Thank you, Mr. Chair. The presence of permafrost is one of the significant issues that have to be dealt with in the design, and we have done much work on that already. When we go from 85 percent to the 100 percent final design, we will continue to look at that. There are about 12 kilometres of the total 137 kilometres that, based on the initial terrain analysis, will be more problematic, so we will have to be more careful in the design and in the construction approach to ensure the protection of the permafrost underneath that area.

We will be doing some additional drilling and geotechnical work in those areas. That will be then kicked into our next design stage and we will ensure there’s appropriate design for protecting the permafrost. The road itself, we have to maintain a certain amount of fill in order to protect the permafrost underneath. That is the way that you do that, so there’s no cutting, there’s no digging in as part of the road construction at all. It’s just a fill and hauling material in and filling over top of the tundra.

Just a final point on permafrost, this is an area where the permafrost is colder. In southern portions when you get into more discontinuous and if you have a few degrees of warming, it does tend to affect the permafrost more than in the northern climates where the permafrost is generally a little bit colder, so it can withstand a little bit of the changes from climate.