Natural Resources committee  I'm good, thanks.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. The temporary foreign workers program has been extremely successful and beneficial to our business community, particularly in the capital city of Whitehorse. A number of years ago, businesses were considering either reducing their hours of service or closing down completely because they could not find skilled or unskilled workers to service their businesses.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Thank you to the members of the standing committee for this opportunity to appear before you today to express the views of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce on the socio-economic impacts of resource development in northern Canada. The Yukon Chamber of Commerce is the umbrella organization of all Yukon community chambers of commerce.

Finance committee  —for public bodies the return on investment is going to be seen longer term, not in the short term.

Finance committee  The Dempster Highway was an incredible opening up of northern Yukon, and not just of northern Yukon but of the NWT; it's a great asset to the NWT for Inuvik as well. Now they have road infrastructure to access southern Canada. I don't think anybody is going to argue that investment in infrastructure projects is a bad investment., but I think that—

Finance committee  The Yukon chamber's position is that we support P3s.

Finance committee  It might bring my daughter home.

Finance committee  She is in nursing, and she's in Alberta because there are great jobs there—or challenging jobs there, put it that way.

Finance committee  There have not been a lot of formal discussions on that. However, we just came through a territorial election, and energy was very topical throughout the campaign.There were commitments and suggestions that we connect to the B.C. grid. There was not a lot of discussion about the Alaska grid.

Finance committee  They're important. It's not only business development and health care. We've really enjoyed the support of the federal government in financial support for delivering health care services, and when you're trying to attract your labour force, you need a solid health care system in place.

Finance committee  Yes. The cultural industries are a growing sector in the territory, and their development is another possibility. First nations culture is very definitely included within our cultural industries.

Finance committee  I think we have a great opportunity to develop in the information technology sector. We currently have a number of people who live in the Yukon whose business, however, is done all over the world and none of it in the Yukon. So through information technology—

Finance committee  It is; it really is. I think some investment in education, moving our college from a community college to a university, is a possibility. Our young people have to leave the territory to get their university education, and often they don't come back. They find employment elsewhere, and we don't see them back.

Finance committee  I don't see it as significant. With a population of 36,000 people, I really don't see any significant contribution coming from that area.

Finance committee  Yes.