Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on an issue that's been slandered all over the newspapers, slandered in the communities I represent, and myself as the MLA for Mackenzie Delta, from the so-called boys club called the NWT Construction Association.

Mr. Speaker, the whole idea of negotiated contracts is to help communities build capacity. In our small communities, the unemployment rate goes from 30 percent to almost 40 percent; yet in the larger regional centres, it's six or seven percent unemployment.

Mr. Speaker, the land claim agreements that have been settled between the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit clearly state the intent is to build capacity and have those people and those organizations be self-sufficient in the future. We talk about self-government agreements, we talk about NWT policies that are in place. Those policies are there to be used. We have negotiated contracting policies, we have sole-source contracting policies, we have negotiating policies and also we have ways of maximizing benefits to the Northwest Territories such as the BIP, which gives a company 25 percent write-up.

Mr. Speaker, in the land claim agreements it clearly states the intent of the GNWT preferential contracting policies, procedures and approaches is to maximize local, regional and northern employment and business opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, recently you heard about an MOU being signed by the Gwich'in and the Government of the Northwest Territories where it looks at a five-year agreement of 50 percent negotiated contracts. That again flows through the land claim agreements.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about building capacity, we talk about getting our students to go off to post-secondary education, get their trades, go out there and really feel that you're part of the economic development of the Northwest Territories. But when we hear organizations such as the NWT Construction Association telling communities that you're incapable, you don't have the capacity and you cannot handle anything over constructing a house, that's pathetic. In this day and age when we have people in our communities who have gone out of their way to go get a trade, be a journeyman or be a mechanic or be an electrician or be a plumber coming from our communities and then being told sorry, you've gone out of your way, you've taken the program, you're now a journeyman, but you're not qualified to construct a curling rink...