Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have heard from the Minister of Public Works and Services that, in the Nunavut land claim agreement, it states that there will be a similar procurement policy to the BIP. It does not say it has to be the BIP. That's one point I would like to point out.
I have business people in my communities as well as in other communities, and there are a number of business -- and they are not Inuvialuit business -- that say that the ability of this government to properly analyze the bids based on the BIP is impossible and is unfair. They've said that time and time again, and this government itself admits that they have a hard time analysing these bids put forward, so that they are, in fact, fairly analyzed and awarded based on merit.
There's a suggestion put forward that a new type of bid should take the place of this one which would be more suitable for the purpose. Fine, I have no problem with that, but it should wait until we balance the budget.
I would also like to point out that the Minister of Finance, on more than one occasion, has stated that all people must bear the pain of balancing this budget. Now, we fired a whole pile of guys, or we laid them off, and we've also cut back on some of our school capital projects when we just went through the budget and put them down the road another year because we don't have the money. So, what is the portion of the pain that the business community is bearing? I don't know. Do they go to school? Are they workers that work for us? Obviously not. So where are they bearing the pain? Is it the amount of capital projects that we don't have any more? They must look at the fact that if we don't pay out of BIP worth $30 million, we would then have $30 million worth of capital dollars that we could use to produce more capital projects. It stands to reason.
The Minister said there were no sacred cows, but this is one cow that has really been hiding good, and it's time for it to come out, time for us to chase this cow out, put a brand in it and let's see what it's worth. That's all I am saying here.
The Minister and this whole Assembly have approved cuts to salaries, cuts to positions. I didn't hear a big outcry like I am hearing now. But those people were our workers. We cut; we made them bear the pain. We cut their positions to balance the budget, we were told, but we are not balancing the budget. So obviously somebody is not bearing their share of the pain; otherwise, it's quite possible we would have a balanced budget.
The Finance Minister also said, we will not balance the budget on the backs of the needy. I also heard the same statement being made by the Premier and by other people Who were running for Cabinet last fall. Well, who is the needy? Are the businessmen really the needy? That is the question we really have to ask ourselves because, in my communities, I've seen a lot of needy people and not one them was a businessman.
I don't believe for one minute that we are treating our workers fairly by trying to balance the budget on them without everybody bearing a fair and equal share. Mr.
Chairman, I've said more today than I've said since I've been here, so that's the end of my response. Thank you.