Thank you, Mr. Chair. I recognize the work that went into the report on how to improve or design or review the practices done in the procurement department.
Over the course of my term, one of the biggest concerns I heard from the business community in our area is on the timely submissions or replies to the RFPs or RFQs or tenders that went out there because they had to submit their tender package in the mail, or couriered to the district office or the regional office. That resulted in some cases of a loss to the business, that they couldn't get their bid submission in on time. That was eliminated by having the Department of Infrastructure after it merged with Transportation and PWS to setting up a permanent regional office in Norman Wells, and I've never received a phone call since. That tells me that something is working, and these tender packages or tender opportunities that are submitted by the largest supplier in the territory in the absence of industry, we have heard many times, or I have heard many times, government that's stable, government that's here, government's not going anyplace, and we can rely on their opportunities for services and capital projects.
At the same token, the concerns were self-evaluated and self-addressed by most of the business communities saying, we, too, have to meet the government halfway and have competitive rates to fall within the budgets that have been set in these different projects, taking into account multi-year, seasonal access, and some unforeseen designs that may occur from project-to-project.
On the basis of the procurement process and taking into account also the provisions that we have in our land claim which addresses the opportunities of negotiated contracts and sole source contracts as per the land claim agreement, and as well as the negotiated contract policy and sole source and policy, the opportunities are there. The policies are there. The system is designed to help. Now, we've just go to educate the business community. We have to be cost competitive, and we also have to take into account best value for dollar, and the safety and schedule of the project. We don't want to encourage the operator to run a high-risk work environment that may result in termination of the project if there was a site audit conducted by the Workers Safety Commission Board. Those are additional factors taken into account, but as far as I can see, the system is there. It's working. It may need a little tweaking applicable to the various regions that are out there. Different regions have different cost methods and different access of supplies needed to complete the project. Those are my comments there, Mr. Chair.