Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the programs the territorial government does run right now is called the Yukon mining incentive program, where they provide close to $2 million for low-level prospectors and small-scale exploration companies to conduct exploration work.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No. Actually, I was talking about chapter 11 of the umbrella final agreement, which is our land claims agreement. That's the land use planning chapter in that agreement.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think for the Yukon it would be support for infrastructure development. That could be for any number of things, from the regulatory environment I mentioned for the Alaska Highway pipeline to work with the Alaskan and U.S. governments to fund the rail, and the issues Claire talked about in support of some of the secondary roads, as far as roads to resources are concerned.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the new regulatory regimes, the YESAA and hopefully the regulation of the Alaska Highway pipeline project, have learned some lessons from our predecessors in the Mackenzie Valley with their pipeline and that act. We were able to take the YESAA legislation, which I have some experience with, and improve upon it based on some of the hard lessons learned in the Mackenzie Valley.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  From the Yukon perspective, as Claire and I have both mentioned before, we have had devolution in the Yukon since 2003 and have had a very positive experience with that on the regulatory and the decision-making side of things, having the deputy minister and the minister and the decision-makers reside right in the Yukon.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I guess, just from the Yukon's perspective, through the YESAA process, those smaller exploration projects, the companies are certainly encouraged to consult and engage at the community level--and these are the smaller exploration projects. As we get into the bigger mine developments, like the Carmacks copper project that went through the YESAA board, it's a requirement before the proposal is deemed adequate to proceed.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly what I had mentioned is that there is a land use planning process under way. It was part of the umbrella final agreement, which is the overarching federal legislation for our land claims settlements up there. We've had two regions undertake land use plans to this point.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I could comment briefly on the Alaska Highway pipeline, it is subject to either of two regulatory vehicles if it is a TransCanada or Foothills project. TransCanada has recently partnered, I believe, with ExxonMobil. It made an announcement last week. And it is working, of course, with the State of Alaska.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Having not seen the private member's bill and having sat as a legislator before, I would have to take a look at it before we could comment on that from a Yukon perspective. Anything to encourage the funding of a northern infrastructure study would be welcome. We were planning on using the new northern economic development agency that was announced, I believe, in the last throne speech as the vehicle to do that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  From a Yukon perspective, since 2003 we've had devolution of control over our land, water, minerals, forests, that type of thing. We are in a bit of a different situation from our northern neighbours. We have the YESAA process, the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, which has been well tested on a number of smaller projects.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, as Claire mentioned in her presentation, there was a joint study done by Alaska and the Yukon, completed a couple of years ago. Certainly what we would hope the Government of Canada could do would be to continue to work with the U.S. government. Premier Fentie and the Yukon government continue to work with Governor Palin on this initiative, and any work our parliamentarians can do with the U.S. administration and the Alaska congressional delegation in Washington would be helpful.