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Nunavut Legislative Assembly begins winter sitting today

Nunavut Legislative Assembly begins winter sitting today

Nunavut's Legislative Assembly begins its longest sitting of the year on Tuesday.

This winter sitting is expected to finish around March 14.

In that time, Nunavut's government house leader and Education Minister Paul Quassa said the standing committee will consider eight bills and five new bills will be introduced to the house.

The new bills include an income tax act, a corrections act, a tobacco act and most notably, a new education act.

"The house will be seeing quite a bit of changes to the existing education act," Quassa said. "This new education act will be following a lot of what we heard [during consultations] over the summer months and last year."

This sitting will see the first and second readings of the bill with the goal of presenting something in the spring sitting that can be pushed through before the next election, set to take place on Oct. 30.

New cigarette tax and budget

In the tobacco bill, the government aims to raise taxes on cigarettes.

"This is to see if we can help out in cutting down on tobacco use within Nunavut," Quassa said.

In addition to these bills, the government will table its last budget.

The 2017/18 operations and maintenance budget will be tabled on Wednesday by Finance Minister Keith Peterson.