Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s a very specific question and I would suppose that training of staff at the departmental level would take place through the deputy ministers’ committees, I would suppose, and that information would filter down to the departments. There undoubtedly are training sessions that are conducted by the BIP folks at ITI with the various departments. That’s how I would see the training of

departmental staff taking place. I can get a further detailed response for the Member, if he wishes. Thank you.

I’m looking forward to that information. My next question is concerning, as my colleague for Hay River South had indicated yesterday, we’ve had some businesses that have been trying to talk to some of the different departments about the services they provide. This may be something the Minister may need to get information on, as well, but how are the different departments informed of the new products and services that companies in the Northwest Territories are added to the Business Incentive Policy listing, I guess?

If a company does avail themselves of new equipment that would enhance the services that they could provide, I think that would be part of the salesmanship of the company to get out to both government and private sector to ensure that people know what type of equipment they have and what services they can provide. The Government of the Northwest Territories certainly wants to be a partner with northern businesses and ensure that opportunities are maximized to the greatest extent possible when we do look at procurement here in the Northwest Territories.

Another area of concern that some of the businesses in my riding of Hay River expressed is the bundling of packages. The departments may have a larger project that includes everything. When they’re building a road, they may include the signage. They may have an engineering contract that includes the drilling. My question to the Minister is: How does the Business Incentive Policy extend to subcontractors that are working for the companies that have the actual contract with the GNWT?

This is a very important point to make here. I think some of the recent changes that we have seen with BIP is how those design-build RFPs are evaluated. I share the Member’s concern, that oftentimes the local subcontractors don’t get the work and the work goes someplace else. I think we’ve done a great deal of work, working with the Construction Association here in the Northwest Territories and other stakeholders, to ensure that we come up with an evaluation criteria that is going to allow the maximum extent possible of local and northern content so that those dollars stay in the North and continue to work to benefit our economy here in the Northwest Territories, not somebody else’s economy. I appreciate the Member’s concerns that we are putting our best efforts to looking at that. I know Public Works and Services has done a good job on that as well. Going forward, the evaluation criteria are something that we are going to address in a serious way.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s comments. My next question is along those lines. How do we encourage the different departments to break down those contracts? Like I had indicated in my Member’s statement, I am concerned that at this level we’re having difficulties getting maximization from northern businesses. When we get into larger projects, how are we going to deal with that? How can we encourage the GNWT and departments to break down these contracts to maximize the northern businesses?

I think, in answer to the previous question, a step in the right direction is the evaluation and the criteria to get the government to evaluate RFPs and a waiting system that is going to give more weight to proposals that maximize northern content. That would include subcontractors, engineering services, whatever the case may be. I think, going forward, that is an area that we certainly have to pay attention to as a government. We again need to maximize those benefits to local businesses and northern businesses here in the NWT, not south of our border and in other places. That’s something that I’m intent on pursuing. I know this government is very interested in maximizing the dollars that stay in the North.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs some questions, some old questions on the New Deal. Under the New Deal they’re turning the facilities over to the community of, specifically, Jean Marie River. The issue was that they had committed to train people to have local resources to help maintain and upkeep the facilities. To date they’re not in a capacity situation. I’d like firstly to ask the Minister what the current status of the New Deal is, as it deals with Jean Marie River.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll try to give some new answers to old questions. The New Deal is one that’s been embraced very well by the community governments. Obviously, there are challenges as far as capacity goes in some of the responsibility that they’ve inherited. But the communities have come along really well, working with our partners at

Local Government Administrators program. There’s a training program that Jean Marie River is actually one of the recipients of some funding for, to help train one of the local band members to eventually be in a position to take over the operation of Jean Marie River.

As far as the infrastructure goes, we do work with the communities quite closely to make sure that they’re positioned to be able to handle the infrastructure and maintenance that comes with it. I know in Jean Marie River’s case they have been working with Public Works and Services to do some of the maintenance until they’re better positioned to handle the maintenance themselves.

I guess the facilities and assets do get transferred to the community come March 31st . Is that assistance still there up until March 31st or does it end March 31st ? That’s the issue that the

community of Jean Marie River is talking about: that they’re not ready yet, and it’s very, very costly to bring in outside services to the community.

Obviously, we’ll do our best to make sure that we don’t leave Jean Marie River on their own as far as the maintenance goes. We’ll work with the community to try to come up with – they usually work with our departments very closely – a maintenance plan, capital plan, and so forth.

Again, we need to make sure that our communities benefit from the transfer, if it means training opportunities for their local residents. There are some cases with some of the communities that have inherited the New Deal where they’ve kind of bundled together and hired maintenance people to make a tour of their communities and take care of the maintenance. We’ll work very closely with the community of Jean Marie River to ensure that they’re not left out on their own without any assistance from MACA.

So is it the Minister’s intent, with regard to Jean Marie River, to continue with the deal as it is, which means transferring the facilities over to the community come March 31st ?

They are anticipating an impact to their budget.

That was the intent of the New Deal right from the beginning, to transfer all assets over to the community and have them responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure. Again, we work with them and make sure that we’re not setting any of these communities up and putting them in a position where they fail. That’s not our intent. We’ll work very closely with the community but the intent is still there to transfer all assets over to the community.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I guess one of the questions that they did

ask me is: Can the transfer be delayed until the question of sustainability and ability to maintain the assets are in place?

Obviously, I’m not going to make that commitment here on the floor, but I can assure the Member that I’ll have discussions with the officials, see where Jean Marie River is at, see what challenges they’re facing and if there’s any possibility of delaying. I’ll work with the Member and the officials to ensure that Jean Marie is in a good position to succeed once everything’s signed over to them.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the communities themselves, they have very active groups that try and look after the homelessness issue in their communities. We would work with these communities. The one in Yellowknife here, most of all we helped with the infrastructure. Then the groups are usually responsible for the operation of facilities. If there are groups out there that have ideas and plans and want to sit down with the Housing Corporation, we’re always more than willing to listen to any plans that are out there. As far as funding the O and M on a lot of the shelters, we’re not in a position to do that. We usually help with the infrastructure.