Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to ask the Minister of ITI a few questions on conducting post-mortems on failed businesses. I’ve had a bed and breakfast fail in the community of Fort Simpson and conducting a post-mortem on that business would kind of look at how the Department of ITI could be more helpful, or the BDIC, in this situation and why did the business fail. I’m not too sure if it’s our responsibility, but is there anything within the department mechanism or program that could assist in something of this nature?
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the failure rate of small businesses is quite high not only in the Northwest Territories but all across Canada, especially in the first year of operation. So we have a process called Aftercare, where we look at the way we provide services and wherever we’re involved in a business and it goes under, then we want to know what some of the reasons were for the business going under and to try to find out exactly why. So if we do have a similar business in the future, we would have a very good idea of some of the pitfalls that they could come up against.
In this case it was an actual aboriginal business that had failed. I’m pleased to hear that there’s an Aftercare Program. What begins the mechanism to do a post-mortem or to look at other businesses and how we can fine tune our programs or how we could be more responsive to the needs of that business?
Generally we would only look at those businesses that we are involved with either though BDIC or through the officers that we have working in the different regions or community transfer economic development officers. Essentially that’s how it would come about.
I wasn’t quite sure if the Minister said that BDIC had their own separate program to look at a business and how they could have been better helpful to that business. If anything, I was asking about our ITI department. How do we kick in the mechanism? Is it up to the business owner to ask ITI or is that something that we do as a normal course of our business? There’s a failed business out there. Bills are going to be piling up. At what point does ITI step in and use this separate mechanism to examine if this business could have kept going or what could be done better in the future?
We do have a seamless operation when it comes to the issuing of loans and contributions. The difference, it all depends on the business itself. If we do have an interest in there, then we can go in there and do a post-mortem. If it’s somebody in the private sector, then we would probably have to respond to their request in order to be able to gain access to information which is generally private information.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I was just trying to find out the best way we can help businesses that have failed. I think one of the best ways is to conduct a post-mortem. I’d like to ask the Minister if he can look at a program or some type of mechanism within ITI where they do set up a procedure or checklist that can help future businesses by examining those that fail.
We’ll ensure that we do that. I think we have existing programs through our Aftercare Program.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
