Natural Resources committee  Usually, they all work together. A road leads to a mine, for example, but the whole program should have some predetermined steps, which could be established through the history of how one goes through all these projects to get to the end. They all follow different paths, and they reach obstacles, and each time they reach an obstacle they step back and take another run at it—maybe in the same direction or another direction—but overall they probably all go through the same procedures, but with different paths and dealing with different people.

Natural Resources committee  I would say that it has been rumoured. I can't be more polite than that.

Natural Resources committee  You're right. There are probably two at least, and maybe three. There's the eastern Arctic, the northern Arctic, we'll call it—Yellowknife and Glen's area—and then of course there's the western Arctic, where there's more proximity to western culture. People have been more exposed to it.

Natural Resources committee  I would say that's the eastern Arctic. In the western Arctic, in the Yukon, they're exposed; they're very sensitive to money. They all drive the best trucks they can and have had significant wins on a lot of cases. But that's not for all of the native population either. Certain ones have been very fortunate and others haven't been so fortunate.

Natural Resources committee  Well, they like to be involved and they have a keen interest in stuff; they don't like to be bypassed, but they don't want to be in a situation where it is all on their shoulders to make these humongous decisions—

Natural Resources committee  My experience in Nunavut would suggest that the people, not having spent their life behind a desk or anything.... What's required is a way that they can be assisted in their efforts—I don't want to use the word “led” or anything—with them instead directing what happens from a supervisory position.

Natural Resources committee  Money means nothing. They're all making what they need to live. They don't have money. They get certain assistance for their heat and power. Then they go out on the land. The need is for them to be supervising a group that will oversee the things going through, and go to them and say, “What do you think about this, Joe?

Natural Resources committee  That's right.

Natural Resources committee  I would say that it's extremely frequent and that it was just a fluke they found the diamond mines. As you said, he was flat broke. In fact, he was staying in one of my guys' houses and he was kicked out because he was filling up the back yard with sand and crap. I would say it's the predominant case that lots of people spend their whole life—

Natural Resources committee  Well, there are prospectors, there are small mine developers, and then there are big mine developers. Prospectors go out and get some money. Once they have some values, they get some money, and then they all hope to sell to bigger outfits, and they're hoping the bigger outfit is big enough to put them over the threshold where they can actually do something.

Natural Resources committee  I don't think a small company could do anything in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut. You're not talking about $100 million or $200 million; you're talking about half a billion dollars to pretty well get a mine going. I would say that would probably be the minimum now: $100 million to do the permit, then usually they buy out somebody for their land, and that's anywhere from that amount on up.

Natural Resources committee  I've only talked to people who are now working in British Columbia. They found it much more streamlined and easier than the Yukon.

Natural Resources committee  Churchill was a very successful port for wheat until a few years ago. It was intended to be a major seaport. It has been there for hundreds of years—I don't know how many hundreds—since the English built a fort there. From northern Manitoba to Churchill there is a short railroad, and anything you want to send to Churchill has to stop at Thompson, be loaded onto a rail car, tied down, and then sent for only a couple of hundred miles by road.

Natural Resources committee  No. There is a railroad but no road.

Natural Resources committee  There are two aspects to what happens. One is the ability of the native people to orient themselves to a regimented work day. On the other side of the coin, you might say they feel a bit inadequate because they haven't really been prepared for this. I took a crew of about nine people from Rae.