Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of this motion as well. I am not going to make a lengthy statement because I do believe that points are very well covered in the motion itself, and my colleague from Yellowknife, Mr. Dent, outlined some major points that I wanted to say, and so has everyone else. So I don't want to go back to all the points made.

But I do want to say a few things, and one is that before I came to the Assembly, when I was campaigning, I didn't run into anybody who liked BIP. Everyone had a problem with the current BIP policy. But the fact is, now everybody is saying they want to keep the old policy. They hate the new policy. I don't know how. I mean, we have failed in our job if somehow the changes being proposed by the Minister are falling so short that they would rather have the current one that they were unanimous in not liking. So, Mr. Speaker, I do believe that should say something about the need for the Minister and this government to revisit and address some of the major concerns that have been raised. The major concerns such as encouraging and enabling store fronting was a major issue in the original policy, but now with the new policy we've even made it worse. A $1 million cap on a project is a problem for many people. Lack of monitoring and enforcing the rules and lack of resources to do that is a big problem.

Mr. Speaker, the biggest concern I have is the fact that this could have been a good-news item. We could have really done something with this policy change, we could have really made a difference. I know that the government was off on good footing by starting a consultation process at the beginning of the mandate. The people went out and they spoke about what concerns they had about the existing policy. But it appears that the Minister has not been listening. I don't know if he has been otherwise preoccupied. I can tell you, I have this thick document here of all the correspondence that our committee has exchanged with the Minister. We have met with the Minister, I have notes, pages and pages of notes of concerns that the Members raised. I believe the Members were completely willing to work on this revised policy to make the policy better. But to date, all the major concerns that we had were not addressed.

I still remember the day in August when I got a call from a colleague at 10:00 in the morning to say the Minister was holding a press conference about the revised BIP policy, and asking if I was going to be there. Mr. Speaker, I say to you, in a consensus government, we're supposed to be involved in the decision-making process on an issue as big as this where we have expended government money to do consultation and to engage this much time. Yet, that announcement to change the policy happened in the middle of the summer when there was nobody in the building, without any notice to us, and then there it was.

I went to the press conference in my shorts hoping that maybe there was a big announcement to make there. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you neither the Minister nor the deputy minister could answer what the cost of this policy is at the moment. Yet in his statement, the Minister said we have to change this because the policy as it exists now is costing the government too much money. When the reporter asked him how much it was costing him, the Premier and Minister both said we don't know, but we know it's costing us money.

Mr. Speaker, that is not the way to change a major policy like this. It's really making a mockery out of what we are going through here, and it really is too bad, Mr. Speaker. I feel very sad about that, because I really believe that this was an opportunity missed, an opportunity with which we could have really made a real difference. I don't believe that it would be right for the Minister to forge ahead and implement this policy to be effective three days after the session is out.

I really would like to request the Minister take seriously the motion being presented here and arguments that we are making, and rescind the revision and leave it to the next Assembly to make the necessary changes. I do also want to say that some of the points that are introduced in the new policy could work for us, it's just that there are too many points that are not going to work.

Mr. Speaker, like Mr. Roland, I did have a constituent who said that they would be happy to see the new revised policy come into effect because at the moment that business does not qualify. I know that that business, in particular, probably is not happy that I'm not speaking here for the new policy, but I can tell you that I have to weigh the balance of feedback from the constituents, and I can tell you I don't have anybody else who supports this new policy. I've had hundreds of calls and letters from people who oppose this new idea.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to finish by reading a letter from a constituent of mine sent last week, and I think this really speaks to a lot of concerns that local businesses have. Local businesses that are here and they're here to stay, they're small businesses, they still rely on government contracts and they should be rewarded for making commitments in the North.

Mr. Speaker, the letter goes on to say, "As a northern supplier to the Northwest Territories, I feel that the proposed changes to the BIP will adversely affect our business. As an electrical distributor we have moved our operation to Yellowknife earlier this year to make sure we would be able to meet the intentions of the original Business Incentive Policy. After investing in a newer house, hiring two people and soon a third from Yellowknife, paying NWT taxes, using all local services, it looks like things are about to change. We have made a large investment in the NWT and are not just a storefront business. We have local inventory for the contractors, never mind the fact that we provide local competition to the Yellowknife market. This in turn saves money to the contractors that is passed on to the local consumer. We now incur all of the costs of doing business in the NWT, I don't think it would be fair to let southern businesses who have far less operating costs enjoy the same benefit as northern companies, without first stepping up to the plate and investing and making a long-term commitment to the people of the NWT."

Mr. Speaker, I believe that this letter shares the sentiment of many others, including the NWT Construction Association, who have made it known to us that the revised Business Incentive Policy not only doesn't deal with the problems of the old but it will create a whole new set of new ones and we have to change them. So I support the motion to rescind the revision and to stick with the old until we can do a better job of revising. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause