Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Madam, for your comment. As we said before, if we want to assert sovereignty the highest level we would need is to safeguard the environmental surroundings in that area. As I said before, for no matter which area of Nunavut--it doesn't have to be specifically the Northwest Passage, we look at the whole of Nunavut--the interest base on it is that the highest regard be given to the environment. Because of the high demand for use now of the Northwest Passage and the high demand for mineral exploration activity in Nunavut right now, the priority is to make sure there is the highest regard and respect for the land. We want to accommodate having appropriate arrangements with the government so that we have a cooperative initiative between the two of us, the federal and territorial governments. We want to ensure we have what we call an IIBA, Inuit impact benefit agreement, which will stipulate the training needs and the business needs, and the benefits for Inuit on whichever project it may be.
The land claims agreement provides that direction. We must be party to any development or any activity, whether that be mining, development in the community, ports, you name it. Inuit have to be a partner. That's what the land claims settlement directs us to do, and to make sure that in terms of priorities we accommodate that. We've been telling the federal government that Inuit need to be hired. Laurie mentioned the lack of employment. Because you didn't hire Inuit they lost so many dollars.
In terms of that, article 23 stipulates that the two governments, territorial and federal, must increase their Inuit content, which means they must hire up to 85% or better Inuit content within the government. Today the Nunavut government is about 47% Inuit content, which means that 47% are Inuit employees in the territorial government. The last time we checked with the federal side, specifically INAC in Nunavut, they were sitting at 33%, and I understand in the last few months it went down. Those levels that we give priority to are not even being achieved, and are already being lost today. This is something that is disturbing. It tells us that the implementation is not working, and those will be our highest priorities. For examples, I gave you two.