Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, rather than describing the two workers' representatives on the committee as being from organized and unorganized labour alone in those terms, I prefer to think of the workers' representatives as being from two distinct and different classes of mines in the Northwest Territories. People who happen to be from unorganized workplaces would include the majority of mines in the Northwest Territories, all the mines that are remote from Yellowknife, mines that are fly-in operations with generally different shift schedules, mines that use different mining methods and different technology than the mines in Yellowknife, as well as mines that happen to be generally above the tree line and in the eastern part of the Territories, as opposed to the West.
Mr. Speaker, in attempting to have a mining safety bill committee that was reflective of all the workers in the Northwest Territories, I felt that someone from that category of mines -- that is, the remote mines, the fly-in mines, the newer mines, et cetera -- would provide a balance to the committee to ensure that all workplace situations were represented in developing the new bill. It was not just that they were organized or unorganized. That was my thinking in structuring this committee. As I indicated yesterday, it has caused strong opposition from the two major mining unions in the Northwest Territories -- CASAW, Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers, and Steel, United Steelworkers of America -- who informed me, yesterday, that they will not participate in this exercise because of those objections that I outlined yesterday. That is my problem at the moment, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.