Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is quite interesting.
I want to start off with a few questions. I have a habit of asking about seven questions up front and then giving folks the time to answer them. I only have one question this morning, with about 14 parts, so we'll get at it right now.
Mr. Bloom, I really appreciated your testimony.
You talked about being stood up in August of 2009. Can you tell me what your annual budget is? Where did you get your employees? Are they new hires, or were you able to bring employees in from existing departments? It sounds to me like we've created an economic development agency to basically facilitate the private sector in dealing with the Government of Canada, so we've created more government to help the private sector deal with more government. I'm just wondering if I got that right.
I'm not trying to be cynical; I think it's actually good if we have a coordinating agency. It sounds to me like your agency is a portal for coordinating everything to get things moving.
But it seems to me that those kinds of things should have existed in previous departments anyway. I'm wondering how the evolution of that came about, and how you got your staff, where they came from, and if they have experience. Can you tell us what their experience might be so they can deal with the north? Most of the issues in the north are fairly complicated, so I think we're talking about some fairly good expertise there.
Can you give us a little more clarification on where $15 billion in investment is going to go, what kinds of projects we can expect to see, and what kind of response from the government will be needed in order to facilitate that investment?
And because you were so recently stood up, in 2009, I'm going to ask if you were part of the red tape reduction process. It would seem to me that the agency you run would be the perfect agency to ask questions about reducing red tape so we can get through the process of government regulation and getting projects off the ground.
Ms. King, my question for you is fairly straightforward. I'm curious about how many outstanding land claim agreements we have across the territories.
The most notice I took of this was on the devolution of responsibilities. As you know, the transfer of natural resources acts of 1930 gave the provinces jurisdiction over their own natural resources. In the north, the three various territories seem to have an ad hoc approach to this.
We've got devolution of environmental responsibility. Is that something your department is looking to get off the books, per se? Are you looking for further devolution on the environmental side of things to the territories?
The question constantly lingering in my mind is the one dealing with duty to consult and some of the issues raised by duty to consult. Can you explain the differences of duty to consult within an established land claim agreement and one where there is a land claim being made and there is no agreement in place? What are the differences, and what are some of the challenges facing the private sector and governments in moving forward with projects?
Hopefully there's enough time to answer.