Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't get a chance earlier in my comments to speak about the BDIC and the amalgamation of the BCC and the Dev Corp, and I can understand and I appreciate why it's happening and I am supportive. Of course, I was supportive of Bill 16 that was here a few days ago. As we move forward, I believe the Minister knows that we have to work towards the true one-window approach or the one-stop-shopping approach that really was the crux of bringing the BCC and the Dev Corp together was to try to get to that. Not that Bill 16 absolutely gets us there. I think we've got a long way to go to get there and I wanted to just bring up a couple things on the cost-effective ways to look at program delivery and support of that and to get us toward this one-window approach or this one-stop-shopping approach.
The first thing I would like to say is on a regional basis for each region, maybe what the BDIC could do is look at getting together a one-page brochure that outlines programs and services and agencies that are available in the region. For most people in the regions it's very complicated when you've got BDF, grants to small businesses, Community Futures loans, BCC, BDC, ABC, the Dene/Metis development fund; there are a number of funding agencies that are out there and it gets very confusing to the person that wants to start a business, wants to do something and they don't know where to turn, they don't know which window to go to. So that would be, I think, the most cost-effective way of trying to let people know what's out there. I know it doesn't currently exist, but that's something that in the next little while I think the department or BDIC could put that type of work in place so that people know where to go and know where to turn.
The other thing when the rollout of the BDIC happens one of the other things that I'd like to mention to the Minister is perhaps co-locating development officers in the regions and I think that would serve a number of purposes like client access especially. I'm not talking about all the regional staff being co-located. That wouldn't be what I would be envisioning, but all the development officers. So
when you have them under one roof it's a lot easier for a potential client to come in there and get serviced and to get the response and what they need to make things work for them, because everybody is different and I think that would take away a lot of the confusion that's out there. Right now I think most people in the regions are still somewhat confused when you have a number of different avenues and venues to seek funding. I know Bill 16 was supposed to get us towards this one-stop shopping. So those are a couple of examples that I'd like the Minister to just comment on and see if they'd be supported by the BDIC. Thank you.