Adam Johnson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, December 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Manage it, before you lose it. That's the message Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington is sending the GNWT about the territory's diamond industry.

"We don't think (the industry) is on the right track," he said.

Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington presented his report on the diamond industry, Diamonds Are Forever, Our Mines are Not at a press conference held at Northern United Place last week. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

In a Nov. 29 press conference, Bevington released Diamonds are Forever; Our Mines Are Not, a report on the future of diamond mining in the North.

In the 22-page document, Bevington laid out some recommendations for the territorial government.

These include moving forward on devolution and resource revenue sharing - taking the reins of natural resource royalties - the creation of a national diamond strategy, and increased pushes for renewable forms of energy - such as hydroelectric power to be used at new mine sites.

He pointed out problems with the current royalty structure, which encourages mines to maximize production - producing the most ore for the company, and the most royalties for the federal government - at the risk of a decreased mine life.

"We don't want to create a situation where all the good ore is gone and the rest isn't worth mining," Bevington said.

He added these recommendations - meant to create a sustainable industry in the North - go hand-in-hand with creating more skilled local workers, rather than relying on southern labour.

"Mining is a mature industry in the North," he said. "People in the North understand mining better than anyone."

The control, he said, needs to start at the territorial level.

"The GNWT should have a lead in this," he said. "The territorial government has to make the demand for the transfer of authority."

However, representatives of the GNWT weren't quite sure how to take the recommendations.

"If it was that easy, we would have done it already," said Bob McLeod, minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

"The last government got the closest we ever have (on devolution) and we still don't have an agreement."

The inability of the GNWT to get all aboriginal governments on board had a hand in sinking the project, he said - something that may not change until all the NWT's land claims are settled.

However, McLeod said the report has raised interesting issues for the government, "and a lot of them we've been working on."

Last week, Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley tabled the report in the legislative assembly, and asked for a government response.

"It was raised in the legislature," McLeod said. "Our government will be reviewing the recommendations and we will tabling a response at some time."

Brendan Bell, the former minister for ITI and the Western Arctic Conservative candidate, agreed with McLeod's take on the report.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody ... who wouldn't support a resource revenue sharing agreement," he said.

As for aims to bring more Northern workers into the mines, Bell said they are already there.

"Much of the sub-contracting allows for aboriginal-owned and Northern-owned companies to get a big chunk (of the industry)."

In the end, Bevington said this report was meant to raise questions, and provoke discussion, rather than serve as a strict policy for the North.

"It was beyond the scope of our report to detail how we can do this," Bevington said of resource revenue sharing.

"We've sent copies to everyone."