Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask some questions today of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and it gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the government’s support to the diamond industry and the value added industry here in the Northwest Territories.
It seems to me that the 14th Legislative Assembly — some of my colleagues in this room were Members at that time — was very supportive of diamonds in the Northwest Territories and what they meant. But for some reason the 15th Legislative Assembly dropped the ball on diamonds. They did away with the diamond division at ITI, and support for the diamond policy and strategy sank to an all time low.
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by asking the Minister of ITI: where exactly is our diamond policy and a strategy on trying to get the most out of our diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that we are the diamond capital of North America, but we don’t have a monopoly on diamonds. We recognized that other provinces and territories would be finding diamonds and developing their diamonds as well.
It’s been ten years since we had the good fortune of having diamonds discovered in the Northwest Territories. We are now undertaking a policy review of diamonds and will be looking forward to getting input from the Members. We are in the process of developing a discussion paper which will help guide us in our review.
Like I have mentioned previously in this House and earlier today, time is of the essence here. I don’t think we can afford, as a government, to drag our heels much longer on finding out exactly where it is that we want to take the diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories.
Earlier today I spoke of a feasibility study that’s looking at the possibility of opening a diamond exchange, or bourse, here in Canada. There were meetings held in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Where was the Government of the Northwest Territories in this feasibility study? Were they anywhere to be found?
The diamond bourse provides for the facilitated sale of rough and polished diamonds. This is something that our government looked at initially, when diamonds were first discovered. We determined at that time that we would get more value added by making sure that rough diamonds were made available for the secondary diamond industry. So we have proceeded on that basis. We are now reviewing our policy to see whether we should be looking at diamond bourses.
Ontario held these workshops in a number of locations across Canada. It was organized by a former resident of the Northwest Territories. The NWT attended and participated in these sessions.
I know we’ve helped out other jurisdictions in terms of policy development, because they’re new into the game, into the diamond business. Will the Minister provide us, whether it’s the House or the EDI committee, with the submission that the government gave to this feasibility study group? At any time was it suggested that a diamond bourse, or diamond exchange, should be located in the diamond capital of North America? That’s here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker.
The Government of Ontario looked at establishing a diamond bourse so that smaller jewellery companies could find a place to buy diamonds. As far as I know, the report has not been submitted as of yet. As soon as that’s available, we’ll make sure that it’s available to all the Members of the Assembly. We will be giving a briefing to the standing committee next week on the diamond policy.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister: was the Government of the Northwest Territories there as observers, or were we actually there presenting our case so that a diamond bourse, an exchange, could be located here in the Northwest Territories, where we have four operating diamond mines in our territory?
The Government of the Northwest Territories has worked with the Ontario government to share information as they establish their diamond industry. We participated in the workshops that were held in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. We participated primarily as observers. As I said earlier, we are reviewing our diamond policy. Certainly, the establishment of a diamond bourse would be looked at as part of that review.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
