Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about the EARP. As you know, it is in the process now of hearings on the BHP project. Members may recall that the panel was born in some controversy, there were a lot of delays. Finally, after much soul-searching, the federal Minister appointed four people. The four people, as Members know, are Letha McLaughlin, Walter Kupsch, Jessie Sloan and Cindy Gilday.

I remember after the announcements were made public, I got a lot of criticism from a lot of people about most of the members on that board. I heard major criticism from environmentalists about some people on the board, I heard major criticism from the Chamber of Commerce members and the mining industry about other people on the board. I made a speech to a fairly large crowd at the Chamber of Commerce a couple of months ago, and what I said there is something I think is necessary to repeat again.

At the end of the day, the board has been chosen. The people on the board all have extremely good credentials and there is a fair philosophical balance on the board. I'm proud of the fact that in my constituency live two members of that board, both Cindy Gilday and Jessie Sloan are from Yellowknife North and I want to publicly give a vote of confidence to both of them. They are both well-qualified, well-experienced people. The way the make-up of the board ended up was with three women of the four members on the board. That is major step forward for the Northwest Territories, to have a majority of women on a very, very important board.

Each member of that board should be judged on their own qualifications, on their own experience. At the end of the day, we are going to judge them on the product that they deliver. From everything I have heard, the hearings are proceeding very well. There seems to be goodwill among the members. I have every confidence that each member will be objective, will bring their experience to bear. My major message here today, the same message I gave to the Chamber of Commerce, is we have a good board, they are doing well, let them do their job.