asking chiefs to help create a new economic partnership.
The decision follows a court ruling last month that said the province has an obligation to share with the province’s First Nations carbon tax revenues collected and remitted by on-reserve retailers.
The New Brunswick legislature in Fredericton. (Image: Brad Perry)
The New Brunswick government says it will not be renewing tax-sharing agreements with First Nation communities.
Premier Blaine Higgs made the announcement Tuesday, calling the existing agreements “unsustainable and unfair.”
The agreements allow First Nation communities to keep a percentage of the provincial tax revenues they collect on-reserve through the sale of tobacco, gasoline and other fuels.
Currently, the communities keep 95 per cent of the first $8 million in provincial tax revenues and 70 per cent on amounts above that.
Higgs said about $44 million will be refunded to First Nations this year and that number is projected to reach $75 million in 2031-32.
FREDERICTON New Brunswick First Nations say the province s announcement Tuesday that existing tax collection agreements will not be renewed is an insult and a crushing attack on their economic viability. The decision to tear up these tax agreements is unfair and offensive when the premier has yet to show First Nations any morsel of fairness throughout his tenure as leader of this province, Madawaska Chief Patricia Bernard said in a statement on behalf of the Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick. She said the government s only interest is to see how much more money it can leech from our resources, be it natural or financial.
Not an authority on historic patterns of mistreatment We see First Nations communities in situations that would not be acceptable in other parts of the province, he said. If you look at it just on the [financial] resource side of it, you say, That shouldn t be a problem. There should be an improvement. … You ve got to have open and frank discussion about why. What is the reason we have not been able to see an improvement over the years?
But he said the historical patterns of mistreatment and discrimination are not part of his analysis. I don t try to be a historian or in any way defend actions of the past, he said. I m not suggesting there hasn t been unjust treatment or whatever, because I m not an authority to be in that position.
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