Evidence of meeting #43 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Hughie Graham  President, Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce
Sandy Babcock  President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

No. A committee was called.

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

Right—it took a lot of time and a lot of multi-stakeholder consultation to arrive at an end product that people bought into.

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

That's correct.

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

You have a timeline. What is the timeline that YESAA works under?

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

It depends on the size of the project. Attached to every stage of a project, there are timelines according to which the YESAA committee, the review committee—depending on the size of the project and what levels it goes to—has to respond. Now this could include timelines regarding requests for more information, and there's also an onus on the proponent to come back with the required information.

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

If the proponent can't meet the timeline, can the proponent put up their hand and say, “I want a time out?”

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

Yes, as can the committee itself.

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

The body is an apolitical body, and it renders a decision to accept or reject the project. Is that right?

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

They actually are a recommending body. So they make a recommendation to Canada, Yukon, and first nations, I believe, to accept, amend, or reject

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

That's to the federal government, the Yukon government, and first nations governments?

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

Please don't quote me on that. It's been a long time since I looked at the structure of YESAA. I think who the deciding body is depends on whether it happens on crown lands or not.

10:20 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

So if a recommendation is made to not proceed with a project, can an order of government overturn that?

10:20 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

Which order of government can do that?

10:25 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

I have seen it with the Yukon government.

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

Okay. It goes through government for final sanction, then. So this is very much a recommendation body. It's not a quasi-judicial, decision-making board.

10:25 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

I'm sorry, it has been a long time since we looked at this structure and how it was working. The YESA Board actually rejected an application just recently.

I would have to get back to you, if you wouldn't mind. I would prefer to confirm that and get back to you.

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

Okay.

Ms. Babcock, the government is saying that it's going to pursue, really, a kind of principle of subsidiarity, meaning that they're going to defer to an existing environmental assessment regime if they judge that the regime is as robust as the federal one. Do you know whether the federal government is going to accept the YESAA process as being capable of substituting for the federal one?

10:25 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

It has been these last eight to ten years.

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

Right. So in terms of the ease with which projects are being managed in the Yukon, there is a marked difference because of YESAA, compared to the NWT.

10:25 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

We've seen a decision being made on a project within 30 to 90 days, for smaller projects. For one large project, projections were made, actually, that it could take up to three years if all the requests for more information or extensions were involved. A project could take up to three years, which is considerably better than what I think the NWT is experiencing. Seldom do we see it take that long.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you, Ms. Babcock, and thank you, Mr. McGuinty.

Mr. Daniel, you have up to five minutes. Go ahead, please.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON

Thank you very much, once again.

I'm going to focus more on how you are actually going to fulfill the sort of skills gap you're going to have with all these major projects coming online, etc. I really just want to pursue that line of thinking in terms of what major skills you're short of for developing all these projects that are coming online. That is to either of you.

10:25 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandy Babcock

If I may go first, one of the things the Yukon government has is a five-year capital projects budget. They overlay all other levels of government projects as well as private sector projects on top of this five-year plan. Then they do an analysis of what businesses are available to support these projects, what manpower is required, and what skills are required. So they have this inventory looking forward five years. They also have the ability to schedule some of their projects so that they're not putting too much pressure on the private sector, so that suddenly we see 10 companies come in, get the work, and then leave again, and we haven't strengthened our own business community because of that.

It's looking five years forward and trying to manage this type of growth that we're seeing. That's a really important piece up here.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON

Thank you.

Mr. Graham.