Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to answer that question in a very short period of time. As the Member knows, the Government of the Northwest Territories and particularly the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has been fully engaged in the NEB process since the proponents filed their project description in October 2004. We were working on an agreed upon process until late in 2009 when, with the lengthy delay in completing the regulatory process and the delay in getting the JRP report, the National Energy Board in its wisdom decided to change the order in which interveners would respond. So that instead of the responsible Ministers from the various departments responding to the Joint Review Panel first and the NEB holding public hearings, it was decided by NEB, without input from our government or other governments, as far as I know, to hold their hearings in advance of responsible Ministers responding to the Joint Review Panel and primarily to shorten the time period because it had taken so long to receive the Joint Review Panel report. To continue with their original schedule would have added probably another four to six months to an extremely lengthy process. Because of that, there were certain legal implications to our government.

Primarily we are very concerned about allegations of predetermination and apprehension of bias, which could lead to legal proceedings calling for judicial review. We do not want to bias our responsible Minister, who is the Minister of ENR, in responding to the Joint Review Panel recommendations. As such, we are being very careful in determining which hearings we would participate in and we are aiming to primarily participate in final arguments.