Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the honourable Member who posed the question that in the last couple of years we have worked very hard with him, and I certainly appreciate the support that he has given to the Government of the Northwest Territories in trying to establish working relationships between the people, the region, the communities and the industry, not only to support the actual development but the potential subsidiary developments that would give economic revenue to communities and regions. For example, I know that the power of potential development is one area where there has been significant interest shown by aboriginal groups to get involved. The potential customer that would make this particular venture economically viable is the mining industry.

Mr. Speaker, there is a coordinating committee of the Government of the Northwest Territories including the Departments of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Transportation and Economic Development and Tourism. This has been set up to begin a process of evaluating development options and to determine what information is required to make the management decisions associated with Northwest Territories mineral developments, particularly in looking at the Izok Lake area and the Lac De Gras diamond activity.

Options that exist to supply energy to the Izok Lake area include oil from the North Sea, and N.W.T. sources of local hydro. We are attempting to continue to work vigorously with the mining industry and we have a very good relationship with them. With these developments, it is not only the option of trying to get into joint ventures once they have got over the exploration stage. There have been several meetings held with the Coppermine region as well as with the Dogrib Nation in looking at opportunities to become involved. We are not sitting back and waiting for someone else to do the job. It would not matter if it was the potential to service energy, maybe smaller hydro energy, to some of the smaller diamond areas, about which we recently had a meeting, in which the Member was involved. It appears that the senior mining company officials who were present were very interested in any opportunity that we could identify. We have a little head start on that.

In terms of the Izok Lake deposit, we know that this is going to require a road to the port. These discussions include the possibility of funding ourselves. This study is conducted by the Panarctic Shipping Agency with financial support from the Government of the Northwest Territories. We have also encouraged the involvement of the Northern Transportation Company Limited to make sure that they are in the operation as quickly as possible so that they will not be left behind. We have been actively working with people and making sure that the areas of mineral exploration involves local people and that the spin-off benefits come to local people. We will continue our active involvement.

I have attended a number of meetings with the mining industry and continue to deal with the Department of Indian Affairs. The northern benefits which are involved in some of the claims which have been settled, should be recognized. At the same time, just because some areas are not under the claims process, that does not mean that the involvement is not important to us, whether it is business opportunity or employment. Thank you.