Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity today to again raise the issue of the Government of the Northwest Territories' procurement policies and its tendering. Again, I guess this is coming up as it usually does because we've seen more sole-sourcing with southern firms on several occasions, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned before in this House, the need, as I saw it, for a statutory officer of this House that would report on procurement and would let us know which departments were adhering to our procurement policies and which ones weren't, that would provide an annual report that would give us a scorecard for departments, help them improve and help Members scrutinize the activities of this government.

I think it would do another thing, Mr. Speaker. I think it would allow for an investigation of contract awards. Oftentimes when contractors are unsuccessful and try to get some information on the awarding of a bid or an RFP, one of the problems they run up against is the government insists that much of the information as to why the award was given to somebody else is something they can't discuss and is private and would somehow negatively impact the other firm that was successful. In many cases, this is a legitimate point and a legitimate concern, but an independent statutory officer of the House could certainly be provided with this information, make an objective decision and report back. I think that would alleviate much of our concern.

We know why we don't want to see southern firms get sole-sources and bypass the tendering process, cutting out northern firms. I think we've all talked many times about the loss of our tax revenues, the loss of transfer payments if jobs are not here in the North and don't stay in the North. But another reason for doing this, Mr. Speaker, is the transfer of technology and a lack of it if we sole-source. We used the Cuff example, Mr. Speaker. We are all very well aware of the Cuff report, a review of our health care system. We relied on a southern expert to come up here. The department made the case that there really was no one in the North who was qualified to take on a work of this magnitude, probably a legitimate case, a legitimate point, but, Mr. Speaker, I think we all realize now there never will be if we don't force southern firms to partner up with northern firms to develop capacity and to, in fact, transfer some of this technology to the North. We talked a lot about capacity building, but this is one concrete way to address this. Mr. Speaker, I would like to see unanimous consent to conclude my statement.