Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that we can say by and large that the two mines have been very successful in getting northern employees hired and meeting their northern employee targets. I can certainly look at the number of years and the annual reports. It would take me some time to do that, but I believe almost across the board they have been able or very close to these targets, in some cases exceeding the targets.
I think these socioeconomic agreements in that regard have been very successful. I did mention the other day in the House that where we've had some concern; our concern has been around the value-added industry. I'm not trying to point any fingers, but I'm saying that we need to certainly sit down and to better understand how this can be successful going forward and make sure we put in place the kind of policy framework and policy directives that would allow us to meet those objectives and those goals. We will have that discussion. We will be able to, I believe, have it in light of and the context of the cost-benefit analysis that we're bringing forward to committee. I think then we can have an informed discussion, look at our success and look at some of our failures in the past and have a meaningful dialogue about how we move forward from here. But I take the Member's point.
It's important for us to continue to track those employment numbers. We know it's only going to get more difficult for these operations to meet these targets. When the Snap Lake mine comes on stream and when we have the pipeline on stream we know there aren't sheer numbers of people, very many people who are unemployed in the Northwest Territories. I would agree that there are pockets of unemployment that we need to deal with, but by and large we do have one of the highest employment rates, if not the highest employment rate in the country, but I take the Member's point. Thank you.
