Mr. Speaker, the recent Earth Day announcement of $15 million in surprise subsidies to the three operating diamond mines has been bothering me. I certainly don't dispute that the mines employ a lot of Northerners and that Indigenous and northern businesses rely significantly on contracts with the diamond mines. What bothers me is that the subsidies are based on wishful thinking. They're not designed to actually accomplish anything meaningful when it comes to jobs or our economy. We're not getting any guarantees in return for the $15 million besides nice but empty words like "relationships" and "partnerships." They're not even offering best efforts but commercially reasonable efforts to maintain operations. Basically, they'll do what they were going to do anyway. We don't have any independent economic analysis that shows even the probability that this token gesture will result in one more northerner being hired or that a mine will stay hope for one day longer than it would have without these subsidies.

$15 million in public funds are pretty small potatoes for those diamond mine operations, but they could mean a lot if this government instead invested that money directly in our people, in housing or education or mental health care or even in energy infrastructure projects to support future economic opportunities. Those are the investments required to build up our economic foundation, not desperately throwing money at the mines that are already on their way out the door in the hope that will slow them down on their way out.

With this so-called crisis so impossible to predict or plan for, global mineral prices famously rise and crash on a regular basis. We've known for many years these mines are reaching the end of their lifecycles, when we should expect falling profits and tighter margins. We can and should be creating transparent policy for what to do in these frequent situations. Should the government always subsidize a mine if it threatens to close? If so, for how long should we subsidize a failing operation? What proof do we need to see that a closure threat is real? Is is there a minimum rate of return? How many jobs should be at stake to justify a subsidy? What should be the consequence if a company takes the money and shuts down the very next day? Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues. Finally, let's plan properly and invest in economic development based on sound evidence rather than spending reactively based on fear and wishful thinking. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.