Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is with some reluctance that I again rise today to talk about my concerns with the BIP revision process that RWED is currently conducting. As I mentioned the last time I spoke, if you were to go to the RWED website and try to establish or learn the rationale for some of the things that they are proposing, such as thresholds, you read that "during consultations on these issues the Northwest Territories business community expressed the need for a dollar value cap on the application of BIP bid adjustments."
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that that varies somewhat from the presentation our main Members' committee heard when it was presented, and I think the case was strongly made that this was due in large part to a need to contain costs.
Mr. Speaker, I re-raise these issues and was looking for minutes of the consultations in order to establish exactly what had been said at these consultation. Of course I got a summary of the minutes, did not get the verbatim transcripts, but I still had concerns because I could only come across one mention of this issue, and one person apparently discussing caps.
So when I asked the question in the House, the Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development Minister did respond to my question, and in response he said, "regarding the implementation of caps within the BIP, I would like to assure you that the BIP review committee did engage the public in discussions on this issue. Generally speaking, the majority of those consulted did not object to the establishment of caps."
Mr. Speaker, that may be the case but that is a long way away from saying that the Northwest Territories business community expressed a need for these caps, Mr. Speaker. We have no way of understanding or establishing, getting any insight into what really happened at these consultations. It is possible that RWED opened up the consultations suggesting, here are many things we could look at and discuss and no one raised objections.
I could certainly concede that, Mr. Speaker. I think this speaks to a real failing in how governments, specifically this one, consults. It is one thing to go around prior to the fact and say, there are a number of issues on our plates, we have concerns with the current process, we know you have concerns with the current process, let's discuss. But then when the government has draft material it is no longer consultation time, Mr. Speaker. They come around and they declare, "We are now in the stage of information sessions, so please sit quietly and listen. We have basically decided what we are going to do and we are now about to tell you what it is."
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent from my colleagues to conclude my statement.