Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, along a similar thread, I'm curious to hear from the Minister about our summer student hiring. What are our hiring numbers like? Is there anything that she has to deliver related to this and how it might relate to health care as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

New topic, Member from Frame Lake.

(audio).

Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance. I know the Indigenous Procurement Policy is in in the consultation stage. I know they've been in Inuvik. I talked to some business owners up there who have reached out to me with some questions around how that's going. I wonder can the Minister of Finance give an update on how those -- how the consultation process has been going and where they are in the procurement policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Member's quite correct, this -- the Indigenous Procurement Policy is meant to be really the culmination and completion of a procurement review effort that began in the last government with a number of updates, a number of consolidations of our purposes and principles, modernizing and bringing all these things into a place that are more effective, having dashboard, and having an Indigenous Procurement Policy, recognizing this a jurisdiction with 50 percent Indigenous population and a great many Indigenous businesses that we want to see flourish. So it's really looking at the public side of what we do and whether we can do better to reflect those businesses that we have. So that consultation process is happening right now. It began last month. It's going into this month. It will wrap up over the next month. I'll also be making some outreaches directly to Indigenous governments myself in addition to the opportunities that they've had -- they or their officials may have had. Still open, I believe, on the portal for feedback from folks and would certainly like to hear. There's a number of different ways this could go. We need to find a way to define an Indigenous business and then find whether or not there are opportunities to better support them in the procurement processes so that we are really maximizing the dollars of the government for the people and residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Minister. And certainly I support this important work. I live in a riding with two Indigenous governments, well established, both with well-established development corporations. So my next question is there going to be -- is there any consideration -- I had originally had thought to potentially, for example, Mr. Speaker, if there was $2 million worth of government contracting work to be done in my region, is there any appetite to, say, carve out 10, 20, 30, 50, whatever the percentage would be, of that work and then have that work then with qualified businesses within the Indigenous development corporations versus direct businesses. Is that any -- been given any consideration? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a second component of what's happening right now in this space, and that is led, really, by staff at r.

executive and Indigenous affairs is to have discussions with modern treaty holders, specifically to determine whether or not there are opportunities to create MOU arrangements so that there can be more formalized agreements as to how procurement might happen on the land -- on the lands for modern treaty holders. That may well end up in something of the way that the Member is describing. Obviously, it's premature for me to conclude what that would look like without knowing how those discussions go.

On terms of public procurement, Mr. Speaker, there's a number of options we put forward, and one of them is to do work packages. So not necessarily region by region but by project by project that you can ensure that's particularly on a large projects that there could be set aside amounts that we say, look, this is intended to be for a specific group or particular type of business to ensure that we are, again, maximizing local capacity. And, again, I encourage people to give us feedback if they think that would be helpful. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister. I know there are -- I mean, the whole purpose of this is to increase capacity in Indigenous employment in the regions, you know, give opportunities for Indigenous businesses to grow. I'm wondering -- and it's a question I've been asked -- there's also some non-Indigenous ran businesses that employ many Indigenous employees in the region as well. They've asked is there going to be any kind of a -- is there going to be any opportunity in the new policy to account for that as well, account for that to have -- if you, you know, and again, it's all about the teeth, right, Mr. Speaker. You got to be able to enforce it just like we do with the Business Incentive Policy. But is there any opportunity in the discussions on the new policy around that hiring of Indigenous people?

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my questions are for the Minister of Finance. On May 7th of this year, the NWT health authority announced a new air ambulance contract with Access Air Ambulance, so that's a joint venture between Advanced Medical Solutions, Air Tindi, Aklak Air, Det'on Cho, and Tlicho Investment Corporation, but a few -- oh, it was also mentioned in the press release that through the contract Access Air Ambulance committed to achieve substantial levels of NWT content as per the Business Incentive Policy. And a few days later, we saw in the news that Advanced Medical Solutions was actually taken over by a non-northern based company.

Can the Minister explain, in a situation like this, where a 10-year contract has just been awarded based on certain understood levels of northern content, can a contract like this be reviewed if circumstances like this change around northern content or ownership? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not in a position to speak to a specific procurement event here on the floor of the House. Certainly would be happy to find the details. We do, if there's a procurement event, obviously we are monitoring now to make sure that contracts are complied with and that commitments are applied with, whether it's to northern hiring, northern spends. That is part of vendor performance management now, and so certainly happy to make the commitment that we will do that. If there's fundamentals that have changed in a contract and they're not being met, again, that too can be something that may be dealt with. But probably wouldn't be dealt with here on the floor of the House. So, again, you know, really, making those assurances, again, that we want to hold people to the commitments that they make and told them particularly to the commitments that they make under BIP. Without knowing in front of me whether or not -- what commitments were made and whether or not they've been complied with, that's all I can say is to ensure that we will make the effort to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand we can't speak to details of any particular contract on the floor. But just in general in terms of the process or how it works, can the Minister explain whether the department would be proactively checking and enforcing, you know, northern content and ownership or whether it would be sort of reviewed on a complaints' basis only. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So a couple of the departments are involved. I can say that for in terms of BIP component and whether or not a business complies and continues to comply with BIP, that is monitored regularly through folks at ITI, and whether or not there's -- and then on the procurement side, Mr. Speaker, obviously, sometimes people like to suggest that we should move our procurement processes faster. One of the things we do try to do, of course, is to verify whether or not when someone is bidding on a contract that they are, in fact, providing information as necessary and as is required in order to ensure that we're satisfying ourselves that when they've made a bid that they are -- that they do have the necessary information. And then beyond that, once they've done that, again, we've introduced vendor performance management so that those who have made certain commitments in their contracts do, in fact, actively achieve them, and that is monitored regularly by the project officers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain what would be the government's recourse if it found that a contractor was not living up to its commitments, you know, under the BIP policy in this case. What would be the government's recourse or what would be the process that would happen from there? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a host of different opportunities -- or possibilities here too. And certainly could be anything from, you know, looking at whether or not there's been a breach of contract in a more extreme circumstance, and then that could then lead to a number of different potential outcomes. There's also certainly, under our procurement policies, the ability -- or possibility that someone can, in particularly egregious situations or repetitive situations, someone could actually be named or noted as being a non-responsible contractor which could then lead to them having -- you know, being notified that they may not be permitted to make future bids. So, again, depending on the severity and on where the error might arise. If they're -- again, you know, if they're not achieving the goals that they have under vendor performance management and we can see that, we've also introduced the ability for holdbacks, greater holdbacks in certain type of contracts, and they may not get their holdback if they're not, again, meeting their commitment. So it depends a little bit on the circumstance and the type of contract, but there are a number of tools in the toolbox. Thank you.

Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. As he may recall, in the last operational budget review when we were speaking in Committee of the Whole, I asked him about a functional communications review that is no longer on the business plans. He wrote back later to explain that yes, indeed, EIA is looking at functional communications review in this fiscal year; however, I'm curious, Mr. Speaker, can the Premier speak to what the scope of that review will look like. Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Mr. Premier.