Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Could I add to that, please?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I attended a workshop in Iqaluit in August of this year, and one of the main elements that came out of it was a recommendation to look at a hard connection for Internet. What I'm really talking about is an undersea fibre optic cable to Nunavut. The reality is that it's going to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My name is Peter Turner. I'm president or executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce. The Yukon chamber develops policies and positions through a number of sector-specific policy committees, including our transportation and infrastructu

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely. We have the experience of 100 years' worth of mining to look at for both the good and the bad in terms of environmental impact. I think we are in the happy position of being at the infancy of the oil and gas industry here in the Yukon. We are able to look to other pr

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I absolutely do. I think our population is anxious and eager to look for new opportunities for employment, and we have a lot of expertise here and a lot of untapped resources that I think our population is excited to draw upon.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Our experience would be similar to what was characterized by these two gentlemen. Currently, those people are primarily represented in the service and hospitality sectors. What's promising is these are new Canadians. These are people whose children, potentially, will be tre

Natural Resources committee  Well I think you've touched on the fact that we need to focus on the support fields that surround any sort of growth in the economy. Certainly, health care would be one. The construction-related industries and transportation industries as well, and capabilities such as having ski

Natural Resources committee  Well, I completely agree with you that there is a huge opportunity, particularly for first nations communities, and I think that's one of the areas where the Yukon has done quite well in terms of partnering and working to develop that base of the employment centre. With regard t

Natural Resources committee  Sure, I will say that we have an extraordinarily good resource in our Yukon College facility up here, which not only has a campus here in Whitehorse, but has satellite campuses in virtually every community across the Yukon. Once you get outside of Whitehorse, the demographic mix

Natural Resources committee  Exactly. In broad strokes there would be an additional stream of revenue coming from a resource industry to the peoples of the Yukon including, in particular, the first nations. You've hit on a very salient point for the Yukon, which is that more than half of our territorial bud

Natural Resources committee  I do know that several first nations are looking into striking partnerships in the transportation of liquid natural gas to generating facilities being planned or anticipated here in the Yukon, both in terms of the Yukon electrical generators here in Whitehorse and future mining s

Natural Resources committee  I'm afraid I'm not particularly conversant with those relationships between the first nations development corps and the Yukon government. I would say, though, that as we talk about renewable resource energy projects.... The big one announced by the Yukon government that we're hop

Natural Resources committee  No, it's actually on any oil and gas exploration within the Whitehorse Trough, which is a geographical region that extends to the southeast of the city of Whitehorse. That's a five-year moratorium. As was alluded to earlier, a portion of the population is pressing for an absolut

Natural Resources committee  Well, I can't speak to the actual dollars associated with it. But obviously every diesel generator that generates electricity here in the Yukon is getting its oil sourced from, I believe, your province as a matter of fact—

Natural Resources committee  —so we're delighted to be creating a source of employment and revenue for your province. We're a little more disconcerted that we have to truck it 2,000 kilometres to get it here, both of which would be arguments for trying to have an indigenous production capability. We'd be ev