Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to speak about hydraulic fracturing, fracking, as it’s called by most people. I’m a member of the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee and we’ve been working to learn more about this over the last two or three years.

Hydraulic fracturing has been approved in the Northwest Territories in the past by the federal government and the National Energy Board. April 1st last year, we took over control of our lands and

resources. We are now in control. We need to control how the regulations of this industry and this particular process are being done in the Northwest Territories. We need to have a Northwest Territories approach to this. We need to make sure that the regulations in this area are the strongest in the world, Mr. Speaker. I think nobody in the world is more interested in the land and resources than the Northwest Territories people. We’ve heard that in most of the discussions on regulations.

This is not development at any cost. We need to look at how we can make these regulations northern and make sure that they’re being implemented, that they’re being controlled, that we are making sure that we are not affecting the land and the resources in the Northwest Territories.

We are not the only jurisdiction looking at this. We know our neighbours in the Yukon have been looking at it for the past two years and have spent a lot of money. They’re still undecided. Mr. Woods, yesterday, from Australia, indicated that they had done the Hawke Report and indicated that they didn’t have any indication on what they were going to do.

We’re still looking at this process, but we need to set up the regulations. We can’t deny that there’s a potential opportunity here for people, an opportunity for jobs. We need to look at the revenue that can be generated. We have lots of pressures. We have lots of expenses that are going up in our health, education, housing, and all our programs are demanding more and more. We need to look at how we can do this northern, make sure the regulations are enforced, but we need to take it nice and slow. We need to lengthen out the process. This government can’t rush through it. We have some time. There is a natural moratorium. Industry has indicated that they’re not doing anything, so we need to look at this sooner than later. Thank you very much.