Merci, Monsieur le President. I have some good news. Our government says it has sold the Mactung mining property; a zombie that just keeps on giving.
The owner, North American Tungsten, went into creditor protection after GNWT agreed to take on this operation under devolution. GNWT allowed that company to keep the Mactung property as part of its financial security for its water license. Cabinet ended up buying Mactung for $4.5 million through a special warrant that bypassed the Legislative Assembly. Cabinet then spent almost $480,000 on a partial cleanup of that property, plus all the work trying to sell it, not including months of staff time. The GNWT hired a southern consultant to submit a land use application to the Yukon government for an imaginary exploration program to hype the value of the property.
Just after the MayJune 2022 sitting and with no advance notice to Regular MLAs, Cabinet accepted a letter of offer from Fireweed Zinc Ltd., a Vancouverbased junior mining company, to buy the property for a total of $15 million subject to a number of strict conditions:
Fireweed pays the GNWT the sum of $1.5 million on signing the letter of intent;
Fireweed will pay GNWT an additional $3.5 million within 18 months of finalizing of a definitive agreement, apparently targeted before the end of this year;
Fireweed will pay GNWT an additional $5 million upon announcing its intention to construct a mine at either the Mactung or any other portion of their mineral interests in the Yukon at Macmillan Pass; and
Fireweed will pay GNWT an additional $5 million upon announcing its intention to construct a mine at Mactung.
I am doubtful that GNWT will ever get all the money and staff time back from the Mactung property, or that it will ever go into production.
In terms of lessons learned, there don't seem to be any. I was hoping that GNWT would recognize that mandatory financial security in forms that are irrevocable and liquid are required to ensure this kind of mess does not happen again. Eight years after devolution, GNWT has failed to fix the problems with resource mismanagement left for us by the federal government. It's past time that the Auditor General of Canada looks at the promise and practice of postdevolution resource management. I will have questions for the mining minister later today. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
