Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today getting back to my Member’s statement from earlier to the Minister of ITI. Earlier I was talking about the new SEED program and how, in my estimation, it’s the old BDF and Grants to Small Business dressed up under a new name called SEED, topped up with some dollars.
The first question I have for the Minister is: has ITI got any targets for the SEED program, and how are we going to measure success from that program and that additional funding?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Using the Member’s example, not only did we give it a new paint job; we added a new fuel efficient engine with some new tires.
The BDF has been one of our best and most successful vehicles to assist small business. The new SEED policy…. We didn’t establish targets, because we needed to provide funding on an application basis to different regions. We will continue to measure it based on jobs that are created and the number of businesses that are started up.
As long as we’re not using that new vehicle the Minister talks about by putting a couple of crash test dummies in and smashing it against the wall.
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister why the government continues its reluctance to move toward a one window model to provide support, loans and programming to businesses for economic development in our territory.
The BDIC was only put into effect approximately four years ago. The SEED policy we just introduced on September 2, 2008. We still feel that a protocol arrangement between ITI and BDIC is the way to go. It gives us the greatest flexibility, the greatest ability to meet the needs of our clients, which are the small businesses of the Northwest Territories.
I want to ask the Minister if he knows how many businesses have been created or started up in the small communities. I’m speaking specifically of communities outside regional centres. How many of those have received business start-up funding in the past ten years, and how many are still in existence? Can the Minister commit to getting us that level of detail?
The Support to Entrepreneurs and Economic Development policy program has been established, is geared to the smaller communities and is based on the consultations that we undertook. I’ll be pleased to provide the annual reports to the Member that would indicate how many businesses were started up in these small communities.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My thoughts on this are that with the SEED program, the $2.5 million…. We can take that out and scatter it around the territory, but if we’re not looking at the cost of doing business in the small communities — and I’m speaking specifically about utility costs and personnel costs and the costs of operating a business day to day — then we’re really not supporting economic activity in our territory.
I’d like to ask the Minister: whether it’s BDIC or whether it’s his department, has anybody gone out and looked at the cost of actually doing business in a small community so that we can get some real economic activity happening in our small communities?
I think we should give the SEED policy an opportunity to operate, at least for a short period of time, maybe for a year or so. The whole express purpose for setting up the new SEED policy was what we heard in consultation. What we heard from small businesses in level 2 and level 3 communities indicated that this is what they needed to be successful, and that’s how this whole SEED policy program has been designed and set up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
