Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Negotiations continue on both of the projects. Very briefly on the Bear hydro project, there have been recent meetings and a move to create the Sahdae Energy Corporation. There's also a meeting now to finalize an MOI, memorandum of intent, between the Tulita and Deline land corporations. The Tulita Land Corporation and the NWT Energy Corporation have recently held meetings, as well, with Imperial Oil to further the discussions there, and I think they've had two meetings since the beginning of this calendar year and plan to have another one soon. So that project is moving along well.
Mr. Speaker, I can also say that on the Bear River, the partners in the Bear project have also applied for and received intervener status and are working on that front, as well. Mr. Speaker, if you can bear with me because it is a fairly long answer, but on the Taltson River, that one has continued with some work, but it has slowed down, as I told Members last fall, because one of the partners whose traditional lands the transmission line would have to cross had a deal with Regional Power. The Lutselk'e Band recently had a meeting and decided that they would support the Taltson power project over the Regional Power one and I believe are in the process of severing their relationship with Regional, but I'm not party to all the details there.
Unfortunately, there's been a change in leadership in Lutselk'e and we are now waiting for the outcome of the new election, which I think is happening, in order to advance those discussions.
With the Taltson power, we are still looking at having power go to the diamond mines, but as days go on, that becomes less and less economical and could mean substantial backing from our government if it were to move ahead. So as an alternative we are looking at southern markets, which may be possible. We are also looking at other alternatives, including using more hydropower from the Taltson ourselves. For example, in Fort Smith we have a lot of government facilities. If we were to convert them over to electrical heat as compared to diesel fuel, it might be economical. Those are the kinds of issues we're looking at as alternatives on the Taltson project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.