Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy is quite a long list of companies, and I don't want to go through the reasons of why each of these got in here or others that, you know, seemingly have the exact same situation in this territory didn't. But can the Minister just give me some explanation of how we got here; why is there a specified list of southern companies that we give preferential treatment to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the story starts way back in 2010. There was some policy revisions made at that time. And essentially any business that was already here at that time, and that was already operating in the Northwest Territories, was grandfathered in under that policy. And that has not changed, and so those companies continue to be on Schedule 3. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think at this point the only fair thing is to scrap the entire list and have a policy that anyone can apply to, and maybe some of these companies will reapply. But when you look at many of them, it's clear they have been bought and sold tens of times since they were put on this list and many are owned by, you know, global consortiums around the world. It just doesn't make sense to be spending extra taxpayer dollars on them.
So my question for the Minister of ITI is when is this procurement review going to be finished and will it remove this schedule? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, there's a number of different things happening with respect to the procurement review. Some already have seen some changes. There's been, for example, vendor performance management is now underway. Contracts are being updated accordingly. There's significant work happening led by EIA on Indigenous procurement, being codeveloped or codetermined with Indigenous parties that would benefit from that. There's also work happening in ITI, Mr. Speaker, around the business incentive policy and around the manufacturing policy to look at ways to improve that. And that is all expected happen still within the course and the lifetime of this government. That includes determining exactly what the definition of a northern business should be, which is certainly a little more complicated than just one department making that determination. Should it be an entity that has a place of business here, that does a majority of its business here, that has a certain number of residents that are employed here; that's certainly proved to be rather more contentious than simply a blanket decision to be made. But, again, I can certainly say that there will be work ongoing and it will be happening in the life of this Assembly. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try again once more. Okay, perhaps we have to wait for the new policy that answers, you know, some of these companies and I get it's difficult to say if your base of operations are here but you've sold since been sold, should you fall under the new policy. But to me the answer to that is the new policy. So I don't want to see a situation where we create a new policy and then we keep Schedule 3. So we go well, we're just going to leave those people there forever.
So will the Minister commit that once we have a new policy in place, we will be removing Schedule 3? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, Mr. Speaker, that is certainly was exactly the recommendation in the procurement review, was indeed to remove Schedule 3. And the work that's going on about what that will look like to be replaced and how businesses might find themselves, that work is underway right now. And I'm afraid the Member's going to have to wait and see how that unfolds and then any business that's in Schedule 3 can determine whether or how they find themselves reflected in the new policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, you know, and I think this is a tough policy question. There has to be a way to write it because take Walmart, for example, one of the largest corporations in the world, we presently if they bid on food services, we buy a few hundred thousand dollars-worth of food in this territory, we give them some extra money. And I get they have a building here and they have staff here but my question is, will the Minister remove Walmart from Schedule 3? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Walmart's the easy one. Walmart and Loblaws and, in fact, many of the other businesses on Schedule 3 have not bid on any GNWT contracts in over ten years. And in that sense, they're sitting there but they're not really gaining much benefit from being on Schedule 3. Those aren't the difficult circumstances. The more complicated ones are those who are longtime northernbased businesses who have had the benefit of growing and becoming large larger businesses, which is really a good news story for the Northwest Territories and for having those businesses based here and who have been grandfathered in, and to determine what, in fact, or how, in fact, we might want to continue to encourage the growth of businesses in the North, to be based in the North, but competing on a national scale, that is the more difficult question. Walmart, I'm not too concerned about as we move forward with this process but, again, it's those northernbased businesses we want to consider how to be tracked and capture that kind of growth in our economy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Colleagues, before we continue, I believe in the gallery today we have Avery Parle, president of Northern Territories Federation of Labour. Welcome to the Chamber. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
