Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 13/02) - Kitikmeot leaders say the Nunavut government should help people in the eastern part of the region get a chance at diamond mine jobs.

The Kitikmeot Inuit Association has conducted a labour force survey to back up a position paper it hopes to present to the government.

"They would have to address it," association president Charlie Evalik said last week. "It's part of their responsibility, in terms of getting people employed in those kinds of activities."

Evalik said residents of Kugaaruk, Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven have received some help from both the KIA and Nunavut government getting to "points of hire" -- communities from which the mining company will fly employees to the mine site.

Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay are the two points of hire in the Kitikmeot. Diavik flies employees from those communities to the mine.

Owned by London-based Rio Tinto, the Diavik diamond project at Lac de Gras is about 320 kilometres southeast of Kugluktuk. The $1.3-billion mine is slated to head into production next year.

According to a report released by the company last month, Diavik and its sub-contractors paid out $8 million in wages to Northern employees in 2001. Forty-one per cent of Diavik's workforce in the NWT is Northern, according to the report.

Roughly 400 people work at the mine site.

Evalik said residents of the region's other communities have the required skills, but need help getting there.

That help should come from both the Nunavut and federal governments, Evalik said.