Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to speak on the GNWT's Business Incentive Program, otherwise known as BIP, and the NWT Manufactured Products Policy. These programs at their core are great concepts, keeping government money in the territory, stimulating well-paying local jobs and spinoff benefits into our economy. Yet, as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Current guidelines to qualify to be placed on the NWT Manufactured Products List require that "the manufactured product must be a product specific and is an item that is regularly stocked or parts of a catalogue of items." I am, like several manufacturers in my riding of Kam Lake, confused as to why such specificity is required.

To further quote from the department's website, in order to benefit from the NWT Manufactured Products Policy, your product must be recognized as an approved NWT-manufactured product. This administrative front-heavy demand seems mundane on paper, but the real cost to some businesses is prohibitive. Product listing of all possible goods with unique dimensions seems to me that the GNWT is prioritizing paperwork over keeping jobs and money in the territory.

Northern manufacturing companies maintain a degree of flexibility. They must, to ensure that they can continue to adapt to ever-changing market conditions, but it seems that some companies are required to specify their products to a greater extent than others. Using BIP to buy a winch truck? No specificity required. Buying standard traffic signs? No specificity required. Signs for parks and interpretation? No specificity required. Buying handrails? Specificity required. Bear-proof garbage cans? You need dimensions and details, more specificity. Metal roofing, siding, flashing, and trim? No specificity. Mr. Speaker, all of the items I have just listed have the probability of being fully customized by northern manufactures to meet the requirements of the buyer, whomever they may be. I am at a loss as to why some companies seem to be required to submit painstaking details, down to the millimetre, that they could possibly modify while others seem to be merely left to vaguely describe the degree to which they can customize a product.

Mr. Speaker, we need to be empowering northern manufacturers and businesses to thrive and grow here in the NWT. Instead, they seem to be arbitrarily burdened with unnecessary and unevenly applied red tape. I will have questions for the Minister responsible for procurement later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.