Mr. Speaker, one of the things I have heard as parliamentary secretary when I have been at either the Association for Mineral Exploration conference in British Columbia or the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto is that mining is, proportionately, the number one employer of aboriginal Canadians in the country. It is an industry that employs aboriginal Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
As for the equity participation, those are agreements that need to be reached by first nations governments, proponents, and the territorial government. What this bill would do is bring certainty to the territory to ensure that Yukon has the same regulatory regime as the rest of Canada, which would ensure that investment continues to flow to Yukon as opposed to a withdrawal of that investment, because Yukon has failed to keep pace with the regulatory regimes in the rest of Canada.
The bill would encourage that economic development, which would benefit not only the Government of Yukon but first nations in Yukon as well.