Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the diamond sector in the value-added activity, we as the government over the last three years or so have been supporting and encouraging the manufacturing of diamonds in the Northwest Territories. We have helped out three different companies to begin the manufacturing. It is just the very beginning of an industry here and we are still in the growing pain area of this whole industry. There are a lot of different possibilities there that we should pursue.
Being new to this industry, the suggestions of trying to have the 10 percent excise tax not be applied to the diamonds coming out of the Northwest Territories is an excellent idea. We have heard this from the manufacturers themselves and they have identified that as a possible approach. We have not officially pursued that approach, since we have just recently been advised of it and certainly we will pursue that. I think it is an excellent idea.
We have been talking with the different politicians in Ottawa, namely our Member of Parliament, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, recently. There is a growing interest by the federal government to realizing that we do have very good quality diamonds coming out of the Northwest Territories and that we should pay more attention to it. There were suggestions of trying to look at ideas like a diamond sector council. This was advised by our Member of Parliament.
There are ideas out there, Mr. Chairman, on how to best move forward in trying to support our fledgling diamond manufacturing sector in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.