As the House is well aware, with our application for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, that is not only going to open up the region for communities and transportation of goods; it's going to be able to open up an area that has a vast wealth of natural resources, be it bitumen petroleum reserves or the mineral potential that is unexplored in the area. So we are working hard to advance that along with the Sahtu secretary, who has been a great partner in us trying to advocate the federal government to put some federal dollars into this.

We are also finishing up the Canyon Creek road, which a number of Members, I believe, had an opportunity to tour when they were up there this year. This is something similar to the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway, where there was great local participation and training opportunities for people in the area and the Northwest Territories. The numbers that I have around that are very similar to what happened in the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk situation. Roughly 84 per cent of it was local and northern employment, and, at peak employment in March, there were roughly 81 people being employed on the project, 28 of whom were from the Sahtu, and 36 were from the North.

So we are doing our part to help improve the economy in the Sahtu region. Hopefully, with a positive announcement coming out of the federal government, we will be able to continue to move on some of these priorities.