Nunavik businesses to tout their wares at trade show

Mining development in northern Quebec will help Quebec weather the global economic meltdown, according to Quebec premier Jean Charest, shown here at the right in the Red Room of Quebec’s national assembly with Makivik Corp. president Pita Aatami. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Curious about how Nunavik plans to develop economically in spite of the worldwide recession?

Then you’ll want to come to the Nunavik Trade Show, which takes place Oct. 20 to 22 in Kuujjuaq.

On hand there will be a gaggle of top political leaders from Quebec, including Premier Jean Charest, Nathalie Normandeau, deputy premier, and Serge Simard, minister of natural resources and wildlife, along with the top guns from mining companies like Xstrata Raglan, Virginia Mining and Areva Quebec, who will say how they plan to boost the economy of Nunavik and the rest of the province.

With the focus of trade show conference on “opportunities in difficult times,” expect to hear Charest, who is scheduled to speak Oct. 20, talk about how mining is the key to prosperity in Quebec and Nunavik.

It’s all part of Charest’s grand “plan nord” or plan for the North, which he launched in September of 2008.

“It’s majestic. And it’s ours, this region. It’s our future,” he said at the time, calling northern Quebec “a jewel with immense potential” due to its hydroelectric and mining potential, which includes nickel, copper, platinum, gold, silver, titanium and “even diamonds.”

Improvements to transportation are part of Charest’s vision for northern Quebec, and are likely to include the construction of “trans-taiga” road as well as more subsidies for air transportation, which Charest said would help the region’s residents, industry and tourism.

His plan also includes a recently-released mineral plan (at http://www.quebecmining.gouv.qc.ca), which Charest says will expand mining in northern Quebec, and, at the same time, respect the region’s environment and local communities.

It’s part of “an overall vision of harmonious economic development aimed at promoting social progress and environmental protection through wealth creation,” Charest says on the Quebec mineral strategy’s web site.

If want to know how others have actually managed to achieve this, you can also take lessons from Theresa Hollett of the Nunatsiavut government, who will provide trade show attendees with an overview of Nunatsiavut’s Inuit benefits agreement for the Voisey’s Bay Nickel project.

Hollett plans to tell how the Nunatsiavut government and mining company engineered an employment success story for Inuit, which contrasts with the ongoing Inuit employment problems at Xstrata’s Raglan mine.

There, after 10 years in production, only 17.9 per cent regular employees and trainees are Inuit, whereas at Vale Inco’s Voisey’s Bay nickel mine, about 200 Inuit are working full-time out of a total work force of 469— after only four years in production.

The percentage of Inuit workers at the Voisey’s Bay mine far exceeds targets for Inuit employment which were set out in the benefits agreement, Hollett said in an interview from Goose Bay.

Voisey’s Bay has changed Nunatsiavut for the better, she said.

“You see people who had never really had permanent work. Now they’re working half the year, making darn good wages. They can afford to follow their traditional lifestyle. You can see the people getting ahead,” Hollett said.

For more information on the trade show, go to .