Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ootes. I have Mrs. Groenewegen, Member for Hay River and Mr. O'Brien, Member for Kivallivik. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me tell you, I will take whatever credit I can get these days because I do not get too many over the last two years. I want to thank my colleague for her kind words, and I want to thank her for the very difficult question she has asked me. I will probably have to give her an evasive answer which will more than likely disappoint her. The reality is, we do recognize there is a concern out there in a number of constituencies with respect to RFPs and I believe both the Premier and the Minister of Public Works and Services are committed to re-examining as to how we can get some form of transparency in the issue. There is always an underlying message when sometimes we ask these questions, and usually the implication is, there is political interference in the process. Of course, that is not quite how some people want to put it, but as my honourable colleague said, I like to be direct. It has been my experience, for whatever it is worth, that I have not seen it. But I will undertake to talk to my colleagues and coordinate a re-examination of this policy to see if we can find a means to give you the clarity and transparency you require on this issue. Thank you.

As the Finance Minister responsible for ensuring, to some extent, there is transparency on the fiscal side, I could not agree more with my honourable colleague. There is also clearly a need for accountability and nobody would deny that and we need to ensure that happens. In these days of public perception of politicians and mini-series, et cetera, one wonders what it takes to assure the public that at least my colleagues that I work with are straightforward, honest, and try to do the best they can with a public purse. I have to say that. I think that is important. I am getting to be personally a little fed up with sometimes the accusation that if you are successful you must be doing something wrong whether you are in business or in politics. You fundamentally get into politics for a variety of reasons. I got into politics thinking I would try and do some good for people. I hope we have been able to demonstrate that. I fundamentally believe that is the accountability. All one has to do is go back and look at the Hansard when I was the chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance. The same questions you are asking, I asked. What we need to do is work out how we do that. At that same time, protect the private interests of people who have been on jobs and do tender on jobs, et cetera. I am committed to, as I said to you, to trying to re-evaluate some of these policies we have in place.

I really did not want to get into this, but I will since you brought it forward. My honourable colleague has been around a long time, and I have a lot of respect for her and I want to say that publicly again. Think back what it was like ten, 15 years ago. Think back what it was like 20 years ago and say to yourself, who would have owned the businesses in some of these communities? Where would the aboriginal people be if some of the governments, and it was not me, it was my predecessors, took the brave step to say, we are going to negotiate contracts because we want to find a balance within the economic constituency? Where would we be today? I do not want to name, but would it be the outsiders that continue to take the economic opportunities out of this country?

I ought to remind everybody else because I have done some research on this. Negotiated contracts were done by Yellowknife people who were non-aboriginal for justice buildings, for other institutions in the 1970s and I did not hear anybody screaming then. I did not hear anybody saying it was wrong then when non-aboriginal people were negotiating contracts. But all of a sudden our predecessors who had far more wisdom than I did, Mr. Rae, Mr. Citizen, Mr. Park of the foreign commission said, we are going to find a way to change this government's policies to provide a balance to the economic constituency and it is going to be through negotiated contracts and at the same time protect the public purse. I has to be fair, cost effective, et cetera. There would be no ownership in my riding if we had not done these kinds of things. There would be no ownership in some of these other constituencies if we had not done these things. In saying that, and the reason I have given you a little historical perspective is because it is very important to me that you understand where I am coming from. In saying that, you need to examine, no question, what we have done over the last ten years. I am prepared to commit to re-examining that. But I am not apologizing for the fact that we needed to put aboriginal people into the economic constituency. It not only created some wealth, equity and ownership, it created jobs, et cetera. That is very important to me. That was an important decision made by my predecessors that I have strongly supported since I was elected and will continue to do until such time as I leave office. I will say that it needs to be re-examined in a spirit of fairness to the non-aboriginal long term northern economic constituency. I am prepared to do that. Thank you.

Different Ministers may have different interpretations. From a hands-on practical level I do very few of these, and I am not making any excuses for it. I fundamentally believe that sometimes we have a problem with an issue that we do not necessarily have all the answers to. What you do is you do an RFP and ask the private sector to come up with some creative solutions to it. I do not want to oversimplify it, but that is the way I see it. I have seen it work on a couple of occasions, but as a Finance Minister I would say that the number one criteria on RFPs has to be price. You have some responsibility for the public purse. You would be surprised how much talent and creativity you have out there in the private sector. For me, it is a means to find creative solutions to problems that frankly we do not have all the answers for. I am just very appreciative of the fact that on many occasions we can find the private sector to assist us in finding these solutions. I am sure other Ministers may have different interpretations of it. That is the way I see it. It provides us with some flexibility because we may not necessarily have all the answers and ultimately committee of departments usually make the decision. Unless my memory is not correct, price is a primary factor in the ultimate decision of who would get the RFP. I have been asked this now by three Members today and for the last time I will say, we have committed to re-examining some of these policies with respect to contractual arrangements this government does with the private sector. Thank you.

I have only had limited dealings with RFPs, my experience has been, the ones I have dealt with, that price was the factor.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. As I said to the point of being repetitive, I will do what I can to examine this policy, as well as others and see if there is a way to reassure my honourable colleagues and the public at large that this is being done in a fair, equitable, transparent manner. Thank you.