Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the area of diamonds I think our government, from the onset, had felt it had not only territorial obligation, but a national obligation, as well, to make the federal government aware of the enormous potential that it had bypassed by giving a licence prematurely to BHP. We have done a lot of work to make sure that some of the jobs, some of the economic opportunities that seem to have almost bypassed us were in fact realized. We take that approach, as well, in the oil and gas business.
We have been working for the past couple of years with the federal government, for instance, to reduce the tariff from the Norman Wells pipeline, so that all companies will find it more economical to explore for oil and gas further up the Mackenzie Valley because it becomes economical for them to transport their product down that line. We have been working with the Sahtu communities and communities in the Deh Cho because the federal government has issued licences and oil companies have bid on those licences to make sure that they come to agreements: access agreements, benefit agreements. Those have been signed in Fort Liard, Fort Good Hope, Tulita and Norman Wells. We have been working very hard with those communities. The focus has not been just on diamonds, we have a division that is created in the department strictly to deal with oil and gas.
We have worked with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation recently in their bid to try to find the strongest economic means of initiating work in the Darnley Bay area. I was in Europe, I cut the trip short by a day to return in order to get organized and do a Senate presentation in support of the Inuvialuit initiative. As a government we are taking a very balanced approach to making sure that everything is done to get into the diamond business, and to approach in a balanced way that benefits everybody, that all the economic opportunities are seized at the onset and that development proceeds as it should.
We are also taking the view that we have to go periodically to Calgary. I have done that on a number of occasions over the past year and a half. I have gone to Fort Liard once in the spring on the request of the community to help them seize opportunities. They have been seizing opportunities. The MLA asked yesterday if I would return to Fort Liard. We have agreed to a community visit next Friday. Where communities request it and at every possible occasion, we are working as a government to do everything we can to make sure oil and gas companies return to the north, and to find an environment that is receptive and conducive for them to operate and explore economically. Thank you.