Mr.

Speaker, today is the

beginning of Mining Week, an opportunity to highlight the significance of this sector to our economy and our future.

From our humble beginnings driven by the rush for gold to our prominent status as the world’s third largest producer of diamonds, mining in the Northwest Territories has been the mainstay of our resource economy. Since 1991 investment in mineral production, specifically diamond mining and exploration, has been the driving force behind a decade of record-setting economic statistics for the Northwest Territories.

In this time the growth of mining has done much more than just stimulating the NWT economy. It has changed the way we do business. Our residents, businesses and corporations now take a direct role in our region’s economic growth as business owners, operators and investors.

Beneficiaries of our mining sector include aboriginally and regionally owned airlines, hotels, restaurants, construction firms and telecommunications and logistics companies, as well as service and supply industries. These northern investors and entrepreneurs have succeeded by meeting the needs of our rapidly expanding mining sector. Their success, in turn, is presenting us with an unprecedented opportunity to build a future. This is the true value of mining in our territory.

The mining sector has and can continue to offer tremendous opportunities for NWT residents under the right conditions. It is critical that we strike the right balance between our support of this sector and its impact on our residents, our communities and our environment.

As a government we have supported environmentally responsible and sustainable mining developments on the condition that the benefits of these operations can be maximized for NWT residents, businesses and communities. This can be seen in our growing secondary diamond industry. We have been very careful to follow up

and confirm the commitments made by our major mining companies in our socioeconomic agreements. Mining has been the impetus and test case for this made-in-the-NWT approach to resource development, and thanks to the commitment of the industry itself, these agreements are bearing positive results.

Since the establishment of our first socioeconomic agreement with BHP in 1996, the combined operations of Ekati, Diavik, and Snap Lake have spent over $5 billion with northern and aboriginal businesses. In that same time these three mines have provided in excess of 10,000 person-years of employment to Northerners. This includes over 5,000 person-years of employment for aboriginal people of the NWT.

The mining industry in the NWT continues to show great promise. Exploration and mining are not without challenges, but this sector, driven by the demand for our abundant resources, will continue to be the economic cornerstone of our future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.