Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 16th, 2012

[David Kilgour]

I think those things should certainly be done. Mr. Gravelle, it's also important to note that it doesn't have to be done in Sudbury either. Both of those programs, especially the one at Cambrian College, can be done on the spot. It's the same thing with NORCAT; their mining courses can be done over the Internet or on location.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Chief Moonias, how important for your people is the aboriginal skills and employment partnership?

[Chief Elijah Moonias]

What partnership is that?

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

The aboriginal skills and employment partnership is a program that trains aboriginal people. About 18,000 have been trained since 2003, but this program is being cut back. If this program were to keep going and train people in the Ring of Fire, would that be very important for your people?

[Chief Elijah Moonias]

We're looking at any kind of training that could be available near us. I know that being tiny is difficult, in terms of having a community-based training centre, but I've never heard of this training you're talking about. I don't know whether some of the colleges have training programs in other areas.

As I have said here, the failure of the education system on the reserve has contributed to the lack of access to these training facilities for our people. For example, if you don't have grade 12, you can't get in. You need that grade 12. You need to have upgrading first in order to access the kind of training you're talking about.

We have a very difficult road ahead. First you have to address the failure of your education system on the reserve, where your grade school graduates are at the grade 6 level, and then they try to get into the provincial grade 9 without grades 7 and 8. It's very difficult to succeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Monsieur Gravelle.

I go now to Mr. Anderson for five minutes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I would like to talk about a couple of things.

We haven't talked about infrastructure necessities yet. We did talk about it somewhat the other day, when Mr. Rafferty talked about diesel power and that kind of thing.

Do you have any comments about the necessity for infrastructure, such as roads and transportation infrastructure or energy infrastructure? Somebody mentioned pipeline as well.

Does anyone have comments about that, or do you just want to leave it where it was the other day?

[Kirk McKinnon]

May I ask you a question? Did you meet with Cliffs and—?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes, they were here on Tuesday. They talked about the necessity of a road into the area. We didn't talk a lot about energy requirements. Mr. Rafferty touched on it a little bit earlier.

I'm wondering whether you have any thoughts on those things.

[Kirk McKinnon]

They're the leaders. Basically, if they've committed to moving forward, they're the ones who will be the catalyst for that forward movement. I have some doubt that they are going full bore right now without some help from the governments, and I'm sure you know that.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

They were calling for some cooperation among different levels of government and industry.

[Kirk McKinnon]

That's not a surprise at all.

[Wes Hanson]

The development of infrastructure is critical. It's absolutely something that has to happen.

Natural Resources Canada estimates that exploration costs for a remote site are 10 times what they are for a site that's beside a road. If we're truly going to see the potential of northern Ontario, we have to get some development up there.

That's something Quebec realized about 35 years ago. If you look at the road network in northern Quebec, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, and northern British Columbia, you see that thousands of kilometres of roads have been built in these northern regions so that the provinces and the country as a whole can benefit from further exploration and mineral resource development.

It has to happen.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You may have addressed this point a little earlier, but how are you planning to power your project?

[Wes Hanson]

Our original plan, basically, is to establish a diesel generating station close to the community of Webequie, bringing in a power line from that point and using diesel-generated power. Hopefully that's a first nations business that the community of Webequie and some of the other communities in the Ring of Fire can operate together, so that those communities will benefit.

As for what has to happen in the Ring of Fire, I've heard talk about equity ownership and I'm just going to bounce to that for a second. I know it's off topic, but in order for the communities to earn an equity ownership position in these mineral companies, they have to start establishing businesses, whether those are hotels, power generation, or running a filtering and drying plant. They have to take advantage of the opportunities that are there for them now, generate cash flow, and invest it in the mining companies.

We work for a publicly traded company. They're more than welcome to buy our shares and become shareholders in our company.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay.

Mr. Brodie-Brown--

[Ian Brodie-Brown]

May I say that on infrastructure, you only get one chance to build these roads or pipelines or whatever. They're not pushed anywhere; they're pulled. They're pulled from an asset, and it's going to come from the south. It will hopefully go through as many native communities as possible, or those people will miss their chance to put themselves on a road that they've been asking for for ages. That's all.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay, and that actually ties into something I'd like to follow up on that you said earlier. You talked about Australia experiencing movement from urban to rural. I come from a very rural area. We have strong energy development going on right now. It's keeping our young people in the area and doing wonders for our communities.

We're going to be doing a report from this committee. Do you have any suggestions or any more comments on how we might encourage that movement from urban to rural, or to isolated areas? It's sometimes difficult to get professionals to move to areas without amenities and that kind of thing. Do you, or others who may want to, have any comments on that aspect?

[Ian Brodie-Brown]

We need an advertising slogan like “Be Proud of It”. Let's put a little bit of advertising into our industry.

Every time there's a hot number one legal show--maybe it's this new Arctic Air TV show or something like that--advertising helps make these kinds of things exciting. People flood into the medical profession when that's the number one. We have those studies.

Without being trite, advertising about these things would be great. As I said, a “Be Proud of It” slogan or campaign would draw people in.

[Wes Hanson]

Innovation, I think, is the key. We have an opportunity here to develop mines that are probably the most technologically innovative mines in the world. That will attract young people and that will bring them into the northwestern Ontario region.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I only have a short time left. This question refers to that aspect as well, the technology.

Are your companies going to be allowed to pollute rivers and dump chemicals wherever they want?

[Wes Hanson]

Of course not.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay.

[Kirk McKinnon]

In fairness, you asked a question about the Ontario government. The Ontario government has a program right now for environmental control on the sites. It's actually a very good one, and they've mandated us to follow it, and we're doing that. I think it's done at a very high level. From what we see and what people are commenting on, everybody is very pleased.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

How strict are those controls?

I think Mr. Kilgour wants to address this issue too.