Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again I’d like to ask for a breakdown with regard to the affirmative action candidates, management positions, and disability and women in the different positions.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll present the statistics on a departmental basis.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Krutko, is that good? Mr. Krutko.

Yes, I just note that, I don’t know why it’s not on here, but you do have an operation in Dawson City, Yukon, in this classification?

I believe there are two seasonal workers who work there.

I just wanted to know when the job is opening up in case I might have to apply for it.

---Laughter

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Could be a lot of competition. Mr. McLeod.

Generally they open mid-May to mid-September.

My sympathies, Mr. Krutko. Anything further? Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Page 12-27, Industry, Tourism and Investment, activity summary, information item, tourism and parks, active positions.

Page 12-29. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two questions. I think the Minister has already answered one. In his opening comments he talked about an increase in SEED of $350,000 and he mentioned that $150,000 of it, I think, was for arts and crafts. I asked a question about arts, wondering if that was available to performing arts. In your response to us you said, no, it’s for artisans not

performers. But then later you said that we do have musicians and other performing artists accessing SEED. The program is available to performing artists who meet the criteria, they can still access SEED, it doesn’t actually exclude any of those possibilities. Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. McLeod.

Good to know, good to know. I’ll certainly direct people I know there that are looking for support. Second question is following up on questions I asked last October and I know Mr. Hawkins asked recently about red tape. I mentioned it in my opening comments and you responded. Now that we no longer have that office in the GNWT whose task was trying to help reduce red tape, I’m curious what this department is doing. I like your program; this isn’t a criticism of your program at all. I know people who are applying on things like SEED who have expressed some concerns about the quantity of paperwork. I know that you have advisors in there to help people through the paperwork, which is brilliant, but has any analysis been done as to what we’re asking people to fill out, what we’re asking people to do? Are we asking for more than we need? Is there an opportunity to simplify what we’re requesting in order to reduce the amount of paperwork that is required to make the process just a little bit easier to understand and a little bit easier to work your way through? Is there any opportunity for a reduction in red tape or paper?

We’re always looking to reduce red tape at every opportunity. We have gone a long ways with regard to licensing of tourism operators and so on. We’ve reduced some of the requirements. On the business side it’s not as easy as it sounds. We just have to look at some of the Auditor General reports and they put pretty onerous reporting requirements on ourselves so that a lot of the paperwork that we require is something that we believe we have to follow proper accounting procedures and certainly the Auditor General comments very quickly if we seem not to be complying. Also we have to be vigilant about legislation that government passes because there’s a lot of legislation that results in an infrared tape increase. Having said that, in working with our clients at the community level, if our economic development officers know the paperwork, we review our procedures so that we reduce red tape wherever possible and we try to push out more accountability and authority to the community level so that we can process it faster in the communities.

Obviously, thanks to the Minister for that. I think anything we can do to be more small business friendly, the better off we’re

going to be. Especially in the small communities. Like I said in my opening comments, I really appreciate the addition of some EDOs in the communities like Ulukhaktok. I think those officers will be able to help people through the paperwork. At the same time, thank you for the stuff you’re doing trying to reduce red tape. I think there’s an opportunity for you as the Minister of ITI to go to the Executive and suggest that maybe it’s time we engaged the Program Review Office to review the amount of paperwork that we’re requiring businesses and other ventures to complete in the Northwest Territories. If we can reduce any of that, we’re ahead, and we’ve got this Program Review Office that’s supposed to be doing these type of things and I’m of the opinion that we want to be as supportive of small businesses as we can. A lot of these businesses have people who may not have a business degree or business diploma. Anything we can do to make their lives easier and increase their likelihood of success is good. If you could approach your colleagues on that side of the House and start talking about maybe a little bit of review through the program review to find some ways to reduce some of this paper that some people are concerned about, anything we can do would be good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you Mr. Abernethy. Would you care to respond Minister McLeod?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are quite prepared to do that. Maybe we will get a higher mark next year with the CFIB. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next I have on my list Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I have for the Minister is on the memorandum of understanding with the government and the Sahtu Secretariat. I want to ask the Minister if this memorandum of understanding document is distributed to agencies and boards also outside of the Sahtu region that had to deal with businesses in the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The memorandum of understanding applies to all government departments and although the list that we have for the Sahtu we feel is deficient because it doesn’t list all of the Sahtu businesses, that is the list that we have. We have been asking for three years to have the list updated but we haven’t had an updated list yet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.