Certainly with the contracts and procurement services to our people in our region, I agree with the Minister in terms of trying to stay local as much as possible within the means of how community-based contractors could do the work. Certainly there are efforts all the time to improve what we do in the communities. The Minister indicated he was working within the chapters of certain land claim settlements. I think the position or what I know from the work here is that I think this is right across the board. It doesn’t matter if you have a land claim settlement or no land claim settlement. I think some of the work has been…It kind of looks the same in terms of some of the communities that are in negotiations are also receiving negotiated sole-sourced work in areas as when some land claim groups are in that same boat. I’m not too sure as to how this policy is Territory-wide or if it is more in the negotiations in land claims looking at this specific area of work that we think the territorial government is interpreting. A little bit of confusion in terms of the contracting and procurement services of work out by DPW.
When I look at the numbers in the book, I see a lot of other companies who are still negotiating. Through their regional governments, through land claim settlement or treaty entitlement, those companies in those regions are also receiving similar services as to the region like the Sahtu who settle and who have specific agreements with Canada. I’m not too sure how this is being interpreted and rolled out. It’s kind of a double-edged sword here. I want to ask the Minister where the role of contracting and procurement services, especially with self-government or land claim groups, fit into it.