Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On May 26th, I was pleased to present, on behalf of my colleagues from Range Lake, Yellowknife South and Frame Lake, our position concerning the 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide stored underground at the Giant Mine site.
As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we place the safety of our people and the security of our environment as our number one and number two priorities.
Mr. Speaker, we told the Giant Mine Remediation Project Committee that in our view, it has done a very satisfactory job in respect to the processes that its mandate covered in the technical, scientific areas, and in communication with the community.
From the start, Mr. Speaker, many Yellowknifers believed that because this was a problem that was created mainly in our lifetime by our generation, that we should be the ones fully responsible for solving it. That meant, for at least some of us, digging this stuff up, rendering it harmless somehow, and then putting it away so that no future generation would ever have to deal with it again.
Mr. Speaker, through the committee's work, a number of us have been convinced that that is not possible. As desirable as it might be, it is just not possible. We are convinced, Mr. Speaker, that any handling by workers or exposure to the surface of the arsenic material is risky, unwarranted and unneeded. Our position is that we reject any surface treatment or management option for the arsenic and believe that only the underground method of freezing it in place can be acted on.
We recommend that the door remain open for further evaluation of other alternatives, but we temper this, Mr. Speaker, with the concern that we may end up in a perpetual research project. The recommendations that the panel has developed and that the peer review group has gone through gives us reasonable assurance that freezing in place is the most responsible and viable approach to recommend to the Government of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, we know how difficult it can be to get on and remain on the federal radar screen. There are many pressing environmental issues that attract Ottawa's attention and we should be mindful of this. The arsenic is, after all, not an immediate threat to the health and safety of the Yellowknife region. Mr. Speaker, I would like to request unanimous consent to conclude my statement.