Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. This morning I mentioned the need for us to become more self-sufficient, and I know that other Members have pointed out some of the political difficulties of achieving all of this stuff. But it seems to me that we have not only the political problem; we have the general problem of how we approach development. And for some reason, we haven't been able to make this as clear as we could.
I also went to a meeting in the fall, to the very first international environment management meeting, sponsored by the world mining industry. The whole conference dealt with the whole issue of development and the image that the industry has throughout the world. I spent most of my time with people from Africa and South America and I learned an awful lot. But it seems to me that the key at the government level is the fact that you have to have your act together.
I know that the Standing Committee on Finance has said we should give some focus and we could do things better, we have always had too many players and too many voices; but what I learned is this: if the government has a policy on development that is done in the way that many of us have suggested, everybody, every single person, becomes pro-development. If you say that you are in favour of responsible development or sustainable development, everybody is onside. We all agree that this is good, that development is a good idea, and you don't end up polarizing people.
It doesn't matter whether you have one person at the table, two people or 10 people, as long as there is only one person who speaks according to the policy of one government. The government has a policy. It doesn't matter who in fact is the person that then sits down to represent that group, because you have a policy that you have all bought into and you have all agreed with. That was something that came through very clearly at the meetings I was at: it is very difficult for people in the industry to come to grips with stuff if they don't know where everybody is coming from.
So it is absolutely essential for this government to have a policy which is clear and it doesn't matter who sits at the table, that is the policy that he or she is talking about; the one of this government. Not this department's policy or that department's policy, but this government's policy. And you don't need two, three or four voices, you only need one. Because it is backed up then, by the whole system that supports you. So that is why it is important, it seems to me, that we find some way of speaking with one voice so that we are all pro-development, but in a way that everybody can accept.
That is the first thing that I wanted to say. And for some reason or another, that penny hasn't dropped for the last five years when we've been pushing to try to get some agreement on how we are going to handle the interface between the environment and the economy. How do we do it?
We tried one thing, apparently it didn't work, for whatever reason. And now we have another group in place which is a replacement for it, which is called the Slave province regional study group, or whatever. But it is important for us anyway, that as a government we have something, and if the round table wasn't a way of doing it, maybe the priorities people can come up with something and say this is where we stand. Do all the consultation that you need to do so that everybody feels that this is all right, it is a good policy to have, then that becomes our position that we take that into the system.
The other thing that I learned, Mr. Chairman, at the meeting I went to -- again, these are people from all over the world, about 70 countries -- is that the technical people, the people who are involved in the engineering side of things say we have all kinds of people -- and we did have a few environmental groups at this meeting who came out of interest. So the biggest problem we have is this: with the people who come in who represent the particular interest groups, they won't tell us what the problem is. They sit and they bellyache, they moan and they whine and so on, but they don't say this is the problem, because we are convinced that if you tell us what the problem is, we know on the basis of the technological advances that we have made in our industry, that we can solve that problem. But there seems to be a reluctance to say, well, you know, that it's the water, or it's the this, or it's the that. People just want to make a statement, very often a political one. But if it is always presented in a practical, down-to-earth way so it can be looked at, examined and understood, then the people in the industry are convinced that with knowledge and expertise we can solve those because they are solvable problems now.
And we have a huge new industry of environmental technology which Canada is becoming a world leader in. It is a huge export industry for us, where all of these people in South America and even in Africa, can turn to Canadians and say here is an environmental problem that we have; do you think you could handle this? And we say, we have done that, we know how to do that. So now, environmental management is becoming a huge sector of our economy simply because we have the know-how to help people to solve those problems, as long as you have the people who are prepared to sit down and identify the problem that has to be solved.
So that was the second thing that I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, about the way we should go in relationship to developing this sort of primary industry, if you like.
I know many of us have the hope that we will get beyond being what we were called at one time: the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Canada has had that kind of reputation for over 100 years, where all we are good for is to hack out stuff, supply the wood, supply the energy and somebody else will have the thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs.
I know that other Members have looked at the potential of mining in the north as a way in which perhaps we could branch off into doing secondary things; and there may be some potential there. But it seems to me, that we have to be very careful in the way we pose our demands because there are some things that would not be economic to do. We have to be realistic about what it is that we could do in a secondary way to do the value-added things that we agree would be good for us to have so that our people can benefit from employment.
If we end up being too demanding and say well, look, you know, no-go, unless we can have...Our bottom line is this. You may find out that because it is a very volatile industry, people
say forget this one, it's cheaper to go ahead and develop this deposit somewhere else.
I think that we can play the game as well as anybody to get the maximum advantages that we should get if you are the owner of a resource. And I think we have to be very careful, before we push the buttons, about what our bottom line is and so on, about what we would like to see in the territories.
But I do agree with the comments that have been made, that we should try to maximize the benefits, but not in such a way that you end up driving industry away from this part of the world because it is all ready happening. Several Members have pointed out that already you find investment going elsewhere because the climate is better -- I am talking about the economic, political, social and every other kind of climate -- and you wouldn't want to do anything that will say, well, let's forget all about this, we would be just as happy if it's not developed and nobody develops it. Because we would be better off in finding another place to do our work, where the returns will be better, there will be less hassle and the investors will be happy and so on.
But I do applaud the Minister for the efforts he has made in this area and I would urge him during the months of the summer, when perhaps the pressures are not quite so great, that he will look very carefully at trying to bring some of this home for us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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