Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 26/99) - It was only by accident that Mayor Dave Lovell discovered a high-profile workshop was going to be held here. He soon found out the city hadn't heard about it because they weren't invited to attend.

Held at the Explorer Hotel March 15-16, Building a Diamond Jewellery Industry for Canada's NWT had 28 delegates attend from across North America.

Some of the world's biggest names in the business, including Doug Spence of Spence Diamonds and Canadian gem expert Pierre Akkelian, were there. Lovell requested an invitation but was denied.

"All of a sudden, for some reason or other, it was decided for this particular workshop municipal government input wasn't necessary," Lovell said.

"But we were a key player in generating a diamond industry here and I think our input could have been useful. In this game, information is key and if we don't have access to information then we fall behind."

City councillor Cheryl Best called the slight "unfortunate."

"Workshops of this nature will impact on the future jewelry industry in the North. We'd like to be a part of that development from both a political and business development point of view," Best said.

"The development of secondary industries is important to Northerners collectively and the city must be a key player in the promotion of those industries." GNWT director of diamond projects, Martin Irving, helped organize the event. He said the object was to create a forum primarily for people who work in the diamond industry.

"The participants were people who are involved in the business now, both here in the North and in the south," Irving said.

He added that this was the first stage in looking at the development of a Northern diamond jewelry industry.

"It's the first step, there will be more and that's when there will be the opportunity for everyone, whether members of the municipality or members of the public, to learn and explore the (jewelry manufacturing) potential in the future," Irving said.

"It was not a symposium or conference, it was a workshop and the discussion and report that comes out of it will be made public."

But the city's economic development officer, James Smyth, said he was told government involvement would be a topic of discussion.

"Part of what they were discussing was the role of governments in diamond manufacturing," Smyth said.

"We were told they wanted to keep it to a small working group but the city has been meeting with diamond industry proponents regularly for more than a year. To not invite the municipal level seems a little odd."