Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Infrastructure is not in charge of BIP. ITI is in charge of BIP, but Infrastructure follows the BIP policy in our procurement process. When we put out a tender, depending on the size of it, say it's under $1 million, because that's the conversation that we have been having, $1 million under and $1 million over, there is a line in there that you can put, which encourages local use of labour, local use of northern content, local of use of business, and that helps you do your bid adjustment to how much northern content you have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Since this could be part of the tender process or tender contract, how does the department ensure that part of this is actually being followed by the contractors?

When a contract is awarded saying that it has these conditions tied to it, the department follows up on the reporting from the contractor on the person that is doing the tender, and we track those things on a regular basis.

I guess that will lead me to my next question. What happens if the contract does not fulfill the commitments that they say they are doing in the contract?

I didn't quite hear the question. I believe the Member said: what do we do if the person isn't following the conditions that they said they would do in the tender? Well, first of all, if a person is not following the conditions of the contract that they were awarded, I suspect that they are subject to penalty or even disqualification of being able to continue to do the work until they rectify what they have bid, to get the bid adjustment to determine that they were awarded this tender that they would have to follow the contract that they signed.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you. I thank the Minister for his answers moving forward. My last question is basically: we are seeing a lot of southern companies come in and take contracts from northern companies. Has the department or the government looked at making sure that they have a socio-economic impact and economic multipliers as part of it because right now, when we see money, southern companies get contracts? That money is going down south with limited money staying back. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are talking apples and oranges here because on the local procurement, when we are going through procurement for the Northwest Territories, again, let's put it under $1 million. We use our BIP policy to ensure that the most money stays in the Northwest Territories through, as I said, locally used, local northern content, local business. That bid adjustment gives you the upper hand on someone from down south to bid on it. If we are talking about larger projects, say the Slave Geological Province or the Taltson project, the department certainly, along with finance, will sit down and have a look at these projects and the social and economic benefits that these things are going to create.

Someone asked me the question yesterday about "How did we include these local content in the Tlicho Road project?" That was an approach the Government of the Northwest Territories has taken on that P3 project. We will follow those closely. The Department of Finance will certainly have the capacity to access the impact that these projects will have on the greater economy of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.