Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to speak about the diamond cutting and polishing industry which provides 155 jobs here in the NWT. By the government’s estimates, the current cutting and polishing facilities contribute $9 million to the GNWT’s GDP. When they are in full production, it will be $20 million some day.

In order to attract and support value added industry, this government, in the past, created an MOU with the diamond mines to supply rough. However, the system is not working, Mr. Speaker, as it was originally envisioned. I have been told by one Yellowknife company that runs two plants that they are buying Canadian diamonds in Antwerp cheaper than they can buy them directly from our NWT mines. That is right, Mr. Speaker. It costs them less money to buy these diamonds from Antwerp and fly them back all the way across the ocean and cut them here. Mr. Speaker, I have seen the numbers and it is horrible.

Mr. Speaker, this government needs to do whatever it needs to do in order to ensure the spirit and the intent of that MOU is followed through and lived up to. At the very least, we have ethical questions here of what is going on. The NWT is not the only game in town, Mr. Speaker. Other territories and provinces are currently looking at diamond cutting industries and trying to lure their companies into their provinces with incentives. If you would like to know who; well, Mr. Speaker, Quebec is willing to pay workers’ wages for up to two years to attract industry into their province. Nunavut’s first diamond mine will soon be in production. Who knows what might happen once they get going? Will they try to attract our diamond cutting industry in Yellowknife over to Iqaluit or Cambridge Bay? I don’t know. If we want to keep our fledgling diamond industry alive, Mr. Speaker, we need to show it support. Rough diamonds need to be sold at a fair and reasonable price to our local cutters. It is horrible what is being done. That is it. That is all they are asking for is fair and reasonable price.

A former Member of this House once said -- and his name was John Todd -- they don’t listen. Then we should be taxing them and we should be choking them like a mule to make them listen if that is what is required. Well, Mr. Speaker, it may be time to give that chain a choke and a jerk so those diamond mines stop holding our cutting industry as a hostage. I hope this government is willing and ready to provide the leadership to the cutting industry and show them that they are there for them, that they support them long before it is too late. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause