Indigenous development corps. will be hit hard by N.W.T. diamond mine closures, report says

Nadeer Hashmi · CBC News

· Posted: May 21, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

With the N.W.T.'s diamond mines facing an uncertain future, immoderate Indigenous businesses are informing of the interaction the mines' closures could person connected section communities.  

Diamond mining brought successful implicit $104 cardinal successful gross to three N.W.T. Indigenous improvement corporations and created 355 jobs for section Indigenous radical successful 2023, according to a caller study analyzing the interaction of the diamond mines.

The study was commissioned by the Det'on Cho Group of Companies, Tłįchǫ Investment Corporation, and Metcor Inc., and done by economist Graeme Clinton. The companies are the economical arms of Tłįchǫ Government, Yellowknives Dene First Nation and the North Slave Metis Alliance, respectively.

Clinton recovered that jobs, some straight and and indirectly related to diamond mining, generated $39.6 million successful income for Indigenous workers. Those jobs were dispersed crossed the communities of Yellowknife, Ndilo, Dettah, Behchoko, Whatì, Wekweeti, and Gameti. 

Paul Gruner, CEO of Tłı̨chǫ Investment Corporation, called the figures "alarming." 

Gruner said with each 3 N.W.T diamond mines perchance approaching closure, the fiscal deed could beryllium huge. He says it is similar removing the large artifact that Indigenous corporations trust connected to proceed to function.

"It's benignant of similar having a three-legged stool. If you region 1 of those legs...how bash you present flooded large gross enactment items and employment?" Gruner said.

He said implicit the years, the gross generated from mining accrued the capableness of the Indigenous corporations to support other cardinal projects and initiatives to enactment the communities.

This includes multi-year lodging projects successful the Tłįchǫ region, a assemblage freezer task by North Slave Métis Alliance and Det'on Cho Logistics' enlargement into Nunavut and Saskatchewan.

"I deliberation there's been a truly large woody of payment that's been gained by the Indigenous communities and the corporations," Gruner said.

Gruner said the intent of Clinton's report is to rise consciousness and prosecute with some territorial and national governments to show the financial interaction of the mines' closures astatine the assemblage level.

"It puts a look to it. It's not conscionable a enactment item. These are precise existent people, families that enactment nutrient connected their array each day," Gruner said.

"Now we've got thing that we tin bring guardant to the national government."

Gruner said the territory needs to consider what its system might look similar going forward. He said that includes looking astatine processing caller mines for base metals, precious and captious minerals, and addressing infrastructure gaps to assistance get those minerals to market, helium said. 

That includes advancement of captious infrastructure like the Slave Geological Province Corridor, a $1.1-billion task that would spot an all-season roadworthy built betwixt mineral-rich areas northeast of Yellowknife and occidental Nunavut. The territory is presently preparing to participate the biology assessment phase for the projected project.

Outlook isn't great 

Leigh-Anne Palter is the CEO of Denesoline Corporation, the economical limb of Łutsel K'e Dene First Nation. She says her assemblage is small, distant and has already suffered astatine the hands of its erstwhile CEO, Ron Barlas, who was recovered by the N.W.T. Supreme Court past twelvemonth to person "abused" his presumption by funnelling millions of dollars from the Denesoline Corporation.

"The outlook isn't large for this assemblage successful particular," Palter said.

The First Nation has astir 800 members, and astir 300 live successful the assemblage itself, which is connected the eastbound limb of Great Slave Lake, astir 150 kilometres from Yellowknife. 

Lutsel K'e is 1 of the closest communities to the N.W.T. 's 3 progressive diamond mines and it has immoderate signifier of interaction payment statement with each one. 

Palter said without an progressive and viable mining manufacture oregon akin benignant of manufacture to instrumentality its place, "it would beryllium a precise important impact."

She said the workers who are already trained and moving successful the mining manufacture could spell elsewhere if the territory doesn't person an manufacture to supply opportunities to enactment them. That would past marque it adjacent much hard to reconstitute a viable mining manufacture successful the North. 

"We don't privation to lose each the gains of past decades successful presumption of grooming people, creating bully businesses to person them," Palter said.

Palter says with caller authorities policies and taxation breaks aimed astatine propping up the territory's diamond mines, things are looking much hopeful.  She besides pointed to immoderate bluish MPs, including N.W.T.'s Rebecca Alty, being named to the national cabinet. 

"With the predetermination present down us...I spot those arsenic each large signs," she said.

The territorial government's determination to temporarily trim spot taxes paid by N.W.T. mines is besides "very helpful," she said.

"[It's] precisely the benignant of enactment that we had been suggesting could beryllium taken to assistance with benignant of the near-term concerns, arsenic we enactment toward the longer word solutions," Palter said.