Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 29/02) - The tune will be new but the song remains the same.

The first Northern mines ministers conference April 4 will be a chance to reiterate the need for more federal attention to mining in the North.

"I don't think he's going to hear anything he hasn't heard before," said NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines president Mike Vaydik, referring to Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Robert Nault.

"We're trying to take the tack now that this isn't just good business for the North, it's good business for all of Canada."

The need for more transportation infrastructure, training programs and geoscience research will be among the focuses. Contrary to initial reports, the entire conference will be closed to the general public. It will be co-chaired by Nault and NWT Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development Minister Jim Antoine. Scott Kent, minister of energy mines and resources for the Yukon government, and Nunavut Sustainable Development Minister Olayuk Akesuk will also attend.

The morning session will include presentations from BHP Billiton, the Kitikmeot Corporation, the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut Chambers of Mines, Aurora Geoscience Ltd. and the Denendeh Development Corporation. During the afternoon ministers and their officials will discuss the issues raised. No NWT environmental organizations were invited.

Canadian Arctic Resources Committee research director Kevin O'Reilly said environmental groups would bring a balance to the process.

O'Reilly said yesterday that CARC's Ottawa office had received an invitation late March 26.

The invitation noted the registration deadline for the event was March 15.

"At the national level there are mine ministers meetings and environmental organizations have been invited," O'Reilly said.

"I'm disappointed we're excluded from the process taking place up here."

An official for the GNWT said environmental groups would eventually be invited into the coalition of government and industry that organized the conference.

O'Reilly said environmental groups should have been part of the conference from the start.

"I'm going to show up there and see what happens."

Industry presentations Thursday will echo presentations made to the federal government by the GNWT, Fraser Institute and, most recently, a northern business coalition that travelled to Ottawa earlier this month.

The conference will be held in the same space -- the Katimavik rooms of the Explorer Hotel -- the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy convened a consultation with Northern groups last year.

In its report on aboriginal involvement in non-renewable resource development in the NWT, released last June, the round table concluded an additional $180 million in federal funding was needed over the next decade to ensure Northerners benefit from development and to minimize the environmental costs of development.

One of the biggest expenditures NRTEE urged was $100 million over 10 years to develop a modern geoscience database. Vaydik called such research, "advertising for the exploration business."

Vaydik said the feds spend $1 per square kilometre on geological research, compared to $11 per square kilometre in the south.

"We need him (Nault) to be our champion if we're to maximize the benefits to Northerners," said Vaydik.