Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Premier and is in regard to my Member’s statement. One of the biggest challenges we’re facing in our communities is dealing with the social and economic aspects of trying to generate employment and jobs for our residents. A lot of those jobs and opportunities come by way of government contracts and services. I think that we as government have to take a close look at the social and economic indicators, especially where we have high pockets of unemployment, high graduation rates. What can we as government do to ensure that those capital investments that are made in our communities are being expended in those communities and make way for training opportunities, skill development, and enhancing the local opportunities and for businesses to develop locally and stay in our communities so they can provide those important services? I’d like to ask the Premier: as a government, what are we doing to ensure that we look at those assessments when we make those decisions on capital investments in our communities?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Government of the Northwest Territories we use a number of tools to do just what the Member has spoken to, building capacity throughout the North both in our people and in our construction industry, for example. We have, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Business Incentive Policy, we have the Negotiated Contracts Policy, we have MOUs within a number of regions, and continue to negotiate renewals and new MOUs being put in place. We try to use as many of those tools as possible. Internally one of the things we‘ve done to look at the capacity issue in our small communities is have our committee structure of small and remote community representatives working together to look at some of those challenges that we face in our community from program delivery to just as the Member is talking about, construction and capital as well.
Again, I’d like to ask the Premier, with regard to looking at the social and economic fabric of our communities where we’re really starting to see high, high numbers of unemployment in our communities, knowing that we have to do whatever we can to sustain our communities not only through programs and services but economically as well, does our government look at the social numbers to see where we have high pockets of unemployment where people are using the high numbers of social programs and services, regardless if it’s income support or other programs, and as a government realizing that there are benefits to putting money into communities to stimulate that economy and stimulate our local workforce?
Yes, we do have quite a number of programs, as I touched base earlier on, in trying to stimulate the economy. Just the announcement earlier today by the Minister of Transportation on the Community Access Program, expanding that because we see the good work it does in many of our communities. We do look at the socio-economic factors. That is why, for example, under Executive we’ve extended services into our small and remote communities under the CSO, or community service officer, positions to try to get as much information about programs to people across the Territory. When you look at our other program structures, we do take into consideration the cost of living, whether it’s income support and so on. Those are the other side of trying to deal with the cost of living in our communities. We do look at whether it is under employment, under capital program, to try to reach out to communities as much as we can and look to expanding those ways as well.
I think one of the things we have to do as government is to look at the loopholes we have by way of contracting policies and procedures. I think some of them where we deal with as and when contractors... In most of those cases a lot of the contractors that receive those contracts come from outside the region. They’ll go, with regard to a mechanic or a plumber, do work on behalf of the different government departments. Those are the type of jobs that can keep small businesses going in our communities. I’d like to ask the Minister if you also look at the as and when contracts that government lets by way of service contracts without going through a public tendering process and offering those contracts to local contractors.
I guess the process, if I understand properly the question, goes to with the as and whens in many of our communities are posted on an annual basis for businesses to put their names in and show interest in that area, to provide those services in our communities and regions. We do have a process established of doing that. I’m not sure if the Member is requesting that we look at them through our other programs that we have there. That is something I guess we can look at from time to time where capacity issues need to be met.
One of the things we do have to look at as a government is the cost of being able to deliver those programs throughout our communities and that does have an impact on some of our decisions as well.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Premier if he could submit a report to this House or the Members of this House identifying how this government is re-profiling its programs and services so we can actually physically see how the programs and services we have are really benefiting communities, and at what cost are we putting them in place to ensure that the investment we make in our communities, the dollars stay in our communities, and that it is stimulating our local economies.
One of the interesting areas we began to look at prior to division and leading up to division of the Northwest Territories and the creation of Nunavut was we started the geographic tracking of our costs in our Territory at the territorial, regional and community level. This government picked that up and is using that to look at where we benefit our communities as well. We try to use as many tools as we can in measuring our impact in communities both large and small and will continue to look at that type of information as we look at designing our programs and how they benefit our communities.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
