Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's a very good point and is certainly one we spent some time on. As to specific figures, I think the first nations should maybe speak to that themselves. But certainly, when we look at economic development, all communities outside Whitehorse, I think, are challenged in terms of looking for opportunities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have those numbers at my fingertips. We will supply those to the committee in writing. But I suspect that we have, after that, tourism; we've talked about tourism being the largest private sector employer. Small and medium-sized enterprises here do carry the load, as it were, with regard to the economy.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Not specifically, but my understanding--and again I'm not an expert on the agreement--is that if somebody else gets a sweeter deal, then we have access to the same terms, the equivalent terms of the deal that they would be signing as well. If they come up with an agreement that has a recognition that the transfer allocation of resource revenues needs to be higher, then I'm sure we would be at the table to negotiate our own increase in that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are things you need to know about the north, and I'm sure you'll hear this echoed in your meetings across the territories. One is that you would recognize the shortness of the construction season here, and the necessity for approvals to be in place in time to actually address construction season.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I may add to that, many of the projects we're looking at require very specific skills, particularly in terms of mineral development. Some of those skills you can train for and be ready for, and we have the Yukon Mine Training Association that has a program here for certain aspects of mine development.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're in transition. We are trying to move to the designation of Yukon. You wouldn't say the Alberta, you just say Alberta. So it's Yukon.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We don't have full details with us today, but we can provide you with what's happened in the past number of years. We're willing to provide this as a written response at a later time. In general, the SINED has been a $90-million program over five years. It gets allocated between the three territories, and there is some administrative overhead taken off for the federal government to administer the program.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're still in the process of approvals for many of the proposals that have been put forward. We've accessed some money from the federal program for the Mayo B hydro project, and that is in the neighbourhood of $70 million. There's some Building Canada funding that we are after.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have a number of projects on the go that will have some form of federal government involvement in them. At the top of Two Mile Hill, you would have seen the new fire hall program that's on there. I believe the airport may have some funding for the airport expansion, which was required to meet the homeland security requirements for an international airport, specifically to allow direct flights from Frankfurt to come in, so it's very, very important for us.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I wouldn't want to give a number at this point. We do have experts who have planned for that. We've certainly seen some ideas, lines drawn on the map, but touching the border is one thing and then touching an existing transmission line is another.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  While I'm not an expert on electricity, I'll again take a stab. For the most part, our main grids are serviced with hydroelectric capacity and we are right on the knife's edge of utilizing all of that, but we have many communities that are serviced solely with diesel power generation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're certainly aware of the extension and welcome that. Clearly, if Yukon can be connected to the B.C. grid in the future, that would be a huge advance for us. We would be considered a rounding error in the context of B.C.'s electrical capacity, and we would welcome the access to that type of hydro capacity.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, I'll take a stab at that, but I suspect it's for a deeper intergovernmental negotiation and discussion, one I'm assured is ongoing as the devolution agreements are being negotiated with NWT and Nunavut. But I suspect what we're looking for is a higher cap and a way for more of the resource revenue to remain in Yukon, and then some of the sharing can continue and move forward.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, it's an extremely good question and one we wrestle with. When we look at our economic development process, a lot of the projects are going to require additional infrastructure to move forward. It presents a challenge for Yukon, and we currently look to the federal government for some participation through existing programs in developing that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Bob, do you want to explain that?