Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment about, you guessed it, procurement. Obviously, businesses continue to come forward, business owners continue to come forward. How is the department using procurement policies to level the playing field with southern companies that are doing business in the Northwest Territories, to give a competitive edge to northern businesses? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Premier said in the House previously, BIP was probably the best policy ever created by the Government of the Northwest Territories. BIP allows northern businesses and northern registered businesses that opportunity to give them that extra advantage on southern procurement of companies that are not BIP, and it is a significant amount that gives us leverage as the Northwest Territories to protect northern businesses.
It is interesting that the Minister is so confident in BIP's success because all the concerns I hear are about BIP. I already know he is not willing to reform BIP, to do a review of BIP to take action on these concerns. So, given the high-profile nature of several procurement issues -- I am talking about the Housing Corporation modular project in Hay River that the failure of the procurement policy resulted in the loss of 40 full-time jobs, a Minister's riding, by the way, Mr. Speaker, and, of course, the NTPC power generators ongoing affair, which is at least half a million dollars of government funding that has gone to that -- do these high-profile issues convince the Minister that we need to take a look at how we procure things so that we can save some money and save some jobs?
The Member throws a lot of comments out there. There are a lot of issues around both of these procurement issues, and I am not going to talk about it in this House because that is privy information. He is throwing stuff out there that is not realistic to the rest of the policy that helps northern businesses under the BIP policy. Our preference is to continue with the way we do business, and I have said it in this House a number of times: we are going to continue to the way we do business and follow our policies.
One of the issues with BIP is that it only applies to the first $500,000 on procurement contracts. Is the Minister willing to be flexible with that amount so that businesses that are looking to take on larger projects, who are northern-owned and operated, can receive greater benefits from procurement?
I have said in this House before: I came from private business. I was there my whole life. I have done procurement with the Government of the Northwest Territories my whole life. I have bid on projects for various amounts from $1 to over $1 million. The BIP procurement policy protects northern businesses to a significant amount, but at the same time we are here to protect the public purse, and we will continue to do that. As a businessperson previous to being in this House, I believe the policy is there in a meaningful way to help protect us and give us a leg up, and I believe it is significant, and I will stick to that.
Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Minister's clarity of purpose on this. There are a number of companies that are grandfathered in or are meeting a 50 per cent requirement that are still either owned in part or owned entirely by southern companies that can benefit from southern supply chains, so we are giving those companies a 20 per cent markup through their northern preference, even though they can double dip, so to speak, and benefit from southern markets. Is the Minister willing to look at those requirements and the list of grandfathered companies that are benefitting from southern supply chains and take that into account when looking at potential reform for this policy? Thank you.
We continue to review all of the our policies and make sure they are doing the support to business in the Northwest Territories. The Member has brought up an issue that I have not heard about. No one has come to me saying there is a disadvantage, being these companies that are grandfathered in. This is something that is new to me and, if he is glad to come down to my office and have a discussion about that, I would be willing to sit down with him. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
