Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are going to work with the local communities to ensure that the problem that Mr. Arvaluk and Mr. Ningark brought up about drugs and alcohol going into the communities doesn't occur. The RCMP should arrest and charge the people who are bringing in the drugs. And, as far as alcohol, if the community has made a decision to be dry, then contractors should respect that.
I've asked the Housing Corporation as well as DPW to look into building into our tender documents that the contractors should have dry camps. I know that in the majority of the camps in the Northwest Territories, if you are going to work for someone, you sign a paper and you can't bring alcohol into that camp. So, maybe we can address that problem through that means.
We would like to see as many local people benefit from contracts as possible. We have used many different approaches and have put in place many different training programs as well to try to benefit local people. In Mr. Ningark's riding, it has worked fairly well. In other ridings -- in some where we have bent over backwards to accommodate local contractors or people trying to get contracts -- all they've done is get the contract and turn around and hire people from Newfoundland. These are northern local people who have done this.
So, we still police those people as well. We know where they are, we know where they are working, and they are going to pay the price for doing those kinds of things. Next year, they will not get us bending over backwards to do the same thing for them again. It is as simple as that. They do it to us once, and that is it.
We want to hire local people; we want to ensure local people are working on the job, and we will do everything possible. Already we have amended the tender documents to tell contractors that if they say there are northern people in their employment in a community and there are 27 people all coming from Gitzel Street from a one-bedroom apartment, we are going to catch that and they are going to pay, accordingly. We are tired of getting defrauded by a few, bad contractors who live in southern Canada, work their way through the system, and who have lawyers and accountants working for them to show them how to beat the system. That's what we have to police.
A total of 95 per cent of our contractors are excellent contractors. There are just a few that give others a bad name. That's why there is a new business incentive policy. I know we would like to see a simple policy, but a very simple policy which would be developed for honest people. We have a fraction of people out there who are dishonest and that is why we have to state all the rules to try to corner those people and keep them out of our workforce.
We are doing as much as possible at this time, we are going to try to do more, and we are going to ensure that those people who call themselves local and call themselves northerners truly are. Thank you.