Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t know that question period was going to be extended today, but I had so many questions after my question to the Minister of ITI after I sat down that I have to ask more questions. His answers actually gave me more questions. I am still shaking my head, because when you look at the royalties issue and the federal jurisdiction on oil, gas and minerals, if that was an argument not to help find power supplied to keep secondary processing over the rare earth minerals in the Northwest Territories, then we wouldn’t put any money into the pipeline, we wouldn’t put any money into the diamond mines. I mean, I don’t even know how much, if you had to add up how much money this government has spent to try and get benefits from the diamond mines, the efforts that they made, because it still benefits, it’s still employment, it’s still industry, economy. It’s still all those things in our communities. So that thing about federal jurisdiction and royalties is still stuck in my mind here.
This is not a good answer. We’ve got an opportunity here. Of course, we can’t compete with what Saskatchewan might offer in terms of power, but if the processing is done in the Northwest Territories versus Saskatchewan, there’s the whole savings of hauling all that product, hauling all that ore, someplace else for processing. I mean, that has to come into the play of the discussions and the negotiations.
But, Mr. Speaker, this is a mine that has a potential life. I mean the diamond mines. I have no issues with this government supporting industry of any kind; the non-renewable resource sector, please don’t misunderstand. I have no issue with this government supporting industry of any kind, the non-renewable resource sector. Please don’t misunderstand; I have no problem with money being spent in it. But now here’s an opportunity for some of the communities that have been on the periphery of some of these big... The pipeline’s not going to flow through Hay River. The diamond mines are not going to be in Hay River and Fort Resolution. We need something; I’m sorry. Part of the country. I need to hurry up here. Given the projected life of the rare earth minerals, the opportunity there, I hope that the Government of the Northwest Territories can have a say in whether or not we can provide economic power to that processing plant. Would the Minister agree with me?
The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I agree with most of what the Member said, but I would like to point out that the comparisons with the diamond mines, the reason we focus on value added is the fact that that’s the only way we can get benefits from development. The royalties go to the federal government, so if we want any benefits, we focus on the value added. With the diamond mines, through the environmental assessment process, we got the regulators to agree with what we were doing to provide for value added. I expect we would do the same thing with the Avalon project once it goes for regulatory review.
Now, what has been talked about with Avalon is they are looking, in addition to the mine, that they would have a hydromet facility in the Pine Point area. That would provide for something in the neighbourhood of 50 jobs plus a whole bunch of investments. My understanding is the communities of Fort Resolution, Hay River, and Fort Smith have already given their support to this project. What we need is a business case. We need to know what the benefits are and with that we can come forward and get the necessary approvals so that we can support it.
In order to diversify our economy I think it would be great if we could have a project where we could sell rare earth minerals and lithium and all of these kinds of minerals. Certainly I’m very pleased that the Member is supportive of our government investing in those kinds of things. When it comes time to identify resources, that would be very helpful.
Avalon Ventures’ Thor Lake Project environmental assessments, a lot of that work has already been done. It happened very quietly, but much of that work has already been done. I think it’s up to our government to invest the resources. When we see an opportunity, we have to be proactive. We have to create that business case for why we should be supporting this.
Going back to the previous set of questions, the Minister answered that in terms of the excess power generated at the Taltson now, the Minister said something. I want to know who has jurisdiction over it. Is it NTPC? Has it been turned over to some other entity? I want to know who has jurisdiction over that excess power.
And here’s another thing. The Minister said something about we can’t hold power or reserve power for something that might come to fruition. Well, if we’re holding that six megawatts for the diamond mines, isn’t that exactly what we’re doing? I didn’t really understand that and I’d like clarity on that.
The NWT Power Corporation owns and generates the power. What I was talking about was, based on the current schedules, it’s basically who comes first.
What is being done currently today, as we speak, to be proactive as a government to look at the potential economic benefits of the Avalon Ventures play at Thor Lake to have this Territory recognize the maximum benefits from that project? What is this government doing right now to put together an assessment of those benefits?
We’ve been involved in a number of meetings with Avalon. We have sent a representative to a conference in Washington on the benefits of rare earth minerals. We are looking at their energy requirements. We will be co-hosting a conference with CanNor to discuss the value-added opportunities.
So rare earth minerals are something that’s fairly new. We don’t know a lot about all the different value added, but we will be working with the federal government to identify value-added opportunities and, of course, we’ll be working with Avalon as well.
Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that we need to take a very similar look at the rare earth minerals as we did with the diamonds. They weren’t mining diamonds in Alberta or Saskatchewan at the time that we got into it here. I don’t think that they will find a deposit such as has been identified here in the Northwest Territories in any other jurisdiction any time soon that I’m aware of. So we have a unique opportunity of something that is located in the Northwest Territories that I would like this Minister to commit to the House that we will place the same emphasis and priority on maximizing benefits to Northerners from that resource as we have on diamonds and other natural resources in the Northwest Territories.
I’m quite prepared to commit to that because we do that as a matter of course. Certainly this is an area where we want to see development proceed and certainly we’ll work very hard to make this happen.
The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
