Mining has played a key role in developing our Northern economy, several of our communities, much of our transportation infrastructure and all of our hydro.

Diamond mining has also recently enabled the NWT to enjoy the highest per capita GDP in the country.

It has also enabled many new Northern and aboriginal mining services businesses to develop.

These companies are paid hundreds of millions of dollars per year by the mines and are the source of many full-time, well-paid jobs and training opportunities.

The Chamber of Mines has held many meetings with ministers, MLAs, GNWT committees, the City of Yellowknife, the Dene Nation and other groups of politicians and officials over the past two years. The purpose was to warn them of the upcoming crisis in our economy as the diamond mines reach their mid lives and begin to produce at a slower rate. This will begin to happen as soon as 2012.

The warnings appear to have fallen mainly on deaf ears. In almost every meeting, what we heard is a litany of complaints about mining companies hiring southern workers.

The mines have signed a memorandum of understanding with the GNWT and are working to minimize the number of southern hires. The bottom line is, however, that the mines need qualified people to run and maintain sophisticated equipment and processes.

If they could find suitable qualified people in the North, believe me, they would hire them.

In addition to individual training programs at each operating mine, the industry has contributed to training 658 people since 2004 through the Mine Training Society, a partnership of government, mining, exploration and service companies and aboriginal groups. Without an industry to offer real jobs to train in, these opportunities would simply not be available.

Probably human resource managers at the mines get the same sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs that I have when I hear the school principal in one of our larger communities report the attendance in his school was 50 per cent for the year. Hiring Northerners would be much easier if candidates had even a modicum of a high school education.

I was heartened to hear Roy Erasmus, who heads up a government program to improve attendance, talk about the strong role his mother played in getting him and his brothers out the door to school every day.

It was the same at my house and probably at yours. Parents have the most important role to play in their kids' education.

We must all work to build a culture where it is smart to be smart if we are to be successful in the modern economy. With leadership and community commitment, our next generation of graduates can and should be the geologists, engineers, technicians, executives and managers who lead our Northern mining industry.

In a market that saw the price of diamonds plummet last year and many mine workers taking unpaid furloughs, the GNWT raised property taxes on the mines.

Traditionally, property taxes are levied to pay for local services such as roads, water and sewer and public safety. At the mines, none of these services is provided by the GNWT. That's what one would call a cash grab.

Additional cash grabs, such as a proposed resource tax, will only be temporary because every dollar that is paid in taxes increases the cost of mining and thereby shortens mine life.

The three diamond mines have contributed much to the Northern community already. Consider recreation facilities (Yellowknife multiplex, Kugluktuk arena), the Yellowknife anti-litter campaign (sidewalk sweeper), treatment centres (NWT Dementia centre, Bailey house), organized sports (Arctic Winter Games), education and training (Kimberlite Career Training Centre), and youth programs (Yellowknife's SideDoor Youth Centre).

In addition the mines have contributed not only cash but expertise in developing programs and facilities in Kugluktuk, Lutsel K'e, Whati, Wekweeti and Behchoko.

As we see the much vaunted pipeline sink into the bureaucratic and political swamp, perhaps it's time to give mining, the North's number one industry, some respect and attention.