I have already written to the Indigenous Affairs Minister a number of times. I have met with her at least three or four times. We will be meeting again in the coming months. I am quite prepared to write to her again to specifically ask her about the environmental assessment and if she has any timelines.

We have engaged in the federal government on a number of fronts on this because it is a very important matter to us. The MVRMA is a product of land claims negotiations in the Mackenzie Valley. The goal of this legislation is to provide a single process. It provides a voice for each of the groups. Although the legislation is federal, it is the result of a collaborative process. In our minds there are three types of activities right now, all linked to the MVRMA. First and foremost is the fact that as the Member indicated Canada made a number of changes to the MVRMA that impacted the North. It is...

The Negotiated Contracts Policy will be reviewed again in the fall of 2016, and the results will be shared with the standing committee. We will involve the standing committees. As per land claims agreements, one of the requirements is under economic measures; we have responsibility to also engage the community governments, so we do that in a normal course of events, Mr. Speaker.

Local employment is always a factor when considering negotiated contracts but not at any costs, Mr. Speaker. We also have rules that govern our business incentive policies and our northern preference policies. The Member referred to the Inuvik Tuk Highway. In that case, there was the benefits and jobs are available, 600 jobs a year, 80 per cent provided by Northerners for Northerners.

What we find in our travels as we go out to the regions, as we go out and talk to the people of the Northwest Territories is that a lot of the people don’t realize what a good job that we do or they don’t recognize the number of important programs that we deliver. Through our communications people we want everybody to know what programs we have, what benefits we can provide so that everybody can make sure that they benefit to the maximum from all of the generous programs that this government provides.

We will be developing a draft approach to how we would come up with a report, and we will share it with the Regular Members.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the Members that the Honourable Caroline Cochrane will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the federal-provincial-territorial Ministers responsible for housing meeting in Victoria, British Columbia. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will go to Mr. Kalgutkar. Thank you.

We have received no indication that they will be repealing any legislation. We have no timelines. The last meeting I had was with the federal Fisheries Minister where there is an indication that the review of the Fisheries Act will also look at the Navigable Waters Act, will also look at environmental assessment. We indicated to him that we were ready, willing, and available to participate. He was very excited about that, and he was looking forward to us participating and working with him on it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can shed a lot of light on that matter. During the federal election, in response to a question that was posed by ourselves to all of the leaders of the federal parties, I posed a question about the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, or the Northern Regulatory Improvement Initiative that was called at the time, that the leader of the Liberal Party, and now the Prime Minister, in his response, wrote back and said that their government would be doing a review of the whole environmental assessment process and they would set it right. In my first meeting with the...