The Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories. Opened in 1998, it was the first of Canada’s diamond mines. Photograph courtesy of SkyTruth on Flickr.

Since 2019, 44 per cent of Canadian diamond exports have been to Belgium, according to an analysis of  Statistics Canada’s Canadian international merchandise trade data by industry.

At 4.6 percent of Canada’s exports to Belgium, diamonds are the largest single product exported to the country. Belgium is Canada’s 8th largest European trading partner, and 13th overall.

Maxim Ramon, a counselor at the Belgium Embassy in Canada, says Belgium has a long history in the diamond trade.

“The city of Antwerp has been the world capital of diamonds for over five centuries,” Ramon says.

Ramon says this doesn’t just come from the city’s appetite for diamond products, but from its long history of cutting and refining rough diamonds.

Ramon and Fabienne De Kimpe, a trade commissioner at the Canadian Embassy in Belgium and Luxembourg, estimate that approximately 80 per cent of the world’s diamonds pass through Belgium.

De Kimpe has worked in Canadian-Belgian relations for over 20 years and was part of the group that oversaw Canada’s first foray into the international diamond trade in the late nineties. She says the diamond market is unique in that diamond producing countries such as Canada often have the upper hand.

“With other products, it’s the producer who is trying to sell,” she says. “But for diamonds, it’s the contrary: the buyer is trying to buy.”

De Kimpe and Ramon say the landscape is changing. Belgium does not have the monopoly it once had, as other competing countries enter the industry.

Ramon singles out India in particular as a rising power in the diamond trade. India is the second largest importer of Canadian diamonds and accounts for 33% of Canadian diamond exports according to an analysis of the Statistics Canada data. Ramon says India and other competing countries are largely focusing on importing rough stones, like the ones Canada exports, to be cut, so the number of polished stones coming to Belgium remains largely unaffected.

Since the opening of the Northwest Territories’ Ekati Diamond Mine, Canada’s first diamond mine, in 1998, the Northwest Territories has been the major force in Canadian diamond mining, as it is the home of most of the country’s mines. The territorial government is aware of the position this places them in and knows they have to consider the greater impact of mining.

Dianna Beck, a senior socio-economic specialist for the Government of the Northwest Territories, says the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, passed in 1998, the same year the Ekati Diamond Mine opened, enforces environmental protections, as well as Indigenous rights, another major area of concern for the government.

This is done through a number of environmental assessments the sustainability of the mines, as well as consultation with Indigenous people to receive permission to use the land for resource extraction, according to the government’s mandate. The government is aiming to finish updating these frameworks in 2022 and 2023.

Beck says all new mines in the Northwest Territories undergo an assessment not just of their environmental and economic impact, but on how they will impact Indigenous people who live near the mine. Beck says this includes water and land rights as well as employment opportunities. The government’s 2019 mining employees report says that almost one third of all mine workers from 2009-2019 identified as Indigenous.

Internationally, the industry has changed in the past two decades with the introduction of the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process is an agreement by 82 countries to regulate and end the sale of what Ramon calls “conflict diamonds” or “blood diamonds.”

According to its website, the Kimberley Process has reduced the sale of these diamonds by 99.8 per cent since its inception in 2000.

De Kimpe says most of these diamonds came from Africa and Canada played a leading role in developing and implementing the Kimberley Process, but the increased attention in ethical mining has made many countries reevaluate their mining industries.

The process is based around inspections of diamond mining and trade in order to provide a certificate for diamonds that meet the standards. This proves to the buyer that the diamond is “clean.”

De Kimpe says diamonds are so important to Belgium that at the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, where most diamonds that come to Belgium arrive, there is a customs centre where these certificates are given.

At its annual plenary, held digitally from Nov. 8 to 12 this year, the Kimberley Process began discussing how to digitize these certificates.

The Kimberley Process, increasing environmental concerns, and the rise of other countries in the global diamond trade all make for a very complicated and changing industry.

For Ramon, the Belgian government needs to keep meeting these challenges to “keep Antwerp where (it’s been) for so long.”

“And hopefully longer,” he adds.