Like all other Members here, we want manufacturing and employment opportunities in our constituencies. I would like to know how does a small community get an opportunity to get into the manufacturing business, to provide products made in the Northwest Territories to the GNWT. What does a community have to do, besides bidding against companies from bigger centres? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess they would have to work with Economic Development, as well as the Housing Corporation and the Department of Public Works and Services to see how we can maximize the benefits to that community for contracts and capital that is going in there. That is our job, that's what we should be doing.

But, in some cases, for some things that have to manufactured, you have to have so many of them to make economic sense to begin with. I'm willing to explore that with the Member in his riding and with the departments I am in charge of, and request that the Department of Economic Development work with us to explore how Fort Simpson, Jim's area, for example, could benefit more from the capital projects that are going in there, through manufacturing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good that manufacturing is finally beginning to happen in the north. It is long overdue. There are going to be more and more opportunities. I think there are a lot of opportunities and areas where products could be made in the north and sold, not only to the Government of the Northwest Territories, but to other groups. There have been proposals and requests.

I'm sure there are a lot of ideas out there from different business people in the smaller communities who want to have an opportunity to expand in other areas. I think if the department is willing to look into these areas and work with communities to expand the manufacturing industry, that would be good. It is always good to have competition out there, not only to favour one community or one group, but to have the opportunity of having different products out there. This will certainly provide employment in the communities. This will generate income in the communities and the economy could grow.

This is the direction we are slowly going towards, and the government is definitely going in the right direction. But, on the other hand, the opportunity has to be there for other groups and communities to participate in manufacturing. That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I agree with the Member that we should explore all opportunities for manufacturing in the north. One person even suggested that we manufacture the light switches that are now being manufactured in Korea. The population that is manufacturing them do not have a very high education, similar to ours. You can specifically train people to put these switches together; they are very cheap to ship around because they are small, and we could look at things like that.

We could look at anything and see what makes sense. But, Members must realize that some of the manufacturing agreements we have now are multi-year agreements that we would have to honour. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. In the standing committee's opening remarks, they alluded to the issue that this department does a lot of the design and project management work on major projects. One of the issues in doing this type of work, especially with negotiated contracts, is the coordination between the sponsoring department or agent, your department and the people who are doing the work.

Most times, things go okay, but once in a while, things don't go okay and we end up with delays. Members in this House from the various regions have expressed their opinions on projects that don't go according to plan. One of the things I feel isn't going forward -- and I know that the department and the government are trying, but they don't seem to be making headway -- is when we try to do innovative things. For example, have a contractor do a design-build and let them manage a project. I'm just wondering where the department is in doing some of these design-build projects by a contractor or a sponsoring agency.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In every given year, we have design-build contracts. We minimize the design-builds. There were only five in the previous year's budget, I believe. Before, maybe about 10 years ago or so, there was a lot of design-build work. What we heard from a lot of the communities is, when you tender design-build contracts, you are basically favouring major companies or people with a lot of money to do them and it freezes out small companies and community involvement. This is what occurred in the past.

So, what we've done is we design separately, build separately, ship materials in separately and do all kinds of things to break the contracts down. Now what we're hearing from some people is that they want to go back to design-build. We, as a department, are open to that. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, as long as there are cost controls and standards are met. As far as timing of projects, Members are well aware that we have changed our capital cycle to the fall, which was a good idea.

But, only doing the one thing and the one thing, alone, doesn't mean you are going to get out to tender early or get your project started up on time. There is a whole process of involvement, with many different parties, that has to be followed to get the tenders out on time. One thing has come to light, and it is very clear: until we develop clear guidelines of capital standards and criteria, along with the client departments, it doesn't make a difference when you pass this capital budget, because you'll always have that problem.

We have to have a proper process and planning so when there is a project coming, the planning is done. There is a lack of funding in some departments to properly plan for capital projects, so that has to be addressed as well. Up-to-date versions capital standards and criteria, have to be developed as soon as possible with the departments so, instead of asking for palaces, we'll build houses and it should work better.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good, and I hope in setting your policies and criteria that it's flexible because, as we're all aware, not every region and not every community has the same capability. If we try something and it doesn't work, let's do something else that works. I guess all I'm saying is that we have to be flexible in how these projects are set up. And what works in one community may not necessarily work in a neighbouring community. I think there has to be flexibility in the process to make it work. That's all I want to say there.

In terms of another idea of doing capital work, we all know that this government is short of money. And something that several Members have been saying for years is that where there are businesses or organizations that do have money, they may be able to build a project, a school, for instance, or a home or whatever, with their money; design, construct and then lease it back. That, in turn, saves the government capital money. I know it costs O and M in the long term, but there have been several proposals made to this government and each time, it seems to hit a stone wall. I'm just wondering what's being done to try and change the policy in terms of having an organization do the construction and lease back.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, on the flexibility at the community consultation, I agree with the Member that we should have flexibility there.

When I'm talking about capital standards and criteria, I think it has to be laid out and it has to be made very clear to all parties involved that these are the 1994 standards of government for offices or whatever it may be: schools, renewable resource buildings. This is what is acceptable, this is what will be rejected. And if we have those standards and criteria and the proper planning, then you will not have conflicts between departments and DPW, and everything will be very clear and it would speed up the process. That's what I'm talking about when I say standards and criteria.

When you work with the community...I know that it's different in Grise Fiord than it is in Fort Resolution. So you have to adapt to that, and you should be able to do that.

The standards, for example, in a building that I know of is that they may want their own garage when they don't really need it because DPW does service vehicles, but that drives the cost of the building up. So we have to get those types of things in order.

As far as individuals leasing back to the Government of the Northwest Territories, it's been the direction of this government that we do go to lease back as much as possible. It's a more costly way to do business. Everybody realizes all we're doing is offsetting the hit. But we do lease all our offices and that's the way we do business: through lease.

As far as any other major leases that you may be referring to, I think it's something that has to be found by the FMB, not me.

That's fine and fair, but the front-line person, the person who is doing the initial project, feasibility or investigation of the project, is usually a public works officer. They, in turn, have to come back to someone. Once they get back to headquarters things seem to not get anywhere. I'm just wondering, have you, as Minister, made any overtures to FMB or the Minister of Finance or other people in terms of trying to change a policy in doing those types of projects.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think I can speak for the chairman of the FMB, but I know anything that makes common sense would be received positively. If we have money in the budget and the money is clearly there, then I don't see any problem with us leasing rather than building the capital. But I want to see those dollar figures in the public part before agreeing to anything. Thank you.

I know of several projects over the past several years that made common sense. The financial backing was there for the project for the sponsoring group. There was a need and due to various reasons, safety being one, the condition of the buildings, a lot of work was done. I may as well get specific, it's the school projects and an office project. Once it came back to headquarters, they were told the policy doesn't allow for this to happen. That's why I raise it. Why can't we change the policy or change the system to allow for this to happen? It's a good idea, it makes sense, financial backing is there, the projects and the plans are in the capital plans, and to me we should just do it, of course with all the other proper conditions. But in this particular case, it didn't get anywhere, even with the engineers involved.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're talking about the Fort McPherson high school project. That does make common sense to do that, but, ultimately, there was no money in the budget to do that. Even though the Gwich'in had proposed, with the help of my department and Education, financing that project, it was made very clear that that project would have to be jumped up a few years and it did not have the support to do that because there is a great need for high schools or schools in all communities. So that was the reason. That was the political decision. But it did make common sense to do it.

Thank you. Mr. Koe.