Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last night we passed a bill to allow the creation of a trust that would provide resources to support Indigenous-led conservation initiatives long into the future. Now, we were all so tired by that time last night that we kept our comments relatively short, so I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible potential of this initiative not only in terms of conservation and Indigenous self-determination over Indigenous lands but also its economic potential.
We often struggle to find our competitive advantage as a territory in terms of things that can drive our economy. We focus on all our disadvantages, all the things that we don't have, like I was speaking about in my Member's statement on Wednesday. Our territory is a vast 135 million hectares with many remote communities and very little infrastructure. But we can also turn those challenges into an economic advantage. And that's exactly what project finance for permanence has done.
To quote the project's strategic plan, few places on Earth offer the opportunity to build on existing momentum to support local Indigenous-led objectives and achieve globally significant conservation and economic development outcomes. The NWT is one such place.
Now, under Our Land for the Future Agreement, Canada will invest $300 million to be matched by $75 million in private funds. So that's a total of $375 million for the exclusive use of Indigenous governments. It is expected to create over 5,000 jobs, and every dollar in investment will create more than $4 in economic impact.
Now, this will not be a fly in/fly out workforce. This is something where only our own people are the ones who can do this work. For example, the Indigenous guardians programs which have already taken off and shown to be very successful. Conservation is a sector where we with truly capture all of the socioeconomic benefits, and it goes far beyond wages, to physical health by keeping people active, and cultural health through the everyday practice of culture and traditional knowledge.
Now, Indigenous communities and governments have been working hard for so many years on this initiative to get us to this point where we're signing this momentous agreement, so I commend them on --
Yellowknife North, your time is up.
Mr. Speaker, may I have unanimous consent just to conclude my statement. Thank you.
Member from Yellowknife North is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Seeing no nays -- we have a nay. Sorry, Member from Yellowknife North.
Members' statements. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
