SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife city council is pushing too many green and social initiatives at the expense of pursuing business development opportunities for the city, says Patrick Doyle, president of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce.

"Most of our members have come forward with a concern that there's a lack of vision for economic development," said Doyle. "I don't think any of us feel there's been a push by this council for aiding current companies or pushing new developments.

"There's obviously a heavy function on green initiatives. They absolutely take their place but ...when you're having resolutions on things like the oil sands, what that has to do with Yellowknife I'm not quite sure."

Doyle said he's worried the city will miss out on projects that have the potential to create employment and stimulate growth in the city. Foremost among them: the location of the process plant that will handle rare earth minerals coming from Avalon Rare Metal's Thor Lake deposit, located 100 km southeast of Yellowknife.

In Doyle's mind, Hay River - which is also being considered by Avalon as a possible location for the plant, which will require around 80 workers - is way ahead of Yellowknife in terms of lobbying for the plant.

Two weeks ago, Don Bubar, president of Avalon, met with aboriginal, city and business representatives in Hay River to discuss the plant.

"Every moment - from 6:30 in the morning, which started off with breakfast meetings, until we were dropped off at the plane at 6:30 that night - was jam packed full of very productive meetings," said David Connelly, a spokesperson for Avalon. "(It included) everything from meeting groups that had concerns, meeting with KFN chief and chief-in-council, town council, touring a number of businesses, manufacturers, constructors and services company that could support secondary processing."

While Avalon has met with Mayor Gord Van Tighem and Yellowknife city council, those talks placed no emphasis on the plant, said Connelly.

"That would be the difference between the two," he said. "In Hay River, it was clearly, 'Here's where we can house people. Here's where people could have recreation. Here's where people could go to school.'

"The talks in Yellowknife were essentially Avalon presenting to the city, and the city explaining the economy of Yellowknife. There was no pitching."

Avalon has selected a Toronto-based company to write the pre-feasibility study that will outline the rate, method, length and cost of producing the elements. The report, due in early 2010, will include a recommended site for the plant.

The 20-person head office for the Thor Lake project will be likely located in the same community as the plant, added Connelly.

"The opportunity isn't missed yet; nothing has been decided, I don't believe," said Doyle. "So I guess we'd want to steer (council) to make a play for those value-added opportunities here."

But Van Tighem says city council is not dragging its feet when it comes to potential business opportunities.

He said several city councillors and MLAs sit on a committee devoted to attracting new business to Yellowknife. In addition, the city's department of economic development has met with Avalon.

"Each of these meetings (with Avalon) has involved discussions which have outlined what's available here, what could be done here and the question of what we could do to make (them) interested in being here," said Van Tighem.

There are other Avalon-related opportunities for Yellowknife besides the plant, he added.

"With the rare earth mineral opportunity, the question would exist if they're going to process the material here, wouldn't it make some sense to have their magnet manufacturing plant here or their battery manufacturing plant here?" he said.

Van Tighem said the city has spoken to several southern universities as well as the federal government about making Yellowknife a centre of study for research related to rare earth minerals.

"One of the byproducts of processing the rare earth minerals is a mineral that is involved with removing arsenic from groundwater and that would be a key research topic for our area," he said.

As for council's purported propensity for green agendas, Van Tighem said several environmentally-friendly initiatives - such as the city's new building bylaw, aimed at reducing the energy footprint of buildings - have actually created work thanks to consultations the city undertook with the construction industry to make sure the requirements of the bylaw were actually doable.

"If you drive around town, there are an awful lot of contractors that are really busy," he said.

So if the city has, according to Van Tighem, done its part to make sure Yellowknife hasn't fallen off Avalon's radar, why is the chamber so rankled?

"It would appear that the chamber of commerce is attempting to create significant interest among businesspeople in getting involved in city council activities, and that's a great thing," said Van Tighem, who has served as the chamber president in the past and said he also took a proactive role when it came to business development.

Despite its criticisms, the chamber is willing to work with the city, said Doyle.

"I certainly didn't get involved with the chamber in this role just to come out and complain about different issues," he said. "We want to take a collaborative role."

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