Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in October 2000, I had the opportunity and pleasure of attending meetings in Washington along with Premier Stephen Kakfwi, Minister Joe Handley and Minister Vince Steen. While we were there, Mr. Speaker, we had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the embassy to deal with our relationship between the U.S. and Canada. We also met with pipeline builders. We met with financing groups, producers and government representatives, including some senators, Mr. Speaker.

We were there to spread the word that the Northwest Territories is open for business as far as pipeline development and the desire for us to supply the U.S. market with gas were concerned. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I was bit disappointed with the reception we received down there. Although they were very polite to us and very attentive to the presentation we made, it seemed at that time that they were marginally interested in our gas.

In February of this year, I was also given another opportunity to accompany the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, the honourable Jim Antoine, and his deputy minister, Robert McLeod, to further meetings in New York and Washington. I would like to thank the department and the Minister for allowing our committee to be represented at those meetings.

The meetings in New York, Mr. Speaker, were to do with diamonds. I was very encouraged to learn that the diamond industry and people in the States are very interested in our Canadian certified diamond project, and the belief that there is a good future in the diamond industry for Canadian certified diamonds. A little bit on the downside of that, Mr. Speaker, we also learned that maybe the businesses that we have set up in the diamond industry, and how our whole industry is set up, could use some improvement. Some of the points that were raised indicated we could be doing better as a government.

Also when we went to Washington, Mr. Speaker, I was very surprised, and pleasantly surprised I might add, at the reception we received down there. We met a lot of the people with whom we had previously met and the reception was totally different, Mr. Speaker. We had people supporting our project to the likes of...