Mr. Speaker, it should be no secret by now that I’m concerned about the way the Giant Mine has been left and the fact that arsenic is being left in the ground and certainly frozen there for the end of time. Whenever that may be scheduled, I don’t think we should give up on trying to find a solution. No Northerner asked for this tragedy to be left here in the ground, and I don’t know a single Northerner that thinks that that’s the best solution.
My question for the Premier today is, of course, I’d like to hear the government’s position on AANDC, which is the department that is now responsible for the freezing of the arsenic. I’d like to know what the government’s position is with AANDC’s opinion and direction to freeze the arsenic in the ground and ignore it until we find a solution that we have no idea when or where it will come from.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if Churchill was thinking of Giant Mine when he made that famous quotation. Perhaps a Yogi Berra quote of “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” would be more appropriate.
We’ve been part of the Giant Mine process for some time. We see this as the most immediate response and step to deal with the problem. I’m not sure what the Member is suggesting, whether he’s suggesting we should stop everything and wait until somebody comes up with an innovative idea before we do anything more. As a government, we see the best approach right now is to deal with the immediate problem.
I know the Premier was listening closely to my Member’s statement, as I know he always does, of course. He hangs on every word. I’m sure he would recognize that not at one time in my Member’s statement or in my press release the week before I talked about stopping what we’re doing today, because the engineering solution today is probably the only solution we have thus far.
But the same innovation that brought Banting to the solution for insulin, and the same spirit and drive of why people fight the good fight against cancer every single day is because they’re looking for that solution and they’re inspired.
In my Member’s statement and as well as in the recent press release, I talked about stimulating innovation. Would the Premier be willing to lead a discussion with the Minister of AANDC about opening up a possibility of creating a reward process that stimulates people from around the world to help to look for a solution to the arsenic problem at Giant Mine? Quite frankly, the temporary solution is not the right solution. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is there are quite a number of options that are out there. The option that is being pursued now is seen as the best, most immediate option. There are bacteria that eat arsenic that have been used in other processes to recover a mine. There are also some other approaches that are more expensive such as finding a way to get rid of the arsenic. One of the recommendations was to haul it away. So there are a number of options, but the option that is being pursued now that is being undertaken is the most immediate and will have the best way to control the problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When I was at the open house a couple of weeks ago, one of the Yellowknife Dene councillors asked if there was a way to solve this problem, and asked us to make the arsenic inert in a way that it doesn’t cause any problem. The staff said there is no way of dealing with this. Quite frankly, it is because no one is looking at it. Out of 56 recommendations, there is not one that talks about innovation. It’s almost like we need a Donald Trump here in the Northwest Territories, or a Richard Branson, saying how important this is for humanity to talk about let’s find a breakthrough.
That said, there are only 56 recommendations on the table and, as I said, not one single one of them deals with innovation. That is why I ask the Premier to once again consider the concept of a knocking on the door and writing to the Minister of AANDC to say, why don’t we look at creating a reward process or a balloon payment to solve this. It would stimulate the type of thinking. Right now no one is working on that problem, and hence, if there is no one stimulated by opportunity, they may not be looking at this opportunity.
Hence, what the question really comes down to is: What can the Premier do about stimulating innovation to get people interested in our problem? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, obviously if we could wave a magic wand and fix the problem tomorrow, we would be very interested in doing that. I think in order to go and approach the AANDC Minister, I think you have to be very clear on what the Member is asking for. Are we talking about only new innovative methods that are not already out there? Are we talking about somebody bringing a truckload of arsenic-eating bacteria, would we give them $20 million? Is that what the Member is suggesting? I’m not very clear on what the Member is asking us to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to send the Premier my most recent press release, and of course, I would be happy to walk over a copy of my Member’s statement. I am talking about the federal government spends $1.9 million every year to maintain this site. I am suggesting that we encourage them to package some money out of that. It wouldn’t be ongoing funding; it would be a balloon payment – think of it as that way – to encourage. If anyone could come up with a solution for the Giant Mine problem, they can come get the reward or balloon payment. Call it what you will. Quite frankly, it costs the GNWT nothing but a little energy and a little motivation to say we need this once and for all.
I ask the Premier, does he see possibilities in this opportunity, or does he just see it as status quo is the best way to do business. I’m not against freezing it. I’m just saying we need to be looking towards the future. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we always listen to suggestions from the other side, and we are able to do so again. I just need to know what it is that you are proposing. We can’t manage through press releases, so we would need something more definitive. The Member knows the process. We don’t respond to a single MLA. I think we would need a request from the committee. Obviously, if the committee requests us to seek this from the federal government and the committee supports it, we will do it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
