Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know last year when we were going through the budget I had asked what the value of the contract was. I cannot remember now. Can the Minister tell me what the value of the contract was in this current fiscal year?

Mr. Minister.

The current year contract is a bit over $200,000 for this past year. So next year, I expect $100,000 to $150,000, somewhere in that range.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the last paragraph on page 11-16 talking about diamond projects, it talks about diamond projects developing programs to address access to diamonds. How are we spending our time developing access to diamonds before these mines come on-stream?

Mr. Chairman, with the Diavik/Aber mine, we have two sets of negotiations going on there. We are negotiating socio-economic agreements with Diavik and that one includes provision for some of the rough to stay in North America. We have an MOU in place and we need to negotiate the terms of that.

With Aber Resources, who are not the operator of the mine, we have negotiations beginning with them as well for a separate agreement for them to leave some diamonds here. We have also begun some initial discussions with De Beers on their Snap Lake property although theirs is three years or more away from actual production. We are entering into the period soon with Diavik where we will get down to negotiating not just the amount, but the size and type of stone that we could best use here. Thanks.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see that one of the other items on the table for diamond projects is taxation issues. Is that to enforce those negotiations if necessary? Are diamond projects looking at those taxes that might choke a mule if necessary to make sure we get the diamonds to stay in the North for polishing?

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, no. If we do have the mining tax, we will likely do it through Finance or FMBS. This one is more in reference to diamond-specific or jewellery taxes. The main one, of course, is the excise tax and we are continuing to negotiate to try to have the federal government drop that one.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like the Minister to speak to the issue of the review that is going on between the BCC and the Development Corporation and Community Futures and the BDF. Once again I know it is in the process. I would like the Minister just to indicate a time line on this particular issue, since it does affect, once again, just about all of our constituencies. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the schedule is to have the report completed in April. It will come to me as a draft report and I think shortly after that I hope to be able to sit down with the committees and go over some of the recommendations. Thank you.

Mr. Nitah.

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, there is no cash that comes to the Government of the Northwest Territories as a result of that socio-economic agreement. It provides other benefits to people like jobs, training, business opportunities and so on but we do not get any cash. In fact, we contribute toward the cost of the monitoring board that represents all of the stakeholders.

Mr. Nitah.

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, as I saw the various opportunities and benefits for us as a government and also the other impacted communities, I felt that as a government we would focus on jobs, on training, on business opportunities and so on, value-added. Any kind of cash contributions or grants from the company, we would leave that to the communities to negotiate through their impact benefit agreements or participation agreements.

We did not want to be competing with the impacted communities for a share of the same pot of money. So we did not look at any cash. I would not want to do it that way. I would much prefer, unless it is completely hopeless, to try to get the federal government to give us a share of resource revenues. Then it comes from the federal government and not directly from the company. Thank you.

Mr. Nitah.