And Henry wants the territorial government to initiate an interim review on hiring at the BHP mine to determine if the company is living up to quotas agreed to in the socio-economic agreement to end the speculation.

BHP's external affairs manager, Graham Nicholls, said there's no hiring quota -- just a target.

"As far as we're concerned, it's not an outstanding issue," he added in an interview with News/North. "We're comfortably ahead of the targets set. We are meeting targets and exceeding them."

Nicholls said BHP will pick up employees only from the North -- not Edmonton -- during the operation phase of BHP's diamond project in the latter part of 1998. At that time, "if they choose to live in the south, they will have to make their own arrangements for flights to the Koala Camp," he said.

Currently, some employees are picked up in Edmonton and flown to the site and those direct flights are permitted under the socio-economic agreement between the territorial government and BHP. But no direct flights are permitted in the operation phase, the company said in March.

Amanda Healy, human resources manager for the BHP, said 47 per cent of the workers on site now are Northerners and 19 per cent are aboriginal. She made the comments to a group of reporters at the Koala camp site 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife last week.

The targets will rise during the operations phase to 62 per cent Northern and 50 per cent aboriginal.

"By June of next year, we anticipate two thirds of the workforce will be Northern and about half will be aboriginal people," Healy said.

The total workforce is around the 800 mark right now, about 650 of whom are permanent, including permanent contractors.

Senior aboriginal affairs adviser John Bekale is working to maximize benefits for aboriginal people, she said.

Henry said constituents are upset because of high unemployment and uncertainty with Nunavut. "I feel people are a little disgruntled and grabbing at anything now," he told xxxNews/North.

"There appears to be some concern that BHP isn't living up to its end of the bargain. An interim evaluation could end all speculation."

Henry said four or five of his constituents have approached him in the past week -- a lot more than usual -- with complaints revolving around BHP hiring practices. "I wasn't too far into the conversation to realize people haven't read the agreement," he said.

There are two parts to the agreement: the construction phase and the operations stage.

What's required is 33 per cent Northern residents be hired during the construction phase and 62 per cent Northern residents during the operation phase.

Who qualifies as a Northerner?

"A person who has maintained a self-contained domestic establishment in the NWT and normally resides there when not at the mine site," said Henry, reading from the agreement. The resident must have lived in the NWT at least six months prior to hiring to be classified as "Northern" or be aboriginal.

The complaints Henry is hearing concern workers flying up from Edmonton to Koala Camp.