Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today I reviewed the history of our government's acquisition and management of a Mactung property. We accepted it as financial security against the shaky Cantung Mine and have spent money cleaning up the site, compiling geological reports, and so on, in the hope of finally trying to sell it. Can the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment tell us how much has been spent to assess and clean up the site, compile geological reports, hire a consultant to file Yukon government applications, and now market it? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a detailed question, and I have to commend the Member for giving me the questions ahead of time, because we had to compile a lot of information on this set of questions. So I'll go through the Member's list. The government has spent $126,025 removing hazardous and other materials from the site. There has been no assessment of full remediation costs, as this is not work that we are intending to undertake. We have completed Mactung site visits, one by Lands, another resulting in two geological reports on the mine sites and surrounding area, but no formal site assessment has been completed.
This work was completed by the Northwest Territories Geological Survey at a cost of approximately $30,000 and was aided by helicopter support from the federal government's Polar Continental Shelf Program. The Government of the Northwest Territories has spent $16,304 for the preparation and submission of the Class 4 quartz-mining land-use permit application and has engaged Tetra Tech as our consultant for this renewal. A local company was engaged in the renewal of licences, and we are currently working on a budget for the sale process. Those numbers have not been yet finalized.
I want to thank the Minister for that detailed response. I will certainly check Hansard to review that. It is not clear why the Minister is marketing the Mactung property in conjunction with the federal government efforts under way to sell Cantung. These two properties are 140 kilometres away from each other by air and 700 kilometres by road. Can the Minister explain why we are marketing these properties together, and, if they are for sale separately, what is the asking price for Mactung?
Mr. Speaker, selling the Mactung deposit together with the Cantung mine will increase the potential viability of the renewed mining operations. That said, we are looking to get more than just the cash payment or a return on the baseline. We are looking to capitalize on the rise of the tungsten prices to translate these world-class resources into good-paying jobs. We believe there is an opportunity for these two projects to create a future Northwest Territories tungsten industry. Selling them together will give us the best possible option and the shortest time frame to converting these assets into a working project that will deliver benefits to the residents and businesses of the Northwest Territories. We also don't want these two assets to compete against each other in what is a relatively small global market of producers and buyers.
I would like to thank the Minister again for that answer, but he didn't answer one of my questions, which was: how much is the price for the Mactung property? Can the Minister tell us that?
Mr. Speaker, this is early in the process. We don't have a specific price for this. We want to sell these properties together. It will be an open bidding process with an evaluation that brings the best benefits to the residents of the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Minister for that. The Minister has hired a Vancouver consultant to help hype the Mactung property by applying for 10-year Government of Yukon quartz mining land use approval. Such an authorization is supposed to be for an actual exploration program, although it is my understanding that there is no exploration to be undertaken by our government, so the application seems to be an unusual attempt, at best, to inflate the value of the property.
Can the Minister tell us whether there are any precedents in the Yukon for such a speculative land-use application and whether he has any legal advice on the validity of such an application?
Mr. Speaker, that would be a lead story, but the Member is mischaracterizing what is going on here. The Government of Northwest Territories is required to renew the mining land use permit on the Yukon site of this property in order to keep the property in good standing. If we don't renew the permit, it is likely that a full site remediation would be ordered and all the potential benefits would be lost. In addition, the potential purchaser requires the ability to conduct exploration work as part of its due-diligence process. This is how a buyer confirms a mineral resource, and it is also a consideration of arranging purchase and financing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
