Wally Schumann

Again, I agree with the Member. It's three times in a row. A project like this I think would be great for the region and will highlight travel through the Deh Cho, like I said, and highlight the Mackenzie River as such and whatever else we want to promote for the Deh Cho region. Again, I ask the Member to find someone who wants to drive this in his region and contact our department. We'll have a serious look at it.

I want to thank the Member for his question. We have the NWT Arts Program and the website that we established. On there, you can register your product or what you do, whether it is selling your CD or whatever, at no cost.

On that website, we also do the marketing campaigns and advertising for NWT artists through that web page. Also on there, we have a "where to buy NWT arts" page which will direct people who are looking for specific types of products to which NWT outlets they can purchase these types of things at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said, I see it as a source of income and economic development, but, in particular, I think where I see a role in the arts community playing a significant role is around how we represent and promote ourselves around tourism. That is a big part of it. A lot of these people come here and buy mementos and souvenirs before they go home, and this represents the traditional artists of the territory. With that, though, we also reach out to help these people in the small communities to get the right pricing and marketing for their communities. We have these regional sessions, workshops, to help...

Here is a tangible question. I will look into it and get back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the procurement process departments, we typically use the standard tender and RFP templates, which would include the clause excluding non-profit entities from the competition. However, in the event departments wish to include non-profit entities in procurement, they must ensure to exclude the clause from the tender and RFP documents and the reason for doing so in the tender and RFP files.

Last year, ITI provided $1.6 million for funding for artists in the Northwest Territories; $250,000 of that was invested regionally to support specific arts and fine crafts. We also have the SEED program, which has huge uptake, to help support the arts program. We have a bunch of other stuff that we do. We support venues and events where artists can promote and sell their products, like the Great Northern Arts Festival and a number of music festivals in the Northwest Territories. Also, last year I had the opportunity and maybe a number of Members of the House did: we had a pop-up art show in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, the Government of the Northwest Territories recognizes that the arts play an important role in the creation of healthy and vibrant communities. Traditional arts in particular, I would say, play a big role in that because they are a source of income and economic development in many of our small and remote communities. We want to advance and encourage that as part of our economy.

We are continually working on the process to improve it moving forward, but as I have stated in this House last week, I added one more, so we are up to three on the procurement process. If Members have issues with NGOs around the procurement process and the BIP process, they need to come to me. They cannot sit on that side of the House and just say there is a problem with it. Show something to me in writing or bring something to me, but just to sit there and talk about it is not going to prove anything.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Premier stated in this House last week, the BIP policy is probably one of the best policies this government has ever created; so I am going to start there. The thing about BIP is that BIP was created for for-profit business-related activities, and it is there to help entrepreneurial-based businesses. Competing with NGOs is a tough business, because they do not pay any income tax; they get other sources of government funding, a number of them; they get a lot of stuff in kind for rent and different things as such from various people and stakeholders and Government...

If we go based on the number that is always thrown around, attracting 2,000 immigrants to the Northwest Territories, if you put ECE's file and mine together, we are nowhere near the 2,000 number. We are working diligently to try to improve that. Myself and the department have had conversations about how we can approach the business stream of things and how we can maybe change things up to attract more people into the Northwest Territories. The department is working very hard on this initiative by launching a new website, working to streamline the process and make it simpler, and these sorts of...