Mr. Chairman, as an avid fisherman and passionate admirer of the Yukon, I want to talk tonight about a great industry that has existed in the Yukon for over a century while at the same time our natural, healthy fish stocks have continued. I implore everyone here tonight to do everything in their power to ensure this part of Yukon life, of our Yukon heritage, survives.
In the 1890s the world was in a great recession. In August 1896 Skookum Jim, George Carmack and Tagish Charlie discovered flecks of gold in Rabbit Creek, subsequently named Bonanza Creek, and started the world's greatest gold rush.
Dawson and Yukon did their part for Canada. They pulled us out of that great recession and now it is our turn to do our part for them. Miners, 30,000 of them, rushed from all over the world. Dawson became the largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle, and the salmon survived.
When the thousands left for Nome, the great dredges came and mechanically washed thousands of tonnes of earth, and the fish survived.
Mr. Chairman, let me tell you why the fish survived and why this is such a clean industry compared to others that can dump chemicals, fertilizers and carcinogens into our water. Placer gold is just nuggets and fine gold-like sand. The process of cleaning it out is to wash it. Because gold is heavier than the other elements, it is taken out by gravity. That is all there is to it. There are no chemicals, no poisons and no carcinogens as there are in other industries, just water. So of course the fish thrive.
For all the history of European settlement in the Yukon, the famous creeks primarily around Dawson, Mayo and Haines Junction, have nurtured many of the great Yukon families. There are the great Yukon creeks of Eldorado, Bonanza, Dominion, Hunker, Sulphur, Indian River, Klondike, Black Hills, Thistle, Scroggie, Vancouver, Bear, All Gold, Too Much Gold, Gold Run, Forty Mile, Sixty Mile, Mazy May, Henderson, Haggart Creek, Burwash, Livingston, Duncan, Thunder Gulch, Seattle and 4th of July. And the fish thrive.
The gold rush brought the great Canadian poet Robert Service who wrote of the people and beauty of the Yukon and helped Canada become famous and brings thousands of tourists even today and helps build Canada's economy.
Placer gold mining is the heart and soul of the Klondike. Gold runs not only in the beds of the creeks but in the spirit of the people. Our placer mining must survive if we are to survive economically and with the soul of our heritage. And the fish thrive.
What of placer mining today? Placer gold mining occurs in less than .3% of Yukon's land mass. Yukon has one of the highest rates of unemployment in Canada right now. We all know how hard it is to create any type of employment in small remote communities anywhere in rural Canada. Yet after a century, placer mining continues to feed families of the Yukon.
The income and other taxes from $50 million yearly in the economy contribute to our ability to fund our schools, our health care system and our poor. And the fish thrive.
It is critically essential for our people that the placer mining industry survive. The Tr'ondek Hwech'in first nation is at Dawson City where most of the mines are. Its chief tells me that placer mining is important to the success of their great treaty with Canada in which they have potential placer gold, and the businesses they have just purchased that depend on the placer gold industry to survive.
Peter Nagano of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in first nation, after a century of washing hundreds of tonnes of gravel and earth, says that the highest densities of wildlife are all in placer mining areas. For the Arctic grayling there never was a decline, past or present, in the history of the Dawson first nation.
Parliament just passed a bill on endangered species wherein we enshrined traditional knowledge. We said it was important to put in a law because it is important in making decisions.
We should continue to listen to that traditional knowledge in this respect. The chief of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in, Darren Taylor, writes:
The Tr'ondek Hwech'in are descended of the Han Indians who are people of the river.
Our nation has relied on salmon stocks for thousands of years for our basic sustenance and continues to do so.
We could never knowingly support an industry that significantly damages those stocks.
He goes on to say:
Many of our citizens are placer miners or work in the placer mining industry. Our economic development corporation, Chief Isaac Inc., operates businesses that service and depend on the placer mining industry.
Many of our settlement lands were selected for placer mining potential.
The other largest placer major area in the Yukon is near Mayo in the traditional territory of the Nacho Nyak Dun. One of the most passionate defenders of placer mining I have heard, as I travelled around Yukon listening to people, was the former chief of the Nacho Nyak Dun, Robert Hager. The present chief, Steven Buyck concurs and states in a letter:
The Nacho Nyak Dun traditional territory is rich in mining history, and placer mines in particular have contributed significantly to the economic stability of Mayo.
The First Nation intends to build this capacity to generate the income necessary to be a strong, viable government serving the long term needs of our people.
How clean this gravel must now be. It has been processed over and over and some of it washed many times. That is why it is such a clean industry, when just earth and gravel are just washed.
There is not a single person in Canada who would suggest that there are not many other industries that have the authority through section 35 of the Fisheries Act or other regulations that add much more deleterious substances, such as oil, carcinogens and chemicals to the water.
Many modern placer miners have spent thousands of dollars to build settling ponds to produce the very clean, low sediment levels that they must now follow to meet the very strict water quality objectives before putting this clean water back into the stream, and of course, the fish thrive.
How many more hundreds of hours do I need to strive to make this point? How many more times can I say that this industry, at the heart of our heritage and economy, must survive and cannot be unnecessarily regulated out of existence? How many times must our senator, Ione Christensen, the KPMA president, Tara Christie, the mayors of Yukon and hundreds of placer miners and all the businesses they support and the thousands of Yukoners protest until we can democratically choose the way we want to live.
And the fish thrive.
If excessive regulations cause this industry, our industry, to go extinct, the results will be devastating.
I will close with quotes from two of hundreds of letters I have received from passionate Yukoners, from our families.
The first letter says:
I am just writing this letter on Christmas Eve. I just heard the most devastating news, and you are the only one I know that has the power to avert the tragedy in my life. I'm not sure how to go through Christmas and keep a good face for my 3 children when I don't know how we will be able to keep our house or vehicle, or even feed them in the New Year.
The second letter is from Axel Riemer, age 7, of Dawson City. He says:
My Dad works as a miner. His job is a good job. Why are you taking his job? I don't want my dad to leave. Please don't shut down mining. I like my dad at home. Thank you.
And the fish survive.