Thank you, Madam Speaker. More than a decade ago when diamonds were discovered in the Barren Lands hundreds of kilometres to the north and east of Yellowknife, we were anticipating a great new chapter in the development, the stability and the prosperity of the North Slave region in the Northwest Territories. Indeed, a lot of that has been manifested with the opening of the BHP and the Diavik mines, and we celebrate De Beers’ decision to move ahead on Snap Lake. There are a number of other prospects that could also become part of this new chapter in the North and indeed in Canada.

Madam Speaker, our expectations of this sector helping to grow our communities on a sustained basis were looked at very carefully and very seriously in socioeconomic agreements that have been signed. These set out targets for workforce development, for business opportunities and indeed we see the signs of that.

But, Madam Speaker, our faith in that and our expectations received quite a setback with Diavik’s announcement a few weeks ago that it was going to extend free travel not just from northern communities to the worksite, but from Edmonton. This really causes the communities here to look at just what can we continue to expect from the future of diamond mining as part of really a sustained and prosperous economy. What Diavik has done is certainly within the realm of the socioeconomic agreement; this is not a criticism against that company. They have a very large operation to continue to have to feed and they need workers. This is their difficulty. As the Minister told us in his statement, all of western and northern Canada has a deficit. Madam Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The Member for Great Slave is seeking unanimous consent to conclude his statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mr. Braden, you may conclude your statement.

Bill Braden

Great Slave

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. So to conclude, I want to make a point that there is consideration, there is a situation happening here that is going very much against some of the hopes and the dreams and the expectations that we have about developing this industry, and seeing it grow our communities and our economy. I hope that we can look at this very vigorously in the near future to assist those companies in satisfying their demands, but also for them to look at ways in which they will continue to be the corporate citizens that I think we had all expected they will be, and indeed I think they can be. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

---Applause