Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier and the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that today, through some questions and answers here in the House, we could set the record straight. Mr. Speaker, at the outset of any sensitive negotiations of course we can’t fully predict the outcome of those negotiations, and no doubt, there will be obstacles and challenges to try to achieve the goal that we have of trying to see value added from the Rare Earth’s mining activity in the Northwest Territories. We recognize that. However, what advantage is there of the Power Corporation coming out and essentially cutting this negotiation off at the pass here. We were just embarking on this. The Premier was clear in his support for trying to find ways and means of ensuring that this extremely important economic activity was retained in the North to the largest extent possible.
Mr. Speaker, my question today to the Premier is: will those discussions and those negotiations continue on behalf of and with Avalon Rare Metals to try and find a solution that would see this value-added activity in the North? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the letter that I sent in response to a letter that we got from Avalon Rare Earth Mineral’s project and the people within that organization stands. We’re interested, as we have been with any secondary industry potential that we have in the Northwest Territories. There are many challenges that need to be looked at, so we’re still going to go ahead with those discussions. I know that Minister Bob McLeod with ITI folks have been arranging to have these ongoing discussions, and they’re still open. Of course, we’re challenged in our environment to see how we can meet some of the requests that will be on the table as well. But, of course, we are definitely interested in pursuing any potential we have for secondary industry in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I can’t, of course, quantify what kind of damage might have been done by that very blunt and categorical dismissal of the opportunity to provide power at a rate that would be competitive enough to see this processing take place here in the Northwest Territories. But, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier if he could advise those who are in positions of leadership in these organizations, which are really the, you know, it’s really the role of the shareholder in these types of things to be the spokesperson, if it’s possible for the Minister to communicate to people the sensitivity and the importance of not coming out on these kinds of statements in the media. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we, of course, during initial discussions don’t want to put barriers up before we have a chance to get into any detail. I know in discussions, brief discussions with the chair of the Power Corp board there was issue there about the interview that was done. I don’t have a lot of detail on exactly what was said or stated, but at the same time, I said that communication needs to be improved between ourselves and the board as to letters and correspondence, as well, that we share. So we’ll get that message through the system. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it’s a small Territory, we all know who the board chair is for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, and I want to say -- and Mr. Voytillla knows this -- that I’ve always had a great deal of respect for what he has done for our government and his many years as deputy minister and how pleased I was when he became the chair of the NTPC board. Would the Premier convey to Mr. Voytilla, please, that we would appreciate his support as the chair, because he would be a very key person in these negotiations; that we would like him to participate with our government in trying to find a viable solution to affordable power for the Avalon Ventures processing plan. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Avalon project is one that’s early days. There has been some exploration. There is discussion about potential establishment of the mining operation itself and then the secondary industry and, of course, we’re interested in how we might be able to work together on that. So we’ll continue down that path, as I stated earlier, and see where we can get to on that.
As I stated earlier, the communications between our boards and ourselves needs to be clear and open and have a consistent message. We’re all challenged, though, in making sure that we do provide the best return for our investment on any project that we’d be involved in. So we’ll continue down the path and keep Members informed of where we’re going on this and, again, improve the communications process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So for the benefit of the folks at Avalon, for the Premier of Saskatchewan, for the public, for those of us in the South Slave who would like to see such an amazing economic opportunity come our way, for all intents and purposes, would the Premier state that Mr. Voytilla’s comments in the media are formally retracted? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I said, I will speak to the chair of the board on this and have him clear up his comments that were stated. He’s unavailable for contact at this point, but I’m sure that we can arrange that contact in a number of days.
As the Member pointed out, we’re the shareholder. We’re negotiating, we’re undergoing these discussions and ultimately we’ll set the direction of where we want to go as a Government of the Northwest Territories. We’re challenged, of course, in our environment, but we want to come up with the best deal possible, if we can come up to the arrangements. But at the same time, it is difficult to compare ourselves to other jurisdictions.
But that aside, there’s still a process we want to go through and see if we can and how we can advance the potential for this, like we did with the secondary diamond industry, of establishing secondary industries in the Northwest Territories. So our goal is to advance those discussions and see where we can go.
Again, communication is something that we will clarify and clear up as well.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
