Thank you, Madam Chair. Obviously, we’d like the work, as much as possible, to stay in the North, but the NWT is a signatory to the Agreement on Internal Trade, which is a national binding agreement. A key component of the AIT is non-discrimination which establishes equal treatment for all Canadian persons, goods, services and investments. Further, with respect to the GNWT Procurement Policy, demands that the GNWT, in its commercial dealings, observe the highest standards. It must

stand the test of public scrutiny in matters of prudence and probity, facilitate access, enhance supplies access to contracts, encourage competition and reflect fairness in spending of public money, and we must comply with the government’s obligations under AIT.

We do have the Business Incentive Policy that provides an incentive to NWT-based businesses that recognizes the higher costs of operating and doing work in the Northwest Territories, and the BIP must comply with intergovernmental agreements such as the AIT, to which the GNWT must adhere, as I’ve already indicated.

In this particular contract, we had the assessment done on the work that was required. We went out for tender and we had a number of submissions submitted. We had five, in total, submitted. We assessed each of them based on the criteria that was outlined in the tender. BIP was applied and adjusted, and the winning bid was for $1.25 million, which was in budget. That company identified under BIP that 55 percent of the work was going to be done by locals, 3.2 percent was going to be done by NWT, and 41.7 percent was going to be done by southern. In total, over $500,000 is scheduled to stay in the North based on the contract provided.