Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the points the Member is making and, of course, we've grappled with how to best ensure benefits stay in the North. But maybe let me explain why we've arrived at this mechanism as potentially the most effective one, we believe. I think the Members know that through access and benefits negotiations that are happening in regions, there will be beneficiary companies that are so identified in order to be available for business opportunities and we aren't privy to the detail of these negotiations, but I think we can assume that companies will be identified that qualify and there will be efforts made by the proponent to use those companies much the same as we've seen with the diamond mines.
Now in terms of northern businesses and in terms of benefits for all northerners, we are negotiating a socioeconomic agreement. There are obviously details of this that have yet to be negotiated, but probably no surprise if I speak in generalities that there will be a chapter on northern business opportunities. Of course, we'll have to arrive at a definition the way we did with the diamond mines at what constitutes a northern business. We've got some work to do there. There are a number of things we could do. The Member indicated that sometimes you have northern businesses that don't have the capacity or the sheer size really to take on some of the bigger projects. I think our experience has been that oftentimes businesses can be encouraged to cooperate to put together joint bids so they can bring the resources to bear on a project. We can also encourage a proponent to scale contracts or, in fact, break them down into more manageable sized contracts so that some of our smaller businesses can take advantage of the opportunities.
We're going to work to ensure that there is a significant amount of involvement on behalf of northern businesses. What the Member is proposing in terms of legislation on the flip side or something with more teeth, I understand what he's proposing and what he's suggesting. I think though that we'd find very quickly that if we were to try to do something like that, we'd run afoul of trade agreements between provinces and potentially even international trade agreements. I think you'd end up creating a regime that was so inefficient and would, I think and believe, really
become a disincentive to future investments. You'd be hard pressed to find companies who are willing to come and invest in mega projects in the Northwest Territories if they knew that we were going to lay out legislative requirements that they use the companies that we wanted them to. I think it's just much too much protectionist. I think we have to operate with certain principles, the principles of free market.
Having said that, we can use a tool like the SEA to try to steer benefits toward northern companies. The SEA won't get into this or that company gets the business. The SEA will get into the types of business that we would like to see used and then, as we know with the diamond mines, there will be reporting mechanisms so that we can tell if commitments are being met and lived up to. I think that's what we have at our disposal and I think we can make very effective use of these SEAs, but it is important that we structure it appropriately and that we set as our priorities things that are easily measurable and things that make sense and are achievable. I think we've had a lot of discussion around employment targets. I think what we'll find in a project of this magnitude is that people with adequate training are not going to have a difficult time getting employment. So maybe we need to focus more on the actual training than indicating which jobs can go to northerners. These are just some of the things that we're considering.
Obviously it's early days in the negotiation of the socioeconomic agreement. Mr. Vician is heading up those negotiations with Imperial and is taking direction from the joint AOC and Cabinet steering committee. We'll be able to report back in future, but at this point it's early days. But we do feel it can be a very effective mechanism. Thank you.