Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When are we going to remove Walmart from the business incentive policy, Mr. Speaker? I want to clarify it's not just Walmart, it's the entirety of Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy, which is a list of 54 grandfathered southernowned companies that, about a decade ago, seemed to get grandfathered in. And, Mr. Speaker, these are some of the largest companies in the world, like Loblaws. Why do we have to give preferential bid adjustments to Loblaws, Mr. Speaker?
Another egregious example, Northwestel. Northwestel has a legallyprotected monopoly in the North yet we have adjusted well over $60 million of their bids. They bid and we say oh no, that's not enough money for your legallyprotected monopoly; we're going to add a little more under the business incentive policy, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, now there's a number of reasons why companies have got on there. But at this point, the only fair thing is to remove them all. Another example is Clark Builders, Mr. Speaker, who have won well over $200 million in contracts from the GNWT under BIP adjustments. At one point they had their start in the North, but they have grown to be one of the top ten construction companies in Canada. They no longer need their bids adjusted.
Mr. Speaker, also on that list is Golder and Associates, which has thousands of employees. And I'm happy they have an office with a few employees in the North, but they have grown so large they don't need their bids adjusted. And the reality is they compete against local firms and local environmental consulting firms who are actually BIP registered.
Mr. Speaker, there are countless examples where, whether it be paying for food, paying for construction, paying for consulting, these companies that have been bought and sold time and time again, until they are part of global consortiums with thousands of employees, are now having their bids adjusted for no justifiable reason and all it is doing is costing the taxpayer more money. I will have questions for the Minister of ITI on when we are going to update our BIP policy and remove this schedule. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member for Monfwi.
