Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it certainly is. There are three factories in the Northwest Territories that take advantage of our government certification program. I've had a number of discussions with the cutting and polishing industry and they're very happy with the work that this government has done around the certification program, and believe that this government's guarantee of origin and standard of cut allows and helps to build the premium. As we know, we are a high cost area of operation, and any premium in the marketplace is certainly advantageous for northern cutting and polishing operations.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Thank you. It's at this point, I guess, preliminary to get into that discussion of where this agency will locate, but we are having discussions and I have come before Cabinet to discuss what the legislation would look like and to talk about the new agency. It's this sort of one-window approach to our business development programs in the Northwest Territories. The idea is to be able to rationalize the administration and make sure there's more money on the ground for lending for business programs. As this committee has referenced in its comments, we are proposing to come before committee and make a thorough presentation so that we can have a lot of good discussions about the goals and principles that we have laid out here. Certainly, at some point, one of the things we will be discussing with committee is the location of such an agency. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins is through. Last call for general comments. Mr. Allen.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I won't exhaust you too much longer other than to be allowed to go back and have enough time in my previous address to the Minister. I just want to talk about two very important things that I feel I would remiss if I didn't address them at this point and that he may have missed in his opening comments. Again, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, if we were to foster investment in the Northwest Territories, I would still like to pursue the idea of a community banking system, which I most ardently expressed in my reply to the opening address as a means to try to help develop local economies, local businesses, and take advantage of the opportunities that exist today in our rapidly growing economy. I still think with the number of investments we are exporting to southern institutions leads me to believe that in terms of cash value, we should have a cash asset over $1 billion, considering if we were to bring back our actuaries, the private public pension plan, superannuation plans, land claimant dollars, and you could list them all. Even if we were to generate sufficient revenues from the interest alone, I am sure we could radically change our fiscal position in the Territories. I just want to raise that point to the Minister that I find in your acts that you do have a Credit Union Act in the Territories and it remains dormant in our political system as well as the administrative system.

Another one that is very near and dear to ourselves in the Mackenzie Delta is in the context of pipeline unions, and as we continue to liaise with different sections of that economy, we are finding that we are trying to play catch up. Without direct discussion with the pipeline unions, we won't be able to identify the high-tech jobs and, as you know, if you talk to industry, they are very far behind in not only union but also technology standards. All you have to do, Mr. Minister, is that if you go south of the 60th parallel, you will find that the standards of employment change quite drastically from the NWT. I believe one of the areas that was raised to me in my meeting last Saturday in High Level -- a day after the Health and Social Services Minister was there -- was that there is a huge gap between highly-skilled employees and those who need huge investments in training programs. I strongly believe that you need to really sit down with your colleague, the Minister of ECE, to identify and meet with the union bosses to strengthen our union ties with them, and I am pleased to see that the Union of Northern Workers has addressed a letter to myself that is in contrast to the department's response. I think we need to really be cognizant of that fact.

Those are the two areas. I will be pursuing questions later on, Mr. Chair. At the moment I want to take the opportunity to elaborate on the importance of those two areas I missed earlier. So I thank you for your indulgence. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Minister, did you want to comment on Mr. Allen's comments? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some very good comments. I think that we talked about the BDIC and the future of business programming in the Northwest Territories. I think that it has to be about efficient and effective program delivery, and it has to be slimmed down administration. We have to look at all of the tools available to us, and if there are banking mechanisms, banking tools that we need to consider that we haven't to date, then I am certainly prepared to do that.

The Minister did reference the Credit Union Act. We have, and I know the Member is aware of this, but we commissioned a Bankers' Commission report that provided us with some advice and recommended the creation or the amalgamation of this agency, the BDIC. It pointed out, just as the Member has pointed out, that one of the key hurdles and one of the main things that really restricts the ability of businesses to grow in the Northwest Territories is this limited access to capital. I think the Member has made some very good points, and certainly we have to consider all aspects of this, and we have to consider if there are avenues and approaches we can take to repatriate northern money to make sure that it circulates in the Northwest Territories and is available for investment in the Northwest Territories. Then it makes no sense not to do something about it and try to pursue as many angles as possible to make that a reality. Obviously this requires some pretty heavily skilled individuals and some significant expertise, but I am certain that we can find that resource and discuss these issues with the Members in an intelligent manner.

The Member also referenced pipeline development, the impact that unions will play, the nature of jobs, and the nature of employment on the pipeline. I would like to tell the Member that I have had meetings with the Petroleum Services Association of Canada to better understand the nature of employment on the pipeline, and better understand who the main employers are. I think there is a misperception that it will be the producers who are employing the bulk of employees up and down the pipeline when, in fact, I think much of this work ends up being subcontracted. So I have had a good discussion with the Petroleum Services Association and their membership. They represent many Metis companies who are involved in the industry and are smaller-scale employers. I think it is important to understand how they think and how they operate, and what is important for them. Certainly through our protocol agreement we are seeking to meet with industry, larger industry and some of the smaller individual companies to discuss the very nature of the employment. It is important for us to get a handle on this. I know the Minister of ECE has also been involved and we have recognized that unions will play a role in this development, but so will employers. Employers will also play a large role and it is important for us to understand from these employers the nature of their needs. I want to thank the Member for those very good comments.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I will move now to Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments on the Minister's opening remarks. I was glad to see that the environment is the central priority for this department, and through the air quality code of practice, the Arctic Energy Alliance, energy compensation program and the biophysical study, and all of the rest of the other studies that the Minister pointed out in his opening statement. Just a couple of questions on the $575 million that the federal government has allocated for mine cleanup in Canada. I am wondering if the department has developed any kind of a mine strategy, or remediation strategy, and if the department has allocated any money toward any mine remediation actions that still remain unspoken for and unnoticed to leverage maybe some of this $575 million that the federal government has allocated for cleanup.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This money was only relatively recently announced. The fact remains that most of these almost exclusively, I suppose all of these contaminated sites are in the federal jurisdiction. So we have had a role to play to try to make sure that we create awareness around these. Through devolution we will take more control, although we are consistent that the federal government recognize these liabilities and resource us accordingly if we are going to take control of these. I think there are liabilities we are aware of, the ones we are all talking about, and there are most likely liabilities we are not aware of. We have to make sure the federal government recognizes their responsibility for these liabilities. So our approach has been to meet with the federal government officials and make sure they recognize their responsibility to clean these up.

Specifically with certain mines such as Giant, we continue to lobby the federal government to come up with a concrete work plan and cleanup approach that we can support and get on with some of this work. Our feeling is that we want to see the government move now while these funds have been identified. They're here now; later, who knows. We hope that the funds will increase, but we're realistic and recognize that we have to get up to the table to make sure that our contaminated sites are taken care of and cleaned up, and our preference would be that that happen first. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to ask the Minister if the department is going to be initiating or compiling any raw figures. I know we have a number of mines that haven't been properly closed or remediated for the past 25 years. I'm just wondering for the NWT if the department has really compiled any data as to how many mines we do have that have to be cleaned up, and is looking to secure any level of funding through leverage or any federal government programs that would be able to be establish approximately how much dollars we would be looking at in cleaning up the mines over the next 20 years.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

As we move forward on our devolution negotiations, waste site negotiations comprise a key component of those negotiations and it's our feeling that we want to make sure that, as I've said, the federal government recognizes the liability as their responsibility and that there is a costing of these responsibilities. It is difficult because I'm sure there are contaminated sites, waste sites that we're not aware of yet that could have been buried over the years. We want to make sure there's an acknowledgement that any future waste sites are also the federal liability and not ours.

But having said that, the federal government has undertaken an initial inventory with some preliminary costing of waste sites across the country. We've been going from that data and seeking to verify that as we move forward on our devolution negotiations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe just a couple other points with the wildlife studies that are taking place, which include the wood bison. I'm just curious as to the new program here to enhance the territorial muskox harvesting exporting industry. I'm just wondering if this agriculture policy framework agreement would include bison management in the five areas of the NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it will. I know the Member has expressed his concern about the Hook Lake bison herd a number of times with me. We've had some good discussion about this and I'd like to reassure the Member again that we are prepared to sit down with the community and discuss options going

forward. It's true that we don't have a concrete game plan laid out before us. We think it's important to work with the community, there are a number of options potentially on the table. We'll find one that works for the community and move forward on that basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Minister for his commitment to sit down with the community and go over some of those options. Just another quick point on these fuel-type maps for the NWT to be completed in the next couple of years. I'm just wondering if these maps would be able to ascertain what the potential forest development that would be sustainable in many areas of the NWT that they're looking at developing some type of forest industry.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.