Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is good to be back. On many occasions in the past, I have spoken about the need for the government to review the RFP and the negotiated contract processes. In this past week I was provided a letter from the Premier in response to my previous concerns, and he advised that the government has assembled a committee to review the current practices on negotiated contracts. This committee is to be made up of senior government officials from various departments and is to report back by March 31, 1999. This certainly is welcome news, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for this initial step.
I would encourage the Premier to take this matter several steps further, distribute these recommendations to the various contractors, consultants, landlords and other stakeholders. The mandate should be to receive feedback, read the pulse of those directly affected by our contracting systems. Also, I would recommend the expansion of the committee's mandate to include requests for proposals. I have received specific complaints from people who have participated in RFPs.
People who have become very frustrated with the lack of feedback for their unsuccessful bids. Recently the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses surveyed Northwest Territories members and asked the question, should full financial information on government subsidies and grants paid to businesses be more readily available and understandable to the public? The result of that survey was 90 percent from the Northwest Territories voted yes to that question. Of course, the question may as well have read and included the words, negotiated contracts and RFPs, because many of the contracts have been used to influence the development of regional economies and specific industry sectors. That may be quite acceptable and desirable by many people in the territories, but we need to improve the public confidence in the processes of this government. The way to do that is to understand and respond to the public's concerns be they perceptions or real. Thank you.
--Applause