Bill C-17 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, in particular by repealing the provisions
(a) that authorize the federal minister to delegate any of his or her powers, duties and functions under that Act to the territorial minister;
(b) that exempt projects and existing projects from the requirement of a new assessment when an authorization is renewed or amended and there are no significant changes to the original project as previously assessed;
(c) that establish time limits for assessments; and
(d) that authorize the federal minister to issue binding policy directions to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board.
The enactment also amends the Yukon and Nunavut Regulatory Improvement Act by repealing the transitional provision relating to the application of time limit provisions enacted by that Act to projects in respect of which the evaluation, screening or review had begun before that Act came into force but for which no decision had yet been made.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that Bill C-17 would do is to repeal some disturbing provisions that were in a previous bill, one of them being the time limits that were imposed. I would like the minister to comment. One needs to not only consider the fact that the previous bill would have unilaterally changed the umbrella agreement, which in itself is unconstitutional, in my view, but imposing time limits on constitutional rights is problematic as well. I would like the minister to comment.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

moved that Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House today, acknowledging we are gathered on traditional Algonquin territory, as we begin the second reading debate on Bill C-17, an act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, or YESAA.

I would like to begin by highlighting the tireless efforts of my colleague, the hon. member for Yukon. Without all of his hard work with and on behalf of his constituents, we would not be where we are today on this critical legislation for Yukon.

The government believes that a sustainably developed resource sector is essential to the success of the Canadian economy and, if we get this right, will serve as an important foundation for future economic and job growth. However, unlocking this economic potential must be contingent on environmental sustainability and on impacted indigenous communities being engaged as equal partners. This is not only an indigenous issue, but one about which all Yukoners are extremely concerned.

Our government is absolutely committed to renewing the relationship between the crown and indigenous peoples in Canada on a foundation of recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership.

This not just a moral obligation, but a legal one, particularly in regions like Yukon, which are subject to comprehensive land claim agreements and self-government agreements.

Yukon is an inspiration to the rest of Canada, with so many self-governing nations and with our needing more and more first nations to get out from under the Indian Act and become self-governing. It is very important that the work we do together in partnership is well-communicated to all Canadians as an example of how things can be when we get it right.

The YESAA, as members may know, was passed in 2003 and stems from the umbrella final agreement between Canada, Yukon first nations, and the Government of Yukon. As required under the umbrella final agreement, a five-year review of the YESAA was launched under the previous government, resulting in 76 recommendations, 72 of which were agreed to by all parties. Unfortunately, despite spending years working with Yukon first nations on a comprehensive review of YESAA, the previous government added four further controversial changes at the end and pushed them through, absent meaningful consultation.

That ill-advised approach led to pointless litigation between a number of self-governing first nations and the federal government with respect to the previous bill and compromised the potential development of resources by undermining legal certainty.

By contrast, after months of discussions, Canada, Yukon governments, and Yukon first nations signed an MOU last April that outlined mutually agreed upon steps toward addressing the first nations concerns with respect to the changes to YESAA made in previous Bill S-6.

Bill C-17 is an example of what can be achieved when government works in partnership with indigenous communities at the very beginning of proposed changes. Yukon first nations were consulted from the very beginning, including on the draft legislative proposal. As a direct result of this bill's collaborative origin, Yukon first nations pursuing related legal action have adjourned their hearing dates while this bill proceeds. This bill would re-establish trust with Yukon first nations and restore legal certainty for responsible resource development, paving the way for increased investment, development and jobs.

The bill introduced in the House of Commons on June 8, 2016, would repeal the four provisions of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act that have caused the most concern.

Legislated time limits on the review process; exempting a project from reassessment when an authorization is renewed or amended unless there has been a significant change to the project; ability for the federal minister to provide binding policy direction to the board; and ability to delegate the federal minister’s powers, duties, or functions under the act to the territorial government.

With respect to the legislated time limits on the review process, the government believes that the more appropriate and consistent approach is to adhere to the timelines in the board's current rules that have historically matched or exceeded the limits under the Bill S-6 amendments.

The government of Canada believes that resource industry project proponents, indigenous communities, and other governments should work hard to reach consensus.

Canada, Yukon, self-governing Yukon first nations, and industry have agreed to continue to work in collaboration through the regulatory process to establish practical timelines.

In terms of reassessments, the need to evaluate projects requesting renewals or amendments is best determined on a case-by-case basis as informed by the clear policy guidelines created by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board. The board is best positioned to work in partnership with industry, first nations, and Yukoners to develop new policies, where required, to address project changes.

Yukon first nations are also strongly opposed to the idea that the minister could give binding policy direction to the board, as they feel this is inconsistent with the umbrella final agreement and jeopardizes the independence of the board. We agree.

Moreover, the current wording of the provision allowing me, as minister, to delegate any or all of my powers, duties, or functions under YESAA to the territorial minister may also be inconsistent with the umbrella final agreement. We do not support the pursuit of a unilateral or bilateral delegating authority, as it is not in accordance with our commitment to building respectful nation-to-nation relationships with first nations based on partnership, collaboration, and trust.

When I was in the Yukon last month and had the opportunity to listen to Yukon first nations and the representatives of the territorial government, I came to understand that this bill truly represents a consensus. I also recently received a joint letter from the Council of Yukon First Nations, Government of Yukon, and the Yukon Chamber of Mines confirming their support for Bill C-17 in its current form.

In that March 13, 2017 joint letter, they state clearly:

The Government of Yukon, self-governing...First Nations, Council of Yukon First Nations and the Yukon Chamber of Mines look forward to seeing Bill C-17 passed, without change, as soon as possible.

It goes on to say:

Your support for the passage of Bill C-17 assures us that the Government of Canada is genuinely committed to reset the relationship between Canada, Yukon and Yukon First Nations.

Once ancestral rights and titles are recognized, once lands and waters are protected, and once genuine partnerships exist between local and indigenous communities, responsible resource development projects will proceed, and they will do so faster and with greater legal certainty.

I urge all members to support this bill.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, the bills on the agenda for the coming days are Bills C-25 on diversity in corporations, and C-17 on the Yukon.

I would like to note two things for next week.

Next week on Wednesday at noon, Malala Yousafzai will make an address to Parliament. Following the address, the House shall meet at 3 p.m. for statements by members and question period.

Last, for Thursday next week, the House will sit according to Friday hours.

[Members sang Happy Birthday ]

Alleged Actions of Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs in Chamber

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to the point of privilege, I want to add my two cents to the question of privilege raised by my hon. colleague the House Leader of the Official Opposition, and I will conclude my remarks by asking for unanimous consent for a motion.

There is no doubt that the minister's actions were inappropriate, but more to the point, they were entirely misplaced. The lack of respect in dealing with the bill in question firmly rests on the shoulders of the government House leader not the Conservatives. The government made the decision to try to shoehorn the debate on Bill C-17 into the tiny 30-minute window before the budget. It was not the opposition that did that. Perhaps the minister should just march on down the front bench and channel her anger where it actually belongs. She should demand that the government House leader call it for debate this afternoon or maybe even for all day tomorrow.

I would like to ask for unanimous consent for the following motion, that the order of the day for tomorrow, Friday, March 23, 2017, shall be Bill C-17, an act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act. Let us just get on with it.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I do admit that yesterday during that vote I did cross the floor and point out to the opposition House leader that the premier of Yukon and Grand Chief Peter Johnston were in the gallery, right over them, and were particularly disappointed that the debate on a very important bill, Bill C-17, did not take place because of the games that were being played in the House. I—

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with the debate on the Conservative opposition motion.

After today, we will have one remaining opposition day in this supply cycle. That debate will take place on Tuesday, March 21.

Tomorrow we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-22 concerning the national security intelligence committee of parliamentarians. That debate will continue on Monday after colleagues return from the constituency week.

I should also mention that a take-note debate on Operation Unifier will take place on Monday evening.

Wednesday we will commence consideration at second reading of Bill C-17, an act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, until 4 p.m., at which time the Minister of Finance will make his budget presentation.

Thursday shall be the first of four days of budget debate, also referred to as leaders' day.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, and Ms. Stubbs certainly would ask questions if she were feeling better today.

To follow up with Mr. Serré's point, I think it is fairly evident that batteries don't work as well in cold weather, and you are dealing with some of the most extreme temperatures in Canada. While Tesla might work nicely in Toronto and Vancouver, battery-powered D10s are not on. Obviously, there's room for improvement, but to suggest that an entire fleet of heavy equipment can be switched over to battery power, I think, is...certainly not in the short term, and not with the current technology that we have.

I wanted to go back to the proposed changes in Bill C-17. I'm a bit concerned that the Klondike placer miners were not consulted on the carbon tax being imposed on their industry, and they were not consulted, as well, on the Bill C-17 changes to repeal a number of improvements to the regulatory regime in the Yukon.

Could you give me an indication of what is the current average time frame for a project for your industry, if you're going into a new area or if they're reconsidering putting you through the wringer again for a project that has not had a significant change? What are the current timelines from the time you submit your application until you would expect to receive final approval to proceed?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for coming, especially our witnesses from Yukon. As I'm sure Larry can tell you, it's not always an easy trip. It's getting easier, I think. There are more flight options now, but I bare the scars of being the parliamentary secretary for aboriginal affairs and northern development when Bill S-6 was passed, and we had a day in the Yukon when we talked with placer miners, the mining associations, and with Ruth Massie and the Yukon first nations.

Obviously, things were proposed in Bill S-6. There were time limits on the review process to bring it in line with the rest of Canada, exempting projects from reassessment unless there's been significant change, allowing the federal minister to provide binding policy direction, and the ability to delegate to the territorial government on certain issues, so I think those were the four main issues at play.

Have you been consulted? You mentioned in your brief that you'd like to be consulted. Obviously, you weren't consulted before the current Bill C-17 was tabled in the House. Has the government reached out to you to get your point of view subsequent to that tabling, and do you have any comments on those four issues, which are the most important to the placer mining industry, in terms of what was in Bill S-6 and what is proposed to be removed in Bill C-17?

[Mike McDougall, President, Klondike Placer Miners' Association]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

My name is Mike McDougall. I'm the president of the Klondike Placer Miners' Association. With me is Jonas Smith, our executive director.

Our organization represents approximately 160 family owned and operated placer mines in the Yukon territory and an industry upon which the modern Yukon was founded. I'm a multi-generational placer miner. My father was a placer miner. My wife, of course, is with me in the operation, and so are our children.

Since the days of the great Klondike gold rush, our industry has consistently provided a solid foundation for Yukon's economy. We've delivered employment opportunities for Yukoners and we generated tax revenue for government. Unlike many Canadians in the resource sector this year, many of our members have had a good season primarily due to a low Canadian dollar and a reasonable U.S. dollar price for gold. However, the current low oil prices have also played a significant role as the placer industry consumes a considerable amount of fossil fuels.

Now a brief note about placer mining. The business of placer mining is to recover gold that is free in gravels, and the gold has been placed in those gravels by natural processes over many millennia.

Miners use heavy equipment to remove the overburden and we process the underlying gravels to recover the gold. Gold is separated from the gravels by using water and gravity methods alone. We're significant users of diesel fuel in our processes not only for our heavy equipment but also to run the generators, power our camps and places where we prepare food for our families, but also to enjoy hot showers sometimes after a day in the pit. Solar and micro-hydro options are utilized where possible, but there's currently no alternative, economic or otherwise, that could displace the fossil fuels from our industry.

We're very concerned about the potential detrimental effects a carbon tax would have on our industry and on the economy of Yukon.

We support initiatives to promote efficiency and innovation, but making our cost of living and doing business more expensively will not reduce our consumption of fossil fuel. It will just make it harder to provide for our families and to contribute economic opportunities to our communities. If the federal government is truly interested in reducing emissions, we would like to see a focus on fewer financially punitive measures to encourage increased efficiency and reduce consumption.

Canada and Yukon are blessed with an abundance of natural resources, including our human resources. Our land has endowed us with raw materials that are sought after across the globe. We have the ethical and environmental workplace standards as well as the ingenuity to be world leaders in responsible resource extraction. Our placer industry has developed and incorporated cutting-edge technologies and environmental reclamation techniques as it has evolved over the last century.

We would like to see our government utilize tax cuts as opposed to tax increases as a means to incentivize further improvements. Programs such as educational opportunities to teach miners about new technologies and access to low-interest loans to take advantage of such technologies, or to upgrade to more efficient equipment, would all be options that we would like to see explored.

Almost a half of all first nation self-government treaties in Canada are with the Yukon first nations. This creates a unique set of opportunities for the first nations involvement in resource development in Yukon. First nations citizens are fully integrated into our workforce, in our communities, and really in our families as well. Their participation in resource development is also enshrined in Yukon's environmental assessment process, which is defined in the land claims agreements.

This legislation, the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, YESAA, came into force in 2003. YESAA defines much of how the placer industry's operations are assessed for impacts and how these impacts are mitigated. Placer mining is the single-largest client of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board.

In 2015, the former Conservative government passed amendments to YESAA that were intended to address issues with the assessment process that have compounded since its inception in 2003. However, due to a lawsuit resulting from failure to properly consult first nations, our Yukon member of Parliament, the Honourable Larry Bagnell, has campaigned successfully to rescind them, and Bill C-17 is currently awaiting second reading in the House of Commons.

To be clear, the KPMA respects and fully supports the Yukon first nations' position to be meaningfully and adequately involved in the consultation process. However, what was lost in the process and the politics is the pressing need for these changes.

Issues such as costly and time-consuming reassessments for unchanged projects, inconsistency and lack of accountability between designated offices, and a lack of clear timelines all leave our industry with uncertainty. The amendments were meant to bring YESAA into line with the other Canadian jurisdictions, provide certainty for investment, and allow the Yukon to be competitive. As the government is now prepared to amend this legislation once again, we would like to see these issues addressed in the amended bill.

The federal government has heard the concerns of the first nations. As the number one client and end-user of the YESAA process, the KPMA expects that government will engage with us prior to finalizing any amendments.

I would like to thank all honourable members again for the opportunity to speak today. I look forward to expanding on my comments in responding to any questions you may have.

Indigenous Affairs

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to thank the hon. member for Yukon for his hard work on this file.

Bill C-17 is a great example of what can be achieved when governments work and listen in partnership with indigenous people and communities. The bill will pave the way for responsible resource development, increase investment and jobs, and re-establish a true partnership with the Yukon first nations.

I want to commend all of those who worked hard on these amendments, and the member for all of his work as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Before I adjourn the meeting, I have a quick question on an unrelated matter for members.

Staff from the office of the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs have asked me to put a question to you. Earlier this week, the minister tabled Bill C-17 in the House to amend YESAA, the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act. Typically, we wouldn't get the background information on that bill until it's redirected to us for study. That hasn't happened yet, but the minister's staff is offering that background information now if we'd like to have it.

It probably wouldn't be redirected to us till the Fall, so it's just an offer to have the stuff up front, a little bit earlier. If everybody's willing, I'll let them know they can forward that.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)