Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about some of the concerns I have been hearing regarding the Business Development and Investment Corporation. It seems like this corporation is not living up to its full potential and is not serving the residents of the Northwest Territories or the businesses of the Northwest Territories in the way that it was intended to. It performs bank-like lending functions, but, from what I hear, it does not do much else. I have heard that it's even hard to get anyone on the phone over there, even though reviews have noted that they have an exceptionally large staff for the scope of their work.
Mr. Speaker, according to section 4 of the BDIC Act, the Minister of ITI may establish written directives for the corporation, including directives relating to the economic objectives of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The priorities of this Assembly and the mandate of the GNWT have made clear that we prioritize economic diversification and workforce development, both areas that BDIC could assist in. I would like to ask the Minister: have there been any ministerial directives established by this government relating to these or any other issues pursuant to the BDIC Act? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, there have not.
We are three years in. Why not?
The act actually has a requirement to have a review done every five years, and that process is under way right now. The draft is coming shortly to my desk, then will be coming to Cabinet and will be going back to committee.
I took a look at the last two reports that were done, the last two reviews, and they were scathing. There were a lot of improvements that were needed, and it does not seem that many of those improvements have been implemented. Given that we have another report coming, what is the Minister going to do to make sure that the results of this report are implemented and that we are going to see improvements come out of this?
There are probably three things that we are going to concentrate on, for sure, when we look at this review, and one of them is: how well did BDIC achieve its objectives in the last five years? That is one thing we are going to be very critical of. We have also done an environmental scan and had a look at other jurisdictions and what's going on. We are also looking seriously at the future challenges we have as a territory, the market conditions that are out there, as the economy is always changing, and considering what services and programs BDIC should have in place in the future. At the same time, we need to have another look at our legislation if changes need to be made based on the assessment that we are getting from them. I want to reassure Members of this House that I am very active on this file, and I want to have a serious look on how we are going to develop BDIC going into the future, to help the economic opportunities for the residents.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and that is good to hear. I just want to make sure that the committee gets their say, too, because we represent a lot of people and we talk about these issues with a lot of business owners throughout the territory. So I want to make sure that this review report comes to the committee and that the Minister solicits feedback, and that any sort of ministerial directives that might come out of this, that we also get some consultation with committee. Can I get that commitment?
I have worked very closely with committee on this. The first thing we did was share our terms of reference with them, in July of this year, on this. We have had the contractor reach out to all Members of this Assembly to interview them and get their input on this. Once we get this review back into my hands after Cabinet has it, I would certainly like to sit down with committee and have a discussion, so that we are all on the same page on this thing going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
