Thank you.
Remoteness works both ways. Management is challenged by our remote locations, and unions are challenged by our remote locations, but ore bodies are where we find them. We found ones that are very valuable, as you point out, but they are also remote.
In the recent example of the Ekati strike, I know that picket lines were set up at the pickup points for transportation to those remote sites, and in several other communities than Yellowknife. Obviously there would be no point in picketing at the mine site, but the transportation links were picketed.
In fairness, the company and the union did reach an agreement over a fairly short period of time, and there were no serious incidents of picket line inappropriate behaviour.
You say there were problems. I think there are also problems from the management side. I wish I'd brought a slide of that winter road that snakes across the tundra. Literally there is nothing on either side of it for hundreds of kilometres. It's one very tenuous link that could be very easily blocked by picketers.
That's the fear, I think: that this new bill would tip the balance in favour of the union.
In looking at the essential service nature of the issue, if you don't consider provision of a job essential service—People pay us to mine those diamonds. Those jobs are heartily sought in the North's fragile economy.
There are approximately 2,500 jobs in the diamond mining business right now. Our economy is showing for the first time that the Northwest Territories may become a “have” rather than a “have not” place. It's an amazing time to be in the Northwest Territories, and it's caused by the discovery and mining of diamonds.