Foreign Affairs committee  Unfortunately, I am not able to speak to that with any precision. Again, I can certainly commit to provide that information to the committee. It's something that resides within the purview of our Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and I think I would probably be doing the committee a disservice if I spoke to it in any further detail.

Foreign Affairs committee  I certainly can, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, member Grewal. Again, I would echo my colleague's perspective in the sense that things are still very early, for sure, but from our perspective in the GNWT we are very encouraged by the minister's openness to communicate regularly. In fact, we're having some discussions as we speak about the potential for some of the Arctic Council meetings, working group or otherwise, to be held in the north, and we feel that's a very important innovation.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable member. I am unable to give you the specific percentages, but certainly in the Northwest Territories our communities suffer from the speed of access. It's via either via satellite or dial-up, and as practical as this may sound, as a government, when we're contemplating the dissemination of information, we have to factor those kinds of things into consideration, because what people can download and access in a community like Yellowknife, for example, is very different from what they can in our rural and remote communities.

Foreign Affairs committee  I fear I'm not going to be too, too helpful in that regard. I don't have the specifics at hand, Mr. Dechert. I wouldn't want to mislead you, but I think we're talking in excess, or in the region, of about 150 kilometres. I'd be happy to confirm that for the committee at a future point.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, honourable member. I think I would essentially echo my colleague's perspectives from Nunavut. Regarding the work of the council, the politics around the environment globally and internationally are obviously beyond my ability to speak to. But that said, I think there is a strong environmental agenda that can be championed not necessarily only through Canada's chairpersonship, but also through the future chairpersonship of the U.S.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Dechert. I think it would be fair to say that we understand that this is a proposal and something that's supported by Minister Aglukkaq. I don't think I know enough about the proposal at this point in time to state a clear position on it on GNWT's behalf. Having said that, certainly we're looking forward to working with Minister Aglukkaq and her team in developing not only that proposal but also some of the other priorities the minister is proposing that Canada champion during its chairpersonship.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Dechert. With respect to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the reference I made in my opening remarks was actually a little more specific. It was about a portion of what we hope will be part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway from Tuktoyaktuk all the way down to, obviously, the 60th parallel.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bevington. Yes, very quickly, the GNWT is very supportive of permanent participants' role in the Arctic Council. We think that is actually one of the unique strengths of the Arctic Council. With respect to resourcing permanent participants internationally or otherwise, we support Canada's position that permanent participants should be sufficiently resourced so that they can engage in it and ensure that their preparations for engagement are effective.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Miss Laverdière. With respect to the first part of the question around climate change, I think, in all fairness, the council is somewhat equipped to have discussions about the circumpolar perspectives of climate change, but there is no doubt that climate change is global and, obviously, at some point others will need to be involved in that dialogue.

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly. On the question of adaptation, again, I'm not sure I have any specific perspectives on exactly what the council could or could not do. But we certainly benefit through our partnership with Canada on programs designed to provide information around adaptation, whether that be base data or the other work that we're doing in partnership with Canada.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Andy Bevan. I am the acting deputy minister of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. To my right is Jennifer Dallman-Sanders, our acting director of intergovernmental relations for the same department.