Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are all well aware that, because of the pandemic, our economy is being hit hard. We have to find a way, I guess, to get it back on track. One of the things that I see is that we have three departments, probably: Housing; Infrastructure; and Education, Culture and Employment. Those, I see as the three departments that are going to provide contracts and provide the employment and training for our residents and for our businesses. We also talk about, you know, having panels, like blue-chip panels and that, of businesspeople, and I guess what I see with that, if we're looking for our blue-chip panel, our blue-chip panels are in every community. They are made up of businesspeople who are working hard and trying to make a dollar.
The questions that I have are for the Minister of Infrastructure. Time is of the essence when it comes to helping businesses survive this pandemic period. Besides the loans, deferrals, and grants that are being provided, what is the Department of Infrastructure doing to make sure that businesses have the opportunity to get back to work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for his questions. The Department of Infrastructure is continuing with our capital plan. We have had to have a bit of delay in our process to account for COVID, including the lack or want of southern or outside workers in small communities. This has delayed the implementation of some of our contracting at this point.
However, the Department of Infrastructure does plan to continue with most of our infrastructure projects going forward that we already had on the books. We have started to tweak and look at our procurement strategy. We have done a few things right now to make that a little bit more accessible to Northerners and favouring Northerners, in that we have removed the minimum scoring requirements for the RFPs and a few other tweaks. I believe that I sent you all an email about that last week.
We are starting with some small changes that we can make at the moment, but we are going to be executing a multi-department review of procurement, which will include BIP. It will be in conjunction with the Minister of Finance's department, as well as my two departments, ITI and Infrastructure. We recognize that procurement has some issues in the Northwest Territories. We are committed, as we have said in our mandate and priorities, to addressing those issues, and that is still the plan for Infrastructure going forward. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I would like the Minister to provide me with some comfort that the department will start to use tools, such as negotiated contracts and sole-source contracts, to the advantage of our northern businesses. Right now, what is happening is we still see contracts from the North going to southern contractors. There is always a reason why; there is always an excuse why, and we have to put a stop to that. I am looking to the Minister and her department to tell me how she's going to do it, and as soon as possible.
Yes, I completely do commit to making these changes. I think that, within the department, I have recognized that it is a much more complex situation than when I was first speaking to you about this. I do recognize that people are tired of excuses and tired of hearing, "We just have to do it this way," and playing it safe, because that is pretty much the messaging, is that the safest thing for me as a Minister is to put everything out to open tender, and then I protect myself.
That is not the way that we will be going forward, and I can guarantee and commit to that right now. We are already in discussions with Cabinet about some specific negotiated contracts, but, as well, a general conversation around direct, sole-source, and negotiated contracts and maximizing our dollars in the North. We definitely intend to go down that road.
I have already acknowledged that, at times, it's tough to move this government ship very quickly, and I acknowledge that it hasn't moved fast enough for some of the Members on the other side, but I continue to commit to making those improvements where I see fit. I do have to make sure, though, that I make informed changes and choices for my department, and I am recognizing, the more I am in this role, how little I actually know, and therefore, I do need to make sure we're making the right choices moving forward. I do commit to all of you that, at any time, if people do want to discuss specific contracts or this going forward more, we can.
We saw how fast the Department of Health responded to COVID, and we saw what the government could actually do, how fast they can react. I am hoping that the Department of Infrastructure is going to be the same way, and not kind of drag this out with, "Wait until we get panels in place," and coming up with more excuses.
One of the problems that I see is that the staff, no doubt, are working hard, whether they are at home or not, but one of the problems that I see is that we don't have a lot of people in the offices. We have office buildings in the communities that have separate offices, and we have nobody working in them. That has to change. I would like to see that change sooner than later, and I would like to know what the department is doing about that.
A lot of the direction around the workplaces and such came from the CPHO's Office, and Infrastructure and ITI just had to accommodate it like everybody else in the workplace. There was a whole-of-government conversation around our workspaces, but I do agree with what the Member is saying. Now we are past the reaction stage where we were just trying to keep everybody safe, and now we do need to look at being proactive and getting people back to work.
I do think that having people go back to the offices will actually increase productivity. I know, for myself, when I started coming to the Leg again a couple of weeks ago, when I was able to leave my home, that actually had a huge amount of change in my mental health about work, and just feeling like I was more productive. I was able to also, then, separate work from home, which I am hearing is a big concern of many of our employees. They are not able to deal with doing their work and having their children at home, and then they are finding that their work hours are extending well into the evenings. For some people, that's great. They're flexible; they work in the morning, and then they work in the evening. However, we do need to get back to doing business in the Northwest Territories.
Infrastructure did have a large role in the pandemic around the borders and the supply chain and procurement and PPE. We were quite busy with doing that. We did have contract issues that we had to look at for contracts that were ongoing, as far as whether they were still going to be able to be executed and whether we were opening the government up to liability. There was a lot within Infrastructure that we had to deal with before we could start turning out the contracts again and determining how we were going to do that. It has been, probably, a little slower than the Member would like, but I do commit to taking the points you have made about the offices back to my department and having that conversation with them this week.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess, in saying all this, I think that it is important that the Department of Health and the Department of Infrastructure work together to coordinate moving ahead. Everything went so fast, and I understand that, you know, the Department of Health probably had to take the lead and do stuff without really having time to talk to anybody else, but now we have that time. How is your department working with the Department of Health to make sure that this goes ahead smoothly and quickly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
All of the departments have, quite often, ADM committees, working committees. They also have DM working committees. I would say that my department and the Department of Health have actually had a lot of conversation over the last while, but you are correct. There was a direction coming from Health and Social Services that needed to happen so that we could protect worker health and safety.
Maybe now is the time that Infrastructure does need to push forward a little harder and say, "Okay, we need to take a little bit more risk in having people back to work so that we can move forward the process of government." I would say that we did step back and, really, our priority and our focus was ensuring the health and safety of the residents. We also went into issues with WSCC if people are not feeling safe to go back into their workplace. They have every right to refuse unsafe work.
Right now, what the department is doing is we are looking at our buildings, all of the buildings that we manage for the GNWT, and we are trying to put as many measures in place, or engineering controls, so that we minimize the exposure of people who are working. Right now, we have things like sensor faucets going in, looking at no-touch doors, those types of things. Right now, that is the work that is going on with Infrastructure so that we can get government employees back to work. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
