Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be speaking in favour, and certainly voting in favour, of this particular motion. First off, I want to thank Mr. Dolynny for his significant amount of work that he’s put behind this initiative. It’s easy to be able to read off the motion here, but what the public doesn’t see is how much work he put behind the scenes and how many questions he’s taken to Members, and how he has brought it forward in a stronger version from the very first moment he said he wanted to bring forward this type of initiative. He did that in a very collaborative approach, so I think he deserves certain credit for working with Members and getting the support of Members on this particular initiative. A lot of work has brought it here today.
The reason I am speaking in favour of this motion is because it simply makes sense. A diamond bourse in the Northwest Territories, by all means, is probably the next logical step. It seems relevant that we would want to repatriate some of the goods that we take out of the ground and be involved in the development of them before they are sent out in the world, cast to the world and off doing what they do. It helps develop a local product. Creating a bourse here in the Northwest Territories demonstrates our next evolution of where we want to be in the diamond industry. I think, as I’ve said for many years, that we have undersold ourselves in this particular area and business, and I think there’s way more that we can do. Israel or Antwerp doesn’t dig up diamonds but the world has gone to them. There’s proof in the pudding of the quality of the diamonds here in the Northwest Territories and the world has seen the Northwest Territories for that. Why aren’t they coming here to buy the diamonds? Why aren’t they coming North to buy the boxes and taking their particular goods and investment, and getting them out of here rather than flying all over the world, whether it be Botswana, Antwerp or London? They go to all of these places that don’t have diamonds. Let’s get them to come to the North where they have diamonds.
This could create a new industry, help continue to revitalize the diamond brand, and it also can help stimulate other development in our economy. We could have a flux of international travellers coming into the North and getting to know the North, identifying the North from north, south, east, west. There is so much more to the North and this could be part of the reason why they get here and then they start examining what else we have. This is a real initiative that could have real returns.
In closing, I just want to emphasize how important such a small, little action of this particular nature is, yet at the same time it could have such a significant, long-term response. Let’s continue to
capture the eye of the world by supporting this motion. I think it makes a lot of sense, so I hope my colleagues will support it as well.