Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in regards to my Member’s statement, but also this issue I have raised in the last setting of this Legislature but it looks like nothing has been done with it. Again, these contracts that are being let in our communities are not being taken advantage of by local contractors. If anything, it is benefitting the regional contractors who have an opportunity because the way the contracts are being let, which are basically supply, ship and erect contracts, are an advantage to the larger regional contractors in regards to having to bid in multiple contracts versus the local contractors in most cases bid only at the local level.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Housing in regards to the tendering process. I gave the Minister a copy of the e-mail that I am talking about and he is aware of the issue. There are other avenues to be able to meet the same objective by way of invitational tenders in affected communities where those contracts are going to be let, have a negotiating contracting policy and also consider labour-only contracts which was the practice in the past which was helpful to communities. I would like to ask the Minister, why has this government not changed the practice that is being used today and knowing that this was raised in the House previously and that committee members have raised and have looked at those other options that would benefit small communities?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a concern that we heard and a particular example was a material contract for supplying material. There was some belief from some of the district suppliers that they were unfairly treated because they were looking for a territorial-wide issue. That has been resolved. A lot of local material supply tenders are going out. As far as the Member is concerned, there was a time when there were a lot of labour-only tenders that were let and it benefitted the small communities. Some of them have built up their capacity and are able to compete on the supply, ship and erect. Obviously, it is still a concern. This is a discussion that I will have to have with the corporation and see if we can find a way to resolve it so the local supplier would benefit from the tenders that are let by the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think this is all in with the Housing Corporation but other government contracts. I think we have to debundle these contracts in such a way that people have advantages of taking the segments of the contract that meet their particular needs regardless if you are a plumber, carpenter, electrician, and I think that we have to support those local sustainable contractors in the community so that they can remain in our communities. I would like to ask the Minister in regards to the whole idea. I talked to the mayor of Aklavik. He mentioned that they had a meeting with Housing. They talked about the invitational tenders for the community of Aklavik for contracts for that community. Is that something that this government is considering looking at?
Mr. Speaker, we are willing to look at all options. We have to recognize, though, that cost could be a factor. If it proves feasible to do, as the Member suggested, and go to some invitational tenders, that is something we will have to look at. But the bottom line is trying to control costs and trying to do economies of scale so we can put more units into the communities and more maintenance work and repair work in some of the units. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in regards to the contracting processes that I would like to ask the Minister, I know I mentioned negotiating contractors in my statement but also I have supported negotiating contracts for projects in McPherson and Aklavik which were submitted to the regional office which I gave to the Minister. It was supposed to go to Cabinet in April. I would like to ask the Minister what is the status of those contracts. Again, that is another avenue that has to be used but again we are not hearing anything back from Cabinet on that. I would like to get an update from the Minister. Why is that practice not being used?
My understanding is the applications are complete. We have had a few requests from negotiated contracts and that is something that we’re reviewing at the moment. The negotiated contract, we have used quite a few of them over the past few years in some of the communities and negotiated contracts are there to help communities build up capacity, contracted book capacity so they can compete in an open market, understanding that we still have an MOU that we try to follow as closely as possible. So to answer the Member’s question, and I’m just going on here, but we have received the applications, the applications are complete and we’re just reviewing them before we take our next steps. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Also in my statement I talked about sustainable communities and the importance of this government to look at the social and economic benefits of these types of projects in our communities and ensure that the maximum benefit goes to the local communities because we are hurting in our communities with high unemployment, but more importantly we have to find jobs and sustain those jobs. So I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what the government is doing to ensure that we are sustaining communities with these projects and not seeing the money leave the communities and go to the regional centres.
Thank you. The government is making, the Housing Corp in particular is making more investment in the local housing building scene. We have, with the MNIs and the amount of repair work, we’ve got almost $50 million in repair work. I was talking to some of the local contractors in some of the other communities, they’re grateful for work, they’ve been very busy. I think more so now than ever with a lot of the training that the communities have had we’re seeing them start to take advantage and being competitive in the whole process and being able to get all the work that comes to the community, because we do have a lot of folks out in the community who are well qualified now and are starting to take advantage of some of these. So we continue to invest in the communities as far as putting homes on the ground and doing repairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
