Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t considered a plebiscite as part of the general election. I’m not too familiar with the territorial plebiscite process. I know we do have them for different parts of our legislation. For example, under the Liquor Act in our communities, that type of thing. I’m not sure on the territorial side, but we haven’t given it consideration as our signing of the agreement-in-principle begins the negotiation process towards a final agreement.

The departments that request a negotiated contract and those contracts that are agreed to, there is a reporting process by the departments back to Cabinet. So there is a report that’s required.

I guess the overall target of the Government of the Northwest Territories, as raised in this House a number of times, is to try to build capacity in the industry in the Northwest Territories amongst our businesspeople, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, birthright corporations and so on. We’ve done that and we use a number of tools. Negotiated contracts is one of those.

Some of the difficulty we have is when in the same community or region there is, in a sense, a competition. When you have two Aboriginal companies requesting negotiated contracts it becomes problematic. We use the tools...

Again, in our many communications -- and we have quite a number of letters that have gone back to committee -- this has been raised. This has been committed to look at through the Financial Administration Act. I think that question is mute. We have in fact been looking towards dealing with this subject matter.

Thank you. Again, there is no requirement through indemnities for providing Members that. The Members are getting hooked up on... I believe there’s a requirement over the $500,000 figure, 14 days’ notice that’s honoured. In the requirement for indemnities, that process has been followed. There wasn’t a change in regulation to make it, so that process was excluded. Thank you.

Thank you. There are a number of other communities as well that benefit from the Food Mail Program. Of course, we will look at the implementation of this program and ensure that the appropriate people benefit from this program, and many times it’s been raised in here that it’s the cost of food in the communities that needs to be affected. We’ve shared those concerns in the past and we’ll, again, follow up with more communications in that area. Thank you.

Thank you. From our understanding, the review has been done. They were working to implement the new program that would see retailers dealing with the subsidy instead of through Canada Post and what we were informed was it’s October 2012 that they will implement this revised Food Mail Program and we will, of course, correspond with the appropriate authorities in this area around that implementation and delays on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Assembly has a vision of strong individuals, families and communities sharing the benefits and responsibilities of a unified environmentally sustainable and prosperous Northwest Territories. We called our plan Northerners Working Together because we know that each of us has a part to play in helping us achieve that vision. Last year, with the support of Members, I engaged with residents all across the Territory to hear about their priorities and ideas for coming together to create a better future for all Northerners. I would like to take this opportunity to update...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Creating Our Future Together: In Search of a Common Vision for the Northwest Territories, Results Report and Appendix. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The issue of negotiated contracts is one that does come up right across the Northwest Territories. The challenge we have is when there are competing interests and when there is capacity to be able to bid the work. My understanding is there’s some work coming up, there’s opportunity and there’s some work in progress on a couple of potential negotiated contracts during the life of this government, if not already been dealt with. For example, the demolition of one of the schools is one of those areas, so some success in that area. But we will look at the Negotiated Contracts Policy, its...