Thank you, witnesses.
Ms. Armstrong, my question will be for you. You urge that the bill be set aside and that the government come back to the table with Yukon first nations to talk about their concerns. I think they made their concerns pretty clear this morning. Their position was that the four clauses be entirely removed. From that point of view, I'm not entirely sure there's a lot of room to talk about those four pieces. It seems to me they'll be satisfied if those four pieces are completely removed.
Also, when I look at the Yukon Minerals Advisory Board report, they rendered a fairly scathing assessment in 2013. They said they've chosen “to focus on...the key issue negatively impacting industry; the deterioration in the efficiency and reliability of the assessment and licensing of mining projects in the territory.”
They've highlighted that the “proponents' experience securing approvals has worsened dramatically”, and “[G]radual deterioration in the interpretation and administration of existing laws and regulations by government agencies [is creating] uncertainty...affecting capital investment”. They also talk about the deterioration of the investment climate in the Yukon.
One of the signatories to that was Eira Thomas, who is the CEO of Kaminak.
I guess I'm wondering, in light of the fact that Yukon first nations' position is pretty clear on the timeline assessment piece, whether it would be your position now that we just remove the timeline assessment piece entirely, and that would allow us to move on.