Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For a lot of these board positions, they have to deal with fairly complex technical issues, and there is technical training related to the various aspects of the environment or operations they have to deal with. As somebody said earlier today, 40 years ago Nunavut was a hunter-gatherer society.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Every exploration project starts at the desktop, where people go to the library, or now the computer, and they study an area, and they say that area has the potential for gold, diamonds, or platinum; that's the first step of any exploration project. Because Nunavut is so remote and it's covered with snow nine months of the year, there really hasn't been a lot of mapping and things like that relative to other areas that have this kind of prospectivity for mineral deposits.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I've had to use it a few times, and I think it's done a great job. It especially did a good job...when it was implemented there were still some major civil wars in Africa, and diamonds were at the heart of these civil wars—in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Angola. Very rapidly, it implemented a process of tracking and documenting diamonds, and it probably came close to shutting down this illicit diamond trade.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely, I'll just come in on both of those. Yes, we have been to the college in Pangnirtung and talked to them there about potential opportunities in mining. We've also been to the high school and talked to the local people. We've done this on a number of other projects. Really, the number one thing we like to tell people when we go to the schools is to do as well as they can—take their schooling as seriously as they can right now—because when the opportunity comes with a mine development or anything else, their getting the right education when they're young will prepare them as much for that future professional opportunity as some government-sponsored training program.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Responsible mineral development is taking into account the environment and all the regulations that exist. It's placing a prime importance on health and safety and the safety of the workers, and it's trying to maximize, to the greatest extent possible, the economic benefits and capacity building that can be given to local communities and local people.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  So far for us it's gone very well. A few of the people are actually sitting here from the agencies we work with. We have a good relationship. We just try to be very complete in the information we provide, and so far we haven't had any problems.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I have not.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This year there was an average of say 40 people on the site at Chidliak here, and I think there were seven people on the site at Nanuq where we employ two local people.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  First and foremost, it's going to take a couple more years of really detailed exploration. We only made our first discovery a little over one year ago, and we've made dramatic progress in that year. We've identified some significant diamond counts and some kimberlite pipes, but we have a couple more years of advancing our knowledge of the pipes we've discovered that have economic potential and of trying to discover as many more as we can.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We are working on some possible programs that exist here to participate in those, but we will also be doing our own training. These are exploration jobs, things like field technicians, camp maintenance staff, but we are going to spend a significant amount of time getting people up to speed in doing the jobs that we have now properly.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We haven't yet, because at the moment our project is early-stage exploration. In the positions we have right now, we don't have electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators, and things like that, but I know that several of our people are talking with various agencies about training programs.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Long before we would need them, we would begin those kinds of studies. We just haven't yet, but of course we would begin the studies long before we would start production.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There aren't any issues from my perspective. I think most of us, if not all, accept that if it's a park, it's just off limits, and that's gone forever. That's why I say that in considering future parks and things like that, we have to remember that once it becomes a park, by law it's excluded from mineral development forever, so let's not lose that opportunity if it's a possibility.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, I don't, because the range is just so great. The possible range is from a few billion dollars in the ground to many billions of dollars of potential revenue in the ground. It's really hard to speculate. It could be a mine with 60 or 80 employees; it could be a mine with 500.