Thank you, Madam Chair. For general comments I'd like to start by thanking the Minister and his staff for being with us here this afternoon. I don't have a great deal of general comments. I have a number of questions as we go through the detail. But I just wanted to touch on a few things. I guess the first one would be the fact that it looks like we are going to finally, after many years of trying, receive some more funding for tourism. I think that's certainly a step in the right direction and I know the Minister has worked had and his staff as well have worked hard on trying to get some more money flowing into our tourism industry. For that I think they have to be applauded.
The interesting thing, too, with tourism, is the legislation and how that's changing and I know that's been in the works for a number of years. The Minister again commented about it in his opening comments to us yesterday and I'd be interested, and again I'll ask at the appropriate time, in knowing exactly when that streamlining is going to take place so that there's some certainty there for operators here in the Northwest Territories on what type of system they're going to be working under. That's been talked about for, as I said, a number of years, so I'd like to see that concluded.
The other thing too, when the Minister first came to committee in regard to the new tourism money and activity and the 2010 tourism plan, I hope that he does follow through with his commitment to keep in touch with the Governance and Economic Development committee on the rollout of this plan. I think it's important that committee have some input into how this is working and how we can best utilize the money that we are putting into the plan so that we can hopefully get some of this public and private partnerships that the Minister talks of, and I know that's out there, so I'd like to see the Minister and his department work closely with the GED committee on that.
Another thing, I've mentioned this in the past numerous times and it's something I'm not going to stop saying. That is that the contract registry, located within the Minister's Department of ITI, should find a new home. As far as I see, the contract registry really shouldn't be in ITI; it should be under FMBS. The establishment policies as such state that the chair of the FMBS is responsible for government contracting and procurement, and this is where the contract registry belongs. Again, I think those type of discussions have to happen, and I'd like to see, definitely before the new business plans come forward in the fall, that the department work with FMBS and try to find a way that we could make this happen. I think that's important that it does happen.
I also have a number of questions on the business program review, as to where it's at, what it's exactly looking at, and what we might expect from that. I know that's been going on for a period of time, as well, so I'd like to see some conclusion to that. That's about it for general comments, Madam Chair. Again, I look forward to some questions that I have during the detail. Thank you.