Meeting draws movers and shakers
Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Fort Smith (May 21/01) - Movers and shakers of the Northwest Territories descended on Fort Smith last week for the annual general meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and to make plans for anticipated economic boom.
Premier Stephen Kakfwi, featured speaker at the Chamber's awards banquet, said that with Jean Chretien, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush talking about the NWT, economic prosperity cannot be far off.
"For the first time in history the President of the United States said the words, 'Northwest Territories,'" Kakfwi said. "I've always said it's not a great name, but it sure felt good to hear him say it."
Chamber members elected a new executive and board, and celebrated achievements by naming First Air business of the year and Cameron Clement, president of Northern Transportation Co. Ltd. as business person of the year.
Business awards
First Air's Business of the Year award recognized its contributions of more than $750,000 to education, culture and sport programs including, the RCMP's DARE program, literacy, Aboriginal Achievement Awards, special Olympics, and Skills Canada.
Cameron has been with the company for 32 years
spearheaded the shipping company's head office move to Hay River from Edmonton in 1995.
Clement said he was "somewhat surprised," when he'd heard he'd won the award and felt a little like John Wayne when he accepted the Oscar.
"He never had one outstanding performance, but Christ, he sure was in a lot of movies," Clement joked.
The captain of the Northern shipping giant retires this year, but took the opportunity to pass on his simple philosophy for success in management.
"Surround yourself with people who are more talented than yourself and give them the freedom to exceed their potential," he said.
"Treat absolutely everyone in your organization fairly and consistently and recognize the importance in the work place of having fun."
Clement sat on the board of directors for the NWT Chamber of Commerce, Lloyds Register, the Marine Advisory Board to the Federal Minister of Transport and chaired the Arctic Marine Advisory Board.
Diamonds and De Beers
Senior vice-president of De Beers Canada, Tom Beardmore-Gray, gave a presentation on the changing face of the 110-year-old diamond company.
Faced with a sluggish retail market, bad publicity from conflict diamonds and competition for luxury dollars from a myriad of high-end consumer products, De Beers has sought new direction.
Recently partnered with the luxury products group LVMH Moet Hennesy Louis Vuitton, the diamond
giant will spend $180 million in advertising this year marketing the De Beers brand.
With a stockpile of nearly $5 billion US in diamonds, De Beers has been called a cartel, but Beardmore Gray had another description.
"For a very, very long time, we have been what you might term as 'the custodian' of the industry," Beardmore-Gray said.
Last year, De Beers purchased 100 per cent of Winspear's Snap Lake discovery and plans to be in production by 2004. The company has spent over half of its global exploration budget in Canada.
"Canada is going to undoubtedly become a very significant producer of rough diamonds," he said. "Canada could, by 2003, be the number three producer in the world."
"The Northwest Territories is going to have a very, very large share of that Canadian diamond production."
New president
Past chamber president Kevin Diebold thanked the volunteers, executive and membership for helping him work through a "very productive and fruitful year."
"If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have such an easy job," Diebold said.
Canadian North's Kelly Kaylo was elected new chamber president.
Kaylo has been with the airline for seven years and has 12 years experience with the GNWT in tourism, socio-economic, business development and oil and gas divisions.
John Ondrack of Kirk Computers was elected vice president, Kelly Hayden of Bellanca Developments, treasurer, Julia Mott of First Air, secretary and Anne Marie Tout of Enbridge Inc was elected vice-chair
prospects.
The new president plans an outreach from all board members -- not just executive -- to the communities to help businesses in tourism, oil and gas, and hydro possibilities.
"I think it's important that we involve communities outside of Yellowknife -- they certainly bring a different perspective and they have other challenges," Kaylo said.
"There are no end to the opportunities and I think I'd like to make sure that our businesses are well-positioned to take advantage of all these opportunities."
Key goals
Kaylo says the chamber needs to work closely with the GNWT on policy established in Ottawa like royalty revenue sharing, pipeline development and tourism.
"Obviously, we would expect the federal government to be a lot more receptive to industry and government coming forward with these initiatives."
The Prospects North conference will be held Sept. 12-14 this year, but has been moved out of the Yellowknife arena to the Capital Theatre and the Explorer Hotel because of feedback from previous conferences.
"The concept was to bring it all closer to downtown, because it was such a venue logistical challenge," she said.
"Ideally we'd have a convention centre and it could all be held under one roof."
The host of the event, Jim Bassingthwaite, president of the Fort Smith chamber, said he was very pleased with the way the AGM went.
"It went absolutely splendid," Bassignthaite said. "We just never had a glitch -- I don't think we could have hoped for anything better."
Next year's AGM will be held in Inuvik.
