Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and members of this committee for inviting us to appear. Please accept our kudos for coming north to Yellowknife for this meeting.
My name is Tom Hoefer. I'm the executive director of the Chamber of Mines. I'm joined by Gary Vivian, our president, who is also chair of the largest northern exploration consulting company. We represent the N.W.T. and Nunavut minerals industry, so we will be speaking on issues of interest to both territories.
We've provided a deck for you, as the chair mentioned, and we'll paraphrase it in the next five minutes. There are a number of key messages we want to leave with you today in the hope that they will find their way into the budget.
First, our minerals industry is the largest private sector contributor to the economies of both territories. In a strong market year, our diamond mines contribute nearly half of the N.W.T.'s GDP. Gold and iron mining too are now growing along a similar path in Nunavut.
Most importantly, our industry continues to make significant strides with socio-economic benefits. This is game-changing, we would say, as we've made some of the most significant economic contributions to indigenous communities and their businesses, residents, and governments over the past 20 years. We have really helped to create and bolster a growing middle class.
Slide 7 in particular speaks to these benefits, which include 13,000 person-years in indigenous jobs, nearly $6 billion in indigenous business, and over $100 million in scholarships and donations to communities. Our mines even generate taxes and royalties today for indigenous governments beside payments to public governance.
On slide 7 is a thumbnail of a Mining North document that we've also provided to you today in that package. It details those benefits for later reading. It's very important that we all work to sustain and grow these northern benefits. To that end, we're asking for your help in five areas, described in more detail in our submission.
The first is investment in road and power infrastructure. The north has Canada's largest infrastructure deficit. We have few to no roads, and few to no hydro power facilities in the N.W.T. and Nunavut. Canada was a willing partner in resource development, providing infrastructure like roads, hydro power, and rail from the 1940s through the 1970s, but for some reason that investment dried up. Over the past 40 years, our mines have been supplying their own roads, power, airports, marine ports, and communications, and that makes us less competitive.
We're thankful for the federal commitment to the Tlicho all-season road in the N.W.T. We're also hopeful for federal investment in the Grays Bay road and port in Nunavut, and the Slave geological province road in the N.W.T., which would open up a mineral-rich area similar to the very rich Abitibi region of northern Ontario and Quebec. It would also link Nunavut by a road to Canada, a nation-building concept if ever there was one.
We also seek your help in seeing the north represented on the Canada infrastructure bank.
All-season roads would also allow us to use greener fuels, which current seasonal transportation prevents us from using. That is why we're asking for a carbon tax reprieve in the north until infrastructure catches up.
Second, we're asking for help to enhance mineral exploration by firmly extending the mineral exploration tax credit for three years; by investing in geoscience research, which is the R and D of our industry; and by settling outstanding indigenous land claims. These unsettled claims have contributed to the N.W.T. missing out on $1 billion in exploration investment in the last 10 years, a big hit on many of our businesses and on our economy.
Third, we're seeking help too in building community capacity. We're facing huge employment needs for several reasons. In the N.W.T., replacement and expansion demand will require from 28,000 to 37,000 jobs over the next 15 years. In Nunavut, the baby boom is growing the youngest population in Canada. Infrastructure construction and resource development will help provide job opportunities. We thank the government for their current support but ask that the budget ensure and protect that ongoing training support. Today we have a moderate request of around $1 million to purchase portable simulators that we can transport to our remote communities to train equipment operators.
Our fourth request is in helping improve our regulatory environment. Our territories are leaders in Canada in environmental legislation and process. That's because our processes are based in land claims. They are inclusive and transparent, and they're very thorough. The environmental review panel that Canada struck reported that they wouldn't review the north's system for those very reasons. They even said that the rest of Canada could learn from the north, but here's the “but” where we need help.
The Harper government made a change to legislation to allow for the recovery from proponents of the “not insignificant” costs of these very thorough processes. Such cost recovery would further hurt our economic competitiveness, something that we desperately need help with. Please do not support creation of cost recovery regulations in the north. In fact, if you have the opportunity, strike down any work on it.
Our last request is for your help with the Arctic policy that is coming. In the interests of time, our simplest comment would be to acknowledge the news release and pan-territorial vision for sustainable development that was issued jointly by the three northern premiers. It speaks to an economic foundation of responsible resource development, leading to self-reliance through infrastructure investments and job creation. Most importantly, it asks that we northerners play a strong and inclusive role in the Arctic policy's creation. We totally echo the three premiers' position on the Arctic policy development.
I suspect that's our five minutes. We thank the committee for the opportunity to present and we look forward to your questions.