Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a clear expectation, and I certainly will say a right and correct expectation of the public that the Government of the Northwest Territories is monitoring, managing and certainly enforcing the socio-economic agreements. But frankly, the everyday person doesn’t know where to find these things, and thank goodness we have the research to help us track these down.
By way of example, I’ll say De Beers, in a 2012 report – by the way, it was a 40-page report – said that they were almost meeting their targets of 300 NWT residents working for them. They were at 275. That’s pretty close, but the public doesn’t know this.
My question for the Minister is: What does his department do to highlight these types of commitments, how are they being fulfilled, how are they being monitored, and certainly how are they being enforced from the Department of ITI but also the government’s perspective? As I said at the beginning, there is a high expectation they’re monitored, managed, and certainly enforced by this government, because there’s a perception it isn’t.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We take every opportunity to sit down with industry and just recently we had the opportunity. I know, through the budget address, we’re looking at increasing the population by 2,000 residents here in the Northwest Territories over the next five years. We’re not going to do that if we don’t have buy-in from the mining companies here in the Northwest Territories that are big employers here. We need to continue that dialogue, and we will continue that dialogue on trying to find a way and a means to attract people to live in the Northwest Territories and be residents here.
I also must say that on the procurement side of things, the mines here in the Northwest Territories, since Ekati opened in the late 1990s, have almost 70 percent northern procurement totalling close to $10 billion of northern procurement here. On the employment side, it is a challenging environment across Canada for skilled labour, and we do know that just recently with the sale of Ekati Mine to Dominion Diamond Mining, Dominion has moved their head office from Toronto to Yellowknife. We’re very excited for that opportunity. They are moving positions from Toronto to Yellowknife. In talking to the mining companies, they’re very much interested in seeing more people living here in the Northwest Territories.
By the way, that mine promotion statement was brought to you by the Minister of ITI that everything’s fine.
The question for the public here is – now on to the next issue – building capacity. One agreement had highlighted 38 percent of material, equipment and purchasing through the construction phase would be done locally in the Northwest Territories. Furthermore, when they went on to operations, the goods and services at 32 percent would be purchased in the Northwest Territories.
The question to the Minister of ITI is: How does the public know that they’re living up to their agreement in a clear and comprehensive manner? In other words, how is ITI communicating to this public, because there’s opportunities, as I said in my Member’s statement today, to publicize these things annually in a newspaper that the public can see, because quite frankly, they don’t believe this is happening.
There are reports that are done annually. If the Member wants to know where one report is or if he’s looking for a various report from any one of the socio-economic agreements we have with the existing diamond mines, I’d be happy to help him find that.
The Minister seems to be missing the opportunity. Here is the chance for us to publicize things like our business building capacity section as highlighted in the socio-economic agreements, our cultural and community well-being results. Why doesn’t the Minister seize the opportunity and start publicizing these annually in a newspaper to show the everyday citizen who wants to know are Northerners being employed, are they meeting up to these agreements, and what is the government if they’re not. Will he consider that and do that?
Mr. Speaker, that’s something that we could discuss with the companies that we have socio-economic agreements with. Again, I know there’s interest from the mining companies to get in front of the members’ committee to discuss the situation that he talks about with the performance of the SEAs. Again, that offer is out there. We would like to have the opportunity to get in front of the committee to talk about the issues that are in front of us on employment and opportunities to get people to live here in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2012 Diavik provided over $300,000 to Northerners in various ways under the culture and community well-being. That’s something to be very proud of. But we shouldn’t have to worry about checking with the feelings of the mining industry when these reports are given back to the government for the people of the Northwest Territories to ensure the socio-economic agreements are being lived up to. I don’t care how the mines feel; I want the government to show that they’re with the people, not protecting the mines.
Would the Minister agree today to publicize these things in a clear and comprehensive manner to ensure that the public knows that they are looking out for their interest and not catering to the mine’s interest? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned to the Member, that is something that we will consider. Thank you.
