Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the intention of negotiated contracts is to give corporations, companies, mainly aboriginal companies from small communities, opportunities to get their foot in the door of the business world and also develop their capacity to pursue the type of work and contracts in that area. This negotiated contract has been a policy of this government for a number of years. We are currently reviewing this policy, I think we shared with the MLAs through AOC, and we got feedback. We are fine-tuning this policy and we are hoping to shortly have that in place. It would change the way we are doing it. There will still be a negotiated contract policy, but it's going to have more mechanisms in place that would allow it to be a lot fairer than it is. As for a contingency for the companies that are currently working in this area that have... I don't know how many companies there are in the small communities where there are contracts, but I think the focus would be mainly towards the smaller communities where there are contracts that the different corporations, aboriginal corporations, are capable of taking on. We have to look at that. The idea there is that government money flowing to these communities should stay in the communities or the regions and not be taken out to another larger centre. That is also part of what we are looking at in this area. Thank you.
Jim Antoine on Question 292-14(6): Support For Long-term Northern Businesses
In the Legislative Assembly on June 10th, 2003. See this statement in context.
Return To Question 292-14(6): Support For Long-term Northern Businesses
Question 292-14(6): Support For Long-term Northern Businesses
Item 6: Oral Questions
June 9th, 2003
Page 914
Jim Antoine Nahendeh
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