Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
So as part of the public briefing this morning, the government's presentation stated that in return for accepting this relief, the diamond mines agreed to several commitments including to use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain operations until their planned closure dates. So can the Minister explain whether the commitment to use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain operations represents any change whatsoever from the status quo or, rather, would we always expect businesses to use commercially reasonable efforts in everything that they do? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of ITI.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly in the Northwest Territories, we do always expect businesses to use reasonable efforts, to use local employment, local labour, and to really ensure that collectively and as a community we're really focused on benefit retention for Northerners. That said, I can't predict what would have happened but we were in the face of a very difficult decision that some of the diamond mines were facing. We know that globally it is a very difficult market for diamonds right now, and we also know that in the NWT that diamond mines provide a lot of our GDP. They provide upwards of 21 percent. They provide a lot of funding to businesses. They provide a lot of jobs to Northerners that Northerners rely on, and so what we were investing in were those jobs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the department explained in a briefing that the property tax relief is a, quote, "temporary measure." So does this mean that if profits rebound, we should expect the mines to repay the subsidies? So by "temporary", is this meant to be kind of a temporary loan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the relief in the form of property taxes and foregoing the property taxes was a one-time, one-year-for-this-year relief measure that the Government of the Northwest Territories, under direction of Cabinet, took. It is not a long-term solution. It is a right now -- an acknowledgement of the global diamond market and cost of doing business in the Northwest Territories and also the significance to northern employers, to northern workers, that the diamond mines play. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister also said in her statement that these subsidies are not about supporting mines; they're about supporting people. So if that's the case, did the Minister consider investing the $15 million directly into retraining and supporting the workers or the Indigenous development corporations so they can be better prepared to transition once the mines do close, whether that's a year or a few years from now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm all about return on investment. I think that we should be putting our dollars into places where we have a significant amount of investments.
In regards to the dollars that we did invest in the diamond mine relief, we end up with over $2 billion in annual exports, a thousand jobs for Northerners, joint northern spend of almost $900 million and $69 million in tax revenues annually to the GNWT. So I feel like that's a pretty darn good investment. That being said, I do agree that we do need to have education because education does last forever, unlike our diamond mines, which we do know.
In regards to the diamond mines, they all employ apprentices, and all of the companies that contract with them, a significant number of them, employ apprentices. They're doing workforce development. The Indigenous development corporations also have workforce development plans and are working on exactly what the Member is talking about. And without the dollars from the diamond mines, they can't sustain that. They're also working on social programming, they're working on housing developments. And so, really, this is more than just supporting diamond mines. This is supporting Northerners. This is supporting Indigenous businesses, and this is in support of our future economic development as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
