DIAND says no to Kitikmeot mine training scheme

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

The federal government has dealt a serious blow to Nunavummiut dreams of high-paying jobs in the mine industry, according to the territory’s business leaders.

Andy Scott, federal minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, was expected to confirm this week that he had rejected a bid to prepare Inuit for specialized jobs in northern mines.

Instead, Scott was set to announce $2.5 million in cash for other Nunavut projects under the government’s new $90 million northern economic development fund. The pot of money was announced in the 2004 federal budget and will be distributed over five years throughout the three territories.

According to government documents, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp. was one of the biggest winners in their efforts to bring broadband Internet to all communities across the territory. The NBDC took in nearly $500,000, the second-largest chunk of funding from this years’ list of approved projects in Nunavut.

But the Kitikmeot Corp. couldn’t convince the federal government to give $500,000 for hi-tech training equipment and programs for Inuit hoping to work in the mining industry.

The decision comes on the heels of a giant mining industry meeting in Toronto, hosted earlier this month by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. Delegates at the conference complained the country lacks a trained workforce for mining.

Clare Basler, the Kitikmeot Corp.’s CEO, said their proposed project was designed to prepare Inuit for jobs operating the massive industrial machines, such as drilling equipment.

He said the federal government was his only hope, to date, in finding funding for the project.

“Mining is happening in Nunavut, not just the Kitimeot,” Basler said. “If we’re not training Inuit for these jobs, they’re losing opportunity for employment.”

The Kitikmeot Corp. wanted to buy a rare and expensive simulator, shaped like a sea-can, that makes trainees feel as if they’re driving large-scale trucks and handling drilling machines.

Basler compares the mine training simulator to a flight simulator for pilots. The trainee sits in a chair surrounded by monitors that make them feel as if they’re on the job.

But in the long run, the simulator is cheaper and safer than putting trainees into the actual machines.

“We don’t send pilots up into the skies without basic training,” Basler said.

Similarly, Inuit shouldn’t be put in the driver’s seat of industrial equipment without some experience, he said.

Basler declined to estimate how many jobs would be lost to Inuit as a result of the project being rejected.

However, he noted that the Ekati and Diavik mines in the Northwest Territories would each have at least 100 jobs operating specialized equipment. The expected mines in the Kitikmeot, the Jericho diamond mine and Miramar’s Hope Bay gold mine, would be smaller operations.

Mike Vaydik, head of the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, said the industry is screaming for trained workers right now, since the demand for specialized skills will only increase with the opening of more mines. Construction for the Jericho mine is expected to start this spring.

“This is big equipment that they’re using,” he said. “You don’t hire a helper to handle it. People who get hired are typically hired when they’ve done the training on the simulator before.”

The project’s rejection came despite major support from the Nunavut Economic Forum, a coalition of 37 businesses, artist groups, chambers of commerce and Inuit development corporations.

Federal documents show the NEF put the project in its top 10 recommendations, but Ottawa chose to focus on others, including:

* an electromagnectic survey of the southern area of Baffin Island, by the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, worth $1,000,000;
* a Southampton caribou harvest feasiblity study, by the government of Nunavut, worth $100,000;
* and a GN market analysis of skilled labour in mining, worth $100,000.

Smaller scale projects included an experimental char fishery in the Kivalliq, and a fishery labelled “Meta Incognita.”

But other projects were cut because the funding took too long to process, according to Alistair Campbell, the NEF’s acting executive director. He said some fishing industry projects fell through because they needed the money before the end of the local season last year.

Campbell said he hopes the federal fund will run more efficiently over the next four years, adding that projects should ideally be approved at the beginning of the fiscal year, not the end.

Campbell added the federal government should also review its criteria for rejecting the Kitikmeot project.

“Now’s the time,” Campbell said. “Let’s not wait for the mines to open and find there’s no one to work there. Let’s train the people now.”

Indian affairs officials rejected requests for interviews about the fund before they were announced late this week.