Thank you. Mr Speaker. Let me start off by saying that, yes, I think in our initial discussions it would be fair to say when we developed the social and economic agreement which was done a year, year and a half ago with the diamond industry we were very pleased with the spirit of cooperation that we had. Mr. Kakfwi spoke earlier last week
about the impact on the construction of the mine site that it has had with respect to the use of northern businesses and with respect to the use of northern employment. We have been encouraged all along that the corporation has been working in a spirit of partnership to meet the objectives that we set in the social economic agreement over a year, a year and a half ago, I believe.
I am somewhat confused, Mr. Speaker, as to why they are putting the spin on and not discussing with us the next phase, and that is the operation phase of their mine as it relates to the royalties and tax regime which in calculating the royalties and the tax revenues, the diamond sorting and valuation is a critical component of it. It seems to me maybe that we are caught in a communications problem. I am not sure, but certainly if you look at the spirit of cooperation that occurred in the early days when we discussed the construction of the mine it was going extremely well.
I am hoping that Mr. Rothwell will be able to clear up and give us some clarity when we meet with him as to why we seem to be heading for a collision course as it relates to diamond sorting and valuation and as it relates to revenues and royalties. We will be left with no alternative but to bring forward options for this House to protect the fiscal interest of all northerners. Thank you.