Merci, Monsieur le Président. Three months ago I asked about the attempts to sell the Mactung mining property and any lessons learned from that process. The ITI minister said "I am very hopeful that we'll be in a position to report back positively in short order." That didn’t happen.
Another attempt to sell the socalled "critical mineral" property has failed. This came to light with an April 4, 2022 Supreme Court of British Columbia filing by the appointed monitor for the property. There was no notice or communication from the Minister of this latest attempt to sell the property until the media picked up on this court filing at the end of the April.
The owner, North American Tungsten, went into creditor protection on June 9, 2015, after GNWT agreed to take on this operation under the devolution agreement and allowed that company to keep Mactung property as part of its financial security for its water license.
As part of the creditor protection proceeding, Cabinet ended up purchasing Mactung for $2.5 million with a special warrant that bypassed the Legislative Assembly. A lot of junk and hazardous materials were left at Mactung, even though I had been told that there was nothing there.
GNWT then spent $172,000 on a partial site cleanup of that property. Then GNWT hired a southern consultant to prepare and submit a land use application to the Yukon government for an imaginary exploration program in an attempt to hype the value of the property, which also seems to have failed.
When I asked the Minister about any lessons learned from the mismanagement of Mactung, she said that GNWT is "working together to market the properties and share in the costs of doing so and now work together with the Indigenous governments of the region as we proceed to a point where this is, hopefully, a final and solid proponent who could take over and move this forward."
I had hoped to hear something like GNWT would commit to change its legislation to make full financial security, in a liquid form, mandatory to prevent further public liabilities, something this government has failed to do over the eight years since devolution.
It’s past the time for the auditor general to carry out a performance audit of GNWT’s management or mismanagement of these resources. Needless to say, there are a lot of questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment about Mactung, how we managed this asset and liability, and whether we can ever expect to recoup the money spent on it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, member for Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member for Kam Lake.
