The task force wants De Beers to consider setting up diamond operations in Yellowknife -- specifically a sorting for market facility and a diamond cutting and polishing factory.

The city has "a well and able workforce, a track record of providing services and infrastructure to the mineral industry," Lovell said.

"The vision is to generate critical mass needed to become the diamond centre of North America," Connelly said.

"Diamonds can do for the economy in the first half of the 21st century what gold did in the last half of this century."

Connelly even suggested economic enticements to get the industry off the ground.

"One concept is to establish a special economic zone for gold, diamond, jewelry and fur garment manufacturers and support industries which employ Northerners," Connelly said.

Northerners are being presented with a chance to take control of their economic future and they need to grab it, Malakoe said.

"We will pursue any opportunity we can to develop our business, De Beers Canada Corporation managing director George Burne said Monday.

Burne's heading up the Canadian offices is of major significance.

A De Beers director, he has been with the company for 40 years.

The Vancouver offices, staffed by three people, will look for investment opportunities in Canada.

"We're putting down our marker and we're prepared to invest."

Burne said sorting facilities are possible for the North, but before such a move, De Beers needs Canadian product.

"We would like to market Canadian production."

Cost of sorting in Yellowknife could be high but sorting in the country of origin generates a level of "confidence" for everybody, he said.

On current diamond market conditions, Burne said financial market troubles in the Far East do not bode well for sales.

Burne said Canada is positioned to generate as much as 15 per cent of the world's diamonds.

"We need to be where the diamonds are."

To publicize the Yellowknife's benefits to the secondary diamond industry, the city's task force has set up a committee chaired by local businesswoman Julia Mott.