Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the goals of the 17th Legislative Assembly is a diversified economy that provides all communities and regions with opportunities and choices. Going back to my Member’s statement with the Business Incentive Policy, I threw out a solution there in terms of looking at increasing our local content in the Business Incentive Policy. One suggestion is, when I’ve talked to local businesses back home, maybe flipping it, flipping the local content to 15 percent and the northern content to 5 percent. You’ll still get the northern content in your local content for the Business Incentive Policy, but when you’d make it localized then you’re diversifying economies to the communities across the Northwest Territories. I gave a lot of benefits in my Member’s statement to that, all the benefits if we focused more content to the local businesses, and we’d be supporting local businesses.
My first question to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment: Has the department looked at increasing the local content or even, furthermore, switching the local and northern content percentages during the Business Incentive Policy review?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We looked at this a few years back and we had contracted a company to take a look at the scenarios and how we could do our bid adjustments. A couple of different scenarios were put in place and at that time it wasn’t considered necessary to be looking at the changes to the current adjustments. But that’s not to say that as we go forward, Members and the business community here in the Northwest Territories may have other ideas on how we can strengthen the Business Incentive Policy here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
I appreciate the history of the review of this Business Incentive Policy, and maybe in future I can look at those findings. In that review, or even now since it hasn’t been reviewed since 2010, has the Minister spoken to some of our key stakeholders in our local communities? I’m not talking about key stakeholders like the NWT Chamber of Commerce, NWT Construction Association, none of these territorial stakeholders. We need to hear from the local stakeholders that do business in our communities and provide jobs for our local residents.
Has the Minister consulted with the local businesses to see what they are saying and not what the territorial organizations are saying? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
If we were going to go down the path of opening up a review of the BIP, key stakeholders like the NWT Chamber of Commerce, the NWT Construction Association and other industry associations would certainly be part of that.
For the most part, we believe that business here in the Northwest Territories is benefitting from the current BIP that we have in place. We have heard some concerns that it needs to be strengthened. There needs to be more protection for what I would deem as true northern businesses with headquarters here in the Northwest Territories and employees here in the Northwest Territories.
Again, this is something that, as we continue to move on, I know that we are getting late in the life of this government, but it could be something that is flagged in the transition to the next government. If the Members feel that there’s enough concern out there about the status of it today, it could be something that we could look at as we move forward to the 18th Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
As I mentioned, and as the Minister knows, as mentioned in some of the ministerial statements, our economy is slow and in some of the regions and some of the communities there is hardly any work or no work at all. If we can start looking at when we are delivering contracts, we do in fact try to increase the local content or increase the amount of work in that project that a local business can do.
Has the Minister consulted and looked at what businesses we have out there – I know we do have a registry – that can focus on doing the business that we put out RFPs and contracts and they ensure that our local businesses do get that part of the contract? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We do do that type of work, and I guess a good case in point is the Tuk Inuvik Highway. It was very important that the money stay in the North and that local contractors were involved there. We see the benefit of that with the employment levels in both communities of Tuktoyaktuk and also in Inuvik and other communities in the Beaufort-Delta as well.
There are ways the government can continue to emphasize the importance of keeping money here in the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to look at opportunities to do just that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s my case in point. I mean, that wasn’t a contract; that was out for public tender. But if we did have a contract out for public tender and we increased the local content, then we get more people working in that community and then we get people from all over the regions, the Sahtu, Yellowknife, even from the Yukon, and all the communities in the Beaufort-Delta benefitting.
That is what I’m trying to say here. If we change this, not the sole-source or the negotiated contracts, but if we put it in the contract, in the BIP, we would see those results.
I would like to ask the Minister one last quick question with the registry. How often does he update the registry and ensure that local businesses and businesses in the Northwest Territories are up to date on the registry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As Members know, as part of our decentralization we did move the BIP office to the community of Hay River. I will get the information that the Member is asking for and I’ll provide that to all Members when the registry is reviewed and when that happens. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
