Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can appreciate the complexity of the issue, so if the Minister is unable to commit to a time, can he possibly commit to a date some time say before spring where we hopefully have a resolution to this, as there are many people waiting to see what the government definition of Métis will be? Thank you.

Well, as usual, the Member is very capable of twisting the question around in a different fashion of asking the same question. As I mentioned, this is a complex situation at the moment and I have to take the approach that there are many other parties involved in this and we have a definition at the moment and I want to look at that to see if that can be corrected, if that is necessary.

Mr. Speaker, yes, it is true. I have been doing a fair bit of work on trying to simplify our regulatory processes, as the Member has pointed out. I have had meetings with the various agencies, either personally or through my department. We have discussed and I think we have an agreement in principle among all of the agencies. They are all basically federal agencies, not territorial. We have agreement among those agencies that in principle they agree with doing one coordinated process for the regulatory screening and environmental assessment for the proposed pipeline.

There is a meeting being held on November 21st. It is being coordinated by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board. I expect that at that meeting, they will be able to iron out a lot of the details. Our government will be represented there as an observer, not as a partner, since this is really a federal process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From what I understand of what the Minister is engaged in, he is trying to bring all the parties who have a stake in it or who are the participants in the regulatory process and within that jurisdiction in the North, bringing them all together, looking at what their legislative requirements are and figuring out the process to streamline it. How I see it, Mr. Speaker, is that those laws are there for a reason and it may not be that simple to simplify them even if all the parties involved agree with that.

So I am just wondering if the Minister could elaborate more on how he sees this process working. I do not know if my impression is clear. I just want to give the Minister an opportunity to explain it more.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, let me very quickly summarize the situation. Generally, if I just look at the territorial level, there are three environmental assessment bodies. One is part of the Inuvialuit Land Claim. There is the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Process and there is the National Energy Board process. If we just let each of them go their own way, then we would have three preliminary screenings. We would have three sets of environmental hearings and boards set up, so we would have environmental boards tripping over each other trying to have meaningful consultations.

So my objective is to have them work in one coordinated fashion where you would have one board representative of all three agencies that would hold one set of hearings. Then we do not have problems with people getting tired of groups coming to their communities and asking for information. We would also prevent the problem of conflicting recommendations from it.

This is not in any way to compromise or get around any of the need to be very diligent in this process. It is more how to coordinate so we do not have all these boards each doing their own independent thing but still recognize the importance of protecting our environment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must say, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very important that we do this in support of the oil and gas industry and, contrary to what is being said here, I believe it is a good thing for Yellowknife to be booming with the diamond industry. One community doing well is not a big thing for the rest of the Territory. I wonder if the Minister could advise us if he foresees using a similar process of the diamond industry, because, as he is aware, BHP Diamonds Incorporated is going through a regulatory process to deal with the changes that they are making to the kimberlites, the new kimberlites they are going to be processing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, wherever it would be necessary when we have more than one agency involved, then we want to streamline the process. However, in the case of the diamond mines, we really only have the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board process. It does not involve the National Energy Board or any other falling under a land claim right now. Even in those cases, we want to work with the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board to ensure that even there the process is streamlined.

As we know, this whole process is recent. We are still working with them to iron out any kind of overlap or duplication that may be happening but I assure the Member that, as the next mines come on stream, we have learned a lot from the past processes and will continue to refine and streamline how it is being done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the question was who has responsibility whether to put up signs on the highways and so on. That is a responsibility of the Department of Transportation. I am sure if there is information concerning RWED issues on the signs that my department would work with the Department of Transportation.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the question should be referred to the Minister responsible for Transportation. Thank you.