Mr. Speaker, as I travel in my riding in the Northwest Territories, I talk to many people, including the the Chamber of Mines, and I meet with the chamber of commerce. I have talked with a lot of the organizations and industries in the Northwest Territories that want to expand. There are several very challenging factors for us in the Northwest Territories.
One challenge is to have certainty with regard to the lands. We are experiencing several sets of negotiations, some of which have been ongoing for longer than 30 years, and industry would like to see certainty. Industry leaders want to see indigenous governments resolve the land tenure issue. That would provide certainty. The indigenous governments want to stand shoulder to shoulder with other governments to participate in the benefits that industry would bring, but they cannot do that until the land tenure issue has been resolved.
The second issue that industry has flagged as recently as several months ago is that we need to invest more in infrastructure. If we are going to provide certainty through a settlement of land claims and self-government, we also have to lower the cost of exploration in the Northwest Territories. That means more airports, better airports, bigger airports. We also need proper roads. We only have 12 communities that are serviced by roads right now, and if we are going to attract industries, we are going to have to start providing transportation infrastructure so that they can come at a reasonable cost. Otherwise, it does not make sense for the industries to come when it costs them three or four times more to operate in the Northwest Territories, or anywhere in the north for that matter, than it does in other parts of Canada or the world.
Those are the issues we have to sort out.