Premier, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, Diavik for sure has a summer student program and I'm almost 100 percent certain that Ekati Mine does as well. I know that there have been a number of university students who have worked at both of the mines over the summers. I don't know the details or the eligibility or how they select the students who do work there. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister aware of what the percentage of workers at the mines are direct employees of BHP and Diavik conversely and what percentage of hires are hired by outside contractors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In both cases, the mines do use subcontractors extensively. I would guess that probably a fairly small percentage are direct employees of the mines at the mine site. Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to try to get some information for the Member on roughly what the break out might be. Thank you.

Item 7, oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the context of my Member's statement, I too want to ask the Minister of RWED whether he can confirm that he had a departmental official designated as an observer to the environmental assessment impact workshops in Yellowknife on March 22nd to 24th. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The meetings that the Member is referring to on the 23rd and 24th in Yellowknife were private meetings between NGOs and the Producers Group, and it was Imperial Oil, I believe, that hosted the meetings and put out the invitations. Our government was not invited to attend, but I will reassure the Member that we are continually kept updated and kept apprised of developments, and in this case it is no different. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is regrettable that they didn't have an observer at the meeting because it is important. I think it is also important that the Minister table in this House an example of the socioeconomic framework agreement that these working groups can use as a tool to help develop themselves throughout the process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can certainly do that. I know the socioeconomic agreement, or SEA, between this government and Diavik, for instance, is a public document, as is the one between our government and BHP Billiton Ekati Mine. I can certainly table those documents again. I can provide committee Members with those documents. I think the important point that the Member is making though is that we definitely need a policy framework for the negotiation of industrial benefits, and that is certainly something that we have to get a handle on. We have been doing some good work in this area. I think we need to continue that work because there

are a number of judgements to be made when these things are being negotiated, and we negotiate over a broad range of criteria, and a wide area. I think it is important for us to know, for instance, what the most important things are to northerners. The more and more employment we see -- and we have highest employment in the country -- at a certain point you start to talk about whether it is more important to have business opportunities flow as opposed to direct employment, and there are a number of tradeoffs, and a number of questions to be asked. But I think the most important thing to understand is that we definitely need a framework for negotiating these industrial benefits. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question to the Minister then is would his department take a more proactive approach in trying to help educate the smaller communities in trying to adjust to some of these environmental processes? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are certainly willing to work with communities to help them participate in the SEA process. We expect that DIAND will also take a lead role in this capacity. They have a mandate in terms of capacity building and working with communities to make sure there is meaningful engagement and participation in the SEA process. I would also state that some very good work is being done by NGOs. I know CARC intends to do a lot of work with communities as it relates to the SEA for the pipeline. I think it is important to have engagement from all levels of government and the NGOs, and to make sure that there is certainly some coordination so there aren't duplicated efforts and we aren't consulting to death, as it were, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important to make sure that we provide resources and help communities engage in this process in a meaningful way. Thank you.

Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just to the Member's earlier comments, typically in our process we do actually allow the sort of shaping of the dough by all Members in this House, because we have what is called the business planning process. Unfortunately, because of the timing of the election, we were rushed into getting a budget into the House to try and have the money to spend by April 1st. So we didn't have the chance of all of us working together on the dough to come up with an understanding of what things would look like. We took what the previous government had put together and brought it forward with some very small changes in order to try and accommodate the wishes of all Members, which was that we would reduce some of the spending so that we didn't see such a big deficit. The evaluation was always scheduled for the termination of the program. The previous government brought forward this initiative as a three-year time-limited program, with the intent that it would wrap up after three years. There was no money in the fiscal framework to continue past that in the way it was presented. So it was always planned that the evaluation would take place at the termination of the program so that you'd have the best chance of having programs up and running and completed, and then you could evaluate them. So that is why the scheduling was set as it was. The evaluations will be done very shortly, and I would be prepared to share them with the committee.

Supplementary, Ms. Lee.