Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I would like to follow up on an announcement that the Minister made on January 28th when he was in Vancouver. The Minister announced a Mining Industry Advisory Board. Since that time, there’s been some comment by my colleague in the Assembly raising some questions. We’ve had questions from two organizations concerned about the environment that are also raising questions.
I would like to ask questions to the Minister around what he is intending with this advisory board. First of all, the announcement stated that the board members will have direct experience in the NWT minerals industry. That suggests that they will be limited to just the minerals industry.
What is going to be the composition of this board? How many members and who will they be representing? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The composition of the board will be made up of folks who have a wide range of experiencing in the mining industry, not only here in the Northwest Territories but across the country. The full complement will be somewhere between five to seven members. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. So a wide-ranging experience in the mining industry. How are these people going to be chosen? Are they simply going to be representatives of mining companies? Are they going to be representatives of chambers of mines? Will there be any representation from social interests? As the Minister stated in his press release, “something that will encourage economic growth while maintaining high regulatory, environmental and social standards.” So that’s a concern that has been expressed. What will the representation be on this five or seven?
The appointments to the board will be at my discretion. Again, Mr. Speaker, these will be industry experts. We will be looking for a cross-section of experience from producers to explorers to folks in the service side. We are still working on who is going to populate this advisory board. It’s an industry advisory board; it’s not a social advocacy board. We will populate it with people we will get information from that will help us develop a mining industry here in the Northwest Territories.
I will add that there’s ample opportunity for folks if they are interested in providing commentary on how we develop the industry here by writing letters. I have a couple of letters, as the Member has indicated, today and yesterday or the other day in the House. I welcome anybody’s feedback on this.
As the Mineral Development Strategy laid out, this is an important part of us being a successful mining jurisdiction. We have a really strong history when it comes to mining. We’ve seen numbers on exploration grow 32 percent last year. We were the only territory of the three that have seen their numbers continue to climb last year.
We really need to focus on how is it the Northwest Territories can be a jurisdiction where people want to invest money and we want to look at opportunities. I know Mr. Bromley talked about increasing our government revenue. That’s going to happen by developing the resources we have here in the territory. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for his Member’s statement. I have no qualms with increasing mining in the territory. I know we need the economic development. However, when we have economic development, the offshoot and the results have an effect on our social conditions. I think it is extremely important that we have a cross-section, not just people who are experts in mining but people who are experts on the impact of mining.
Can the Minister provide me and Members on this side of the House with a terms of reference for this committee? Thank you.
Again, this is an industry advisory panel to the Minister. They will also be able to provide input to other Ministers as needed. In the Northwest Territories today, we have a very stringent regulatory system. Again, there’s ample opportunity for the public and groups to comment on developments as they occur. We can’t lose sight of the fact that this is an industry advisory panel and nothing more, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I need to say to the Minister that industry itself is concerned with the impacts it has on the social conditions in communities that they’re close to. So I guess there are no terms of reference. I would like to ask the Minister, that as terms of reference are developed, as this project goes forward, if he will involve committee in providing some feedback to this board as it is developed. Thank you.
I would be happy to provide Members with a terms of reference on the make-up, composition of this committee. Again, this advisory board is going to be populated at the discretion of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I will get the best people on that board to give this government and myself the best advice we can receive so we can have a jurisdiction companies want to invest in to help us develop the resources we have here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
