Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment spoke of his recent attendance at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference, otherwise known as PDAC. Can he update the House as to his experience there and whether or not we are going to see some results from the conference? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I don't have a problem updating the House off of the top of my head here. We had a full slate of meetings over the last couple of days. We had an NWT event where we got to speak and have a bunch of panel discussions with NWT Indigenous corporations and industry. The Premier and I also attended and I got to be the keynote speaker at a CanNor event around CanNor's continued funding in the federal budget moving forward.
I have met with a number of stakeholders, toured the trade show booths, had an opportunity to meet with a number of people there, as well, and had an opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with some institutions on investing in the Northwest Territories. I also made a quick stop and got a quick update from the Canada Infrastructure Bank on where they are at in their process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister. It is always good to hear our Ministers are being productive when they are looking for more investment in our economy. One of the issues that PDAC lists as a key consideration is access to capital, and they note that exploration is the riskiest part of mineral development, with only 1 in 10 exploration projects leading to drilling and only 1 in 10,000 leading to a mine, and that access to capital and financial incentives is crucial to securing the success of those projects.
What is the Minister doing to ensure that exploration companies have access to capital? What is this government doing to ensure that?
As the Member knows, we have our staff within ITI to help them do that, but every time I have been to either Roundup or PDAC, I have made specific trips to Toronto to meet with industry stakeholders about investing in the Northwest Territories. It became quite clear to me early on, when I got this portfolio, about lack of information around devolution in particular, about the land and resources being transferred from the federal government to the Government of the Northwest Territories, that everywhere we go, no matter which one of us sits on this side of the House, we continually have to update people and inform people about the Northwest Territories, on our operations and who we are, what is here, and how things operate. That is the continued message that we have to give on a daily basis.
Someone actually just asked me at PDAC about something very similar around that. I gave them the prime example of around the transportation FPT table. When I became elected two-and-a-half years ago or somewhere thereabouts, I was probably the youngest guy at that table, being a junior minister. Now, two-and-a-half years later, I am probably the most senior person at that table, due just to election cycles in this country and changing out the government. You are continually updating people, informing them who we are and what we are all about, and how business is done in the NWT.
The question was about capital, but the Minister has moved on to another one of PDAC's concerns, which is access to land, which follows land availability, access to geoscience information, and the regulatory environment. I would like to ask questions about the quality of geoscience information that is available. I know this government has made significant improvements to geoscience. Can the Minister speak to that, and what is the feedback from stakeholders at PDAC on the quality and accessibility of our geoscience data?
In one of my speeches down there, I did talk about the geoscience data that is available in the Northwest Territories, and I am glad to say today that we announced at PDAC some of the data that is available online for geoscience information. Other jurisdictions do some of this stuff a lot differently than ours, but we inform the public about the extensive amount of work that has been done with us in partnership with the federal government. I explained to them about our large collection of core samples that we have now unveiled at the airport, one of the largest ones in the world of donated core samples, particularly around the diamond industry, and we will continue to inform people of what we have available in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister touched on this previously, but the regulatory environment in the Northwest Territories is of course of deep concern for the mineral development industry. PDAC lists several concerns: the organizational model on processes adopted by relevant regulatory bodies, inadequate resources for regulatory bodies leading to delays in processing applications, and finally politically induced delays in the regulatory process. What is the Minister doing to ensure we have a sound regulatory process that does not lead to delays in advancing exploration of mineral resource development projects? Thank you.
To those comments, I want to say a couple of things, first of all, before I talk about the Mineral Resource Act. I have talked to many exploration companies and mining companies in the Northwest Territories, and this, for the most part, this is a very fictitious story, that our regulatory process is one that hinders exploration and development in the NWT. Yes, it has certainty around it. We have the federal side of it that we are trying to get control of through devolution. The Aboriginal governments have their process, but, at the end of the day, when you go through our process, it is lengthy, but it gives you certainty. The Government of the Northwest Territories is here to help guide industry through that process, and when, at the end of the day, you get your permit, you are permitted to do this.
A number of these people that I deal with on a day-to-day basis around the mining industry say, "Yes, you have a system that maybe not everybody agrees with, but we like it." We get the odd "bad apple," as we can put it, who doesn't like the system. It could be personalities. It could be investment dollars. It could be certain things, but, at the end of the day, I think we have a system that works, for the most part.
We are trying to make it better now, through devolution, with the Mineral Resource Act. We went out and did our consultation. We are working with the intergovernmental council. We will be going back out, reaching out to stakeholders, to industry, NGOs, Aboriginal governments. We are in the process of doing our draft legislation, and hopefully at the end of this Assembly, we will have a piece of legislation that is made in the NWT, that we can all be proud of. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
