Thank you, Madam Chair. Just with respect to the Department of Industry, Trade and Investment, being from a riding that has a lot of constituents and businesses involved in tourism, it is good to see that there is some recognition and some more resources put towards tourism in the ITI budget. That is something that our riding always needs support on and continue to create opportunities there.
I know, with tourism, often the First Nations groups talk about even actually getting into rafting and providing those tourism sources to the tourists that are coming there. For the large part, the major licences are held outside of the NWT, but there is a licence there that is for the North and northerners to be used and utilized. Quite often, in this case, there is a bit of a barrier there because no one really has the capacity to utilize that licence or where to begin. If there is a gap to be said with respect to this, it is that we have to show our people how to use that licence, how to make an impact to the tourists that are coming up North and develop our guides, as it were. I know that we have a guide training program. I don't know how well developed it is. Perhaps, at some point, the Minister can address that, but it is something that continually needs stimulating. Our young people are coming out of school. They use it as a summer job. It gets them interested to a certain point, but I am finding that they don't just stay there and make it a career choice. It is a tough career choice, too, to be a guide. I was just talking with a few guides that come up North. I find that, to make it a career choice, they have to give up quite a bit. They have to actually never be home to their home base, wherever that is. They always have to be on the move because our guiding season is only three months long. After they are done there, they are going to have to move on to continue their job in other areas of the world. Quite often, a lot of them go. It is a good opportunity if we can stimulate and find some local guides that want to do that. It is kind of like a non-traditional trade, as well. It is how do we keep them interested and going forward and even maybe one day run that licence that is in the North for us. I think that is very important. Often, we are so critical about southerners holding northern licences and doing all the work and taking all the benefit. How do we massage that and how do we work together with the communities and the existing licence holders and develop a strong northern guiding workforce for them and for ourselves too, Madam Chair, for the most part?
I see in the Minister's opening statements as well, based on the gross domestic product of the NWT, we are kind of like a net contributor to Canada now. They are saying that our gross domestic product is like $4 billion and transfer some of the feds into the NWT is about $1 billion, so about $3 billion going out and $1 billion coming in. That is a good signal. Finally, we are becoming a net contributor to Canada. Just by monitoring those statistics, it will just help us with our argument in Ottawa. Yes, we know and realize they've have been pumping probably on the average $500,000 into the North for the last 30 years. Now we are becoming a net contributor. I know that the Treasury Board has a long memory, but it doesn't mean that we have to keep repaying Ottawa's investment in the
North from 30 or 40 years ago. They have to recognize that we are a major contributor to Canada. It will help us with our argument in terms of devolution and resource revenue sharing, Madam Chair.
Just with respect to the private sector becoming increasingly prominent in the NWT, and the BIP, too. The BIP is still very important in the region and in the communities that I represent. Just before Christmas, I went to the communities and I said there is talk about just removing the BIP altogether. There is no value in it, but every community I went to resoundingly said, look, Kevin, we utilize that program, it is very important. Some of the impacts are that it helps us with the forced growth that cost in our communities. Yes, there is a five percent premium. It is often factored into the rest of the 15 percent premium. Sometimes we pay out in the contracts, but we are using that to pay for the gas link in Fort Simpson. It is still around $1.17. In Yellowknife, we are down to $1. It makes up for those differences. It equalizes the playing field. That is why it makes sense to the people in the communities. It makes sense that the BIP is there. It is the recognition of the government. It gets you paying your premium, but it is because we are paying higher prices over here in the communities. That is one view of how we look at it. The other view is that people in the communities still maintain that they all sign up for BIP. I know that, during our preliminary discussions, there was an argument made that not all businesses in the North have signed up to be BIP registered. After further discussions and further thought, it is like lots of businesses in Yellowknife don't have to sign up for BIP because they don't deal with government solely. A lot of their opportunities are with the mining sector or the diamond industry. They get 100 percent of their work from them. So they truly don't need BIP because they are not bidding on government work. But in the communities, we are. All the government work, particularly in the Nahendeh riding, they argue that probably 70 percent of the fixed economy -- I keep talking about it in my riding -- it is mostly government sources or government funding that stimulates our economy.
I keep talking time and time again, with jobs. Any senior job is about $150,000 contributed to that job, because, quite often, there is a part-time secretary, but it is $150,000 that is going to our community and to our region. It is there. When you spoke about the marvellous bouncing buck early this week and last week about how a dollar bounces around in the region and riding, it keeps our communities going. It keeps our little economies going. That is very important.
When we talk about government contracts, the other aspect of it is reviewing the whole negotiated contract aspect, as well. I am not too sure how much this department has with it, but there again, having negotiated contract aspect is very important.
I spoke about set-aside programs, which means that it is public policy that we are going to set aside contract dollar values for aboriginal communities and businesses and make it public policy. I know there is concern about accountability and everybody in the North should have access to public dollars, but if we make it a public policy, then people know where the public money is going.
In fact, I just heard that Imperial, in the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline project, even Imperial has had and is operating the set-aside policy for a lot of their work. They actually go to the communities and say, okay, you are not going to get the big contracts, but we could do as much of the local work as we can with you guys. I don't know if it is stringent or not, but in order to be eligible for that, you have to demonstrate real value and returns for the community. I think it is up to even quarterly reporting to show them employment stats to make sure that company is using local resources as well as to ensure that there is no -- a previous colleague of mine back home, a business colleague, referred to as -- low hung fruit, where a southern company comes in and says sign here. We will give you 10 percent. We are your northern company now. People are tired of that, Madam Chair, because the benefits, yes, somebody is getting 10 percent, but the community is not benefiting and 90 percent is going out. That is what is really happening. I see that my time is up there, Madam Chair, but those are the concerns that I would like to bring to the Minister and his ministry. Mahsi cho.