Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have stood up in this House before and spoken, and other Members have spoken, on the Business Incentive Policy that continues to have some concerns from businesses in the Northwest Territories. I’m only bringing it up today because we have missed opportunities in the past. There are businesses that have missed opportunities in this government and previous governments.
If you look at the application for the bid adjustment that is recognized in the policy on contracts more than $5,000 and less than $1 million and also any other contracts that are over $1 million, there is a local content bid adjustment applied to the local businesses of only 5 percent.
When we get contracts over $1 million, not too many of our small businesses can bid on those contracts or put down the money to secure that contract. We can’t always compete with bigger businesses that we have in the regional centres, maybe here in Yellowknife or even some southern businesses. That is the concern.
Also, the concern is that I know we haven’t reviewed this policy since 2010. With that review of the policy, you look at the key stakeholders who looked at this policy and some of them are the bigger organizations throughout the Northwest Territories that also do business with the bigger projects.
Are we getting the information and input from our smaller businesses in the communities, especially the small communities? I just want to bring this to the attention of Members as well as businesses in the Northwest Territories and the public that say we adjust some of these percentages, whether it’s northern content or even switching to local content. What are some of the benefits we can see at the local level?
For instance, if we adjusted it between 5 and 10 percent, we’d have more local hires in communities. We’d be supporting the small businesses that can’t actually compete for these contracts. We could actually do some of the apprenticeship work that I know the Department of ECE is working on to get some of our local guys doing some apprenticeship work. There would be local economic runoff for the hotels or the schools, for the restaurants.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
As I said, a lot of these businesses in the small communities cannot make the bid on the contracts around $1 million or over $1 million. If you get a business of a high local content of 10 or 15 percent, we will get more people working in that community or migrating to that community from the region or around the Northwest Territories and we’ll build the economy wherever the work is happening. So, it’s an option I want to explore more.
I will ask questions of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment later on, looking at these options that can help our local businesses, help our local economy and diversify our economy throughout the Northwest Territories outside of the regional centres and outside of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
