Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, March 1st, is the national day for the country that I came from many, many years ago, so I always celebrate it. Today I would like to read into the record, Mr. Speaker, a letter from a fellow Welshman who has been involved with mineral exploration and mining in the Northwest Territories for close to 30 years. He is the president of Aber Resources, his name is Grenville Thomas; this is what he says in his recent letter to Mr. Lovell, the mayor of Yellowknife: "Thank you very much for your call this morning in regard to Aber's closure of its Yellowknife office. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with any concern we have with the city of Yellowknife or the services supplied.
"I am enclosing a letter I wrote to Nellie Cournoyea a year ago expressing my concerns with over-regulation. This is a big problem in the Northwest Territories and in Canada as a whole. However, in addition to this you have devolution, division, land claims, native self-government, environmentalist and all manner of self-interest groups to cope with, in an Alice in Wonderland scenario. Great for Alice, but not for the mining companies striving to discover and develop northern deposits.
"The amount of hot air generated and the paper required to record it all is staggering for a population of 60,000 people. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never has so much paper been generated by so many for so few. For example, Aber is currently prevented from working on Victoria Island land because of a dispute over jurisdiction between the federal government and the Inuvialuit. Bear in mind that Inuvialuit settlement was made in 1987. The north desperately needs someone to pull this desperate group together by emphasizing their common interest as northerners, not their differences."
The letter is signed by Mr. Thomas and at the bottom he has a PS that says "I'm going to Argentina in late February; just to look around you understand." Because things are obviously not going very well for his company even though they are still active in the Northwest Territories.
People are attracted to overseas, Mr. Speaker, because of greater security of tenure, reduced taxes and royalties, tax periods, greater possibility of owning things and also access to high-level mineral resources. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, my time is now up.