Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 1990 the founder of Gold Corp – his name is Rob McEwen – knew he was sitting on a fortune of gold but just didn’t know how to get at it. So he changed the world in an extraordinary way by putting the question about how could he get help from the world to find his gold in the ground. It drew out, I think, 110 quality submissions, but it drew out over 1,000 submissions at large. In essence, Mr. McEwen of Gold Corp was saying, I have a problem; can the world help me to find my solution? It was all based on innovation and how he was inspired by a product called Linux software where they went to the world for ideas on how to deal with it.
I have raised the issue of Giant Mine and how we have the arsenic trioxide trapped there and possibly left forever.
The question that now goes to Minister Miltenberger is: Would he be willing to look at the Gold Corp innovation challenge, which they put to the world with a prize dollar out there to draw out innovative solutions on how to deal with the arsenic trioxide that’s being left in the ground at Giant Mine for what is seen as forever?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Michael Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for sharing the information on Gold Corp. It is a very fascinating read about thinking outside the box and what happened and how successful that particular initiative was. But keeping in mind that this is ultimately a federal site and they are the major payer, I would be prepared to commit to take that information to the table through the deputy and through the folks that we have working as part of the project remediation to see what the interest is and look at trying to see if there are opportunities here to build off of the success of that example and other ones the Member mentioned like the Linux development where they went to people at large and got very many successful and very good ideas that they hadn’t contemplated.
Publicly, I’ve spoken about numbers of value of prize. It’s not for me to say per se what is the right prize amount, but I think the federal government needs to be a partner in this solution, because as I pointed out, and it’s even been cited by the federal government that it costs $1.9 million to run that Giant Mine site in perpetuity to protect that arsenic trioxide so it doesn’t spill into the environment.
My question now to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources is: Does he see an opportunity here to engage in this broader discussion about a possible solution on innovation with our partners in the federal government, because they’re the ones that will be paying so I think they should be the ones that should be helping to support us on this endeavour that can help the people of the Northwest Territories to deal with this horrible site.
Yes, that would be the whole intent of taking that information and the Gold Corp example forward to the appropriate tables, is to initiate that type of discussion, engender debate and look at options of is there a potential application here in the Giant Mine remediation site.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.
