Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We hired an independent panel, and they did some really good work on procurement, and they delivered their report in June 2021. And Mr. Speaker, I somewhat naively thought that, you know, within a few months after that we'd see changes to procurement.
I reviewed their report. I thought they did good work. I didn't really disagree with any of the recommendations. They made a few recommendations to change the thresholds in BIP, increasing the top $1 million to $2 million, recommended creating a local labour adjustment, and a few other tweaks.
They recommended a new definition of northern business, ones that a company would either have to have 51 percent ownership or a majority of its employees in the Northwest Territories. Importantly, they recommended using that definition which would then get rid of schedule 3 and finally remove Walmart from BIP. Yet, here are, Mr. Speaker, at the very end of this Assembly, and we still have not amended our policy.
Additionally, they recommended the creation of an Indigenous procurement policy. As far as I can tell, that conversation went completely off the rails, and there is no Indigenous procurement policy any hope in this Assembly. I personally would have just created a target similar to the Yukon and called it a day. I think getting everyone in the room who probably was never going to agree in the first place did more harm than good. But, Mr. Speaker, here we are.
And in August 2023, the government released finally its response to the review on procurement. And there are some hope in there. Apparently we have a new definition of northern business. We seem to be making no changes to the BIP threshold, and it doesn't look like Indigenous procurement is going anywhere. But maybe, just maybe, Walmart will finally be removed from BIP if we get that policy passed in the life of this Assembly. I'll have questions for the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member for Monfwi.
