Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So last week we announced the priorities for the 20th Assembly, and one of those was building a strong economic foundation. One major area of economic opportunity that we are currently letting slip through our fingers is remediation. Now, I want to say upfront that I don't want us to promote the idea of remediation as this economic growth opportunity that will be our longterm ticket to prosperity. I believe that would send the wrong signal to industry that we actually want them to leave a big mess behind so that we can continue spending billions in taxpayer dollars cleaning it up. But our unfortunate present situation is that we do have billions of dollars’ worth of work to do cleaning up mud sumps in the Beaufort Delta, old oil and gas wells at Cameron Hills, Ptarmigan Mine, and hundreds of other contaminated sites.
Now, the Giant Mine Remediation Project has an estimated cost now of $4.38 billion over the life of the project at least over the next 30 years, and maintenance on the site could run in perpetuity. To quote the Giant Mine Oversight Board's latest annual report, the Giant Mine Remediation Project will be one of the largest, if not the largest, single economic project in the history of the Yellowknife area.
Increasing participation by residents, Indigenous and nonIndigenous workers and businesses will bring about greater financial prosperity and set the NWT on a path for a stronger and more integrated economy in the future. However, as of last year, only 24 percent of the employees of the Giant Mine Remediation Project were northern. The person hours was at 36 percent however the target was for at least between 55 and 70 percent. 10 percent of employees were northern Indigenous although that was 16 percent of person hours and the target was at least 25 to 35 percent. And to put this in perspective, the number of northern Indigenous employees have actually gone down slightly since 2018.
So while the GNWT does sit on the Giant Mine socioeconomic advisory body, it's not clear what results we've achieved from being part of this group. The proposed polytechnic university could be a great venue to develop partnerships to train Northerners to work in remediation. Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So our task here is urgent. We have to train and equip more Northerners to work in remediation and offer pathways for them to continue upgrading their skills to match the technical requirements of the work that needs to be done. This task was urgent 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and I don't see evidence that the GNWT has devoted the necessary attention and resources to such an urgent task. I will have questions for the Minister of ECE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you you Member from Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member from Sahtu.
