Training school in the works for Cambay

Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson was happy when Education Minister Ed Picco said his department plans to work “very aggressively” with the school system in CamBay to prepare the population for jobs in mining.

A yet-to-be-released GN Mines Training Strategy says there are “several hundred” jobs to come in the mining sector.

“The school shop is underutilized and needs to be upgraded,” Picco told Peterson earlier during the current session.

$1 million will go towards upgrading it into a mines training facility by 2008, which, Picco said, could offer programs to prepare students for a variety of trades and skills.

A suggestion from Peterson that the GN acquire the former Lupin mine for a mines training school may not work, however, because the mine is to be bought by mining company Wolfden, which bought the Izok Lake mine.

Wolfden plans to use Lupin for the processing of ore from the Izok, Hood and Gondor deposits, and potentially from the Ulu gold deposit, where Wolfden will be performing underground drilling in 2006.

“The acquisition of Lupin provides significant infrastructure which can be used to develop the Izok Project, one of the highest grade undeveloped base metal deposits in the world” Ewan Downie, president of Wolfden, said in a press release about the acquisition on Feb. 24.