Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will break my area into three main areas. First of all, on the Mackenzie River basin. We have been working with the other provinces that share the basin, BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon and the federal government, to come up with a trans-boundary water agreement that will put some control on the kind of pollutants that end up in that water system. Those negotiations have been going on for basically 12 years now. We're reaching the point where the provinces are in agreement with us and I believe the federal government is onside.

We will have a trans-boundary water agreement in place, hopefully by late next spring. That agreement will be a basis of understanding on both water quality and water quantity in the Mackenzie. Of particular concern to us are the pollutants coming out of the pulp mills. In terms of ocean dumping and the contaminants in the ocean, all of the water in the ocean is under federal responsibility. We continue to monitor what is happening, and in January we will be receiving a report from the federal government on pollutants and other matter that is in the ocean that the federal government knows about.

Our role there is simply to monitor and pressure the government to do whatever we can, in terms of ensuring that material that is potentially harmful doesn't end up in the ocean. The position of our government and our department is basically, no ocean dumping. We don't feel it is necessary to dump anything untreated into the ocean. Last year, there was an issue of scrap metal and I think that issue clearly outlined our position.

The third area of responsibility has to do with Quebec Hydro's plan to build a large dam on the Great Whale River. Whenever water is dammed up like that there is a creation of some pollution that ends up in the waters. In this case, it would probably be mercury from flooded forests. We are working with Quebec Hydro and with the federal government to try to come to an agreement that there will be a thorough assessment done of the impact of that project on Sanikiluaq and the Belcher Islands, as well as the whole Hudson Bay, before it goes ahead.

Again, we're negotiating that one. We haven't come to any final terms in terms of how the assessment will be done or what the guidelines will be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.