Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are sitting down to negotiate a socioeconomic agreement in terms of employment for the pipeline. I don't see the same reality there. We know that in terms of pipeline construction, there are so many more people required for this project than we can possibly hope to produce in the Northwest Territories in a short time. So the reality is that there will be quite a significant amount of employment that has to be sourced elsewhere.
I guess I would say that in terms of the diamond mines, the three different socioeconomic agreements are different. I've been personally involved in the negotiation of the one for Snap Lake. It doesn't have the same kind of provisions and neither does the BHP agreement, but there is a provision in the Diavik Socioeconomic Agreement for them to fly their southern workforce in for four years after the start of operations, which seems to me was September 2003. So until something like September 2007 they can subsidize travel from the South. So there's that four-year window. So they are in compliance of the socioeconomic agreement and that's why it would be very difficult for us to come out and suggest that they weren't living up to the terms of that agreement.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, one of the things they've been very successful at doing is having some of the highest northern employment targets of any industry around, and they are employing over 70 percent northerners. I think it would be hard for us to find another big industry company doing the same thing. So their track record is quite impressive. They have I think a good track record of wanting to work with northern companies, source from northern companies, get involved in community projects and they are living up to the terms of the agreement, and I guess that's the bottom line. Now should employment targets fall below that, then we have to go back to the company and say we have a real concern here, now you're not living up to the agreement and the terms of that agreement. But at this point it's hypothetical because they are meeting that threshold test. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.