Environment Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We have run out of time. There's never enough time.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Can he come back again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

No, that's a bit much to ask.

Would you be willing to give five minutes for another question? We'll have just one more question period and then we'll call it a night.

Go ahead, Darren.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much. I didn't think I was going to get a chance to speak. I thought we were going to run out of time.

I just want to touch on a couple of things you said that really made me think. You said that it's not about consultation; it's about recognition. I thought that was really a powerful statement. Then you said the government encouraged competition over collaboration.

We spoke earlier about issues navigating multiple departments and agencies, like DFO, INAC, and Parks Canada, and you have ongoing negotiations right now for the national park reserve. My first question, if you could give a short answer, is about how far along in the negotiation process you feel you are.

[Chief Steven Nitah]

Like I said, we've reached a table agreement with negotiators on the establishment, so that's the relationship document that guides the relationship between Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and Parks Canada.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Can you give us any feedback on those negotiations, based on those issues we talked about, such as navigating different departments, multiple departments. Were there things that went well? Were there things that went poorly? I think you mentioned earlier about a couple of roadblocks that you had. Can you give us a sense of those negotiations and how you feel they went?

[Chief Steven Nitah]

The negotiation itself went fairly well. We started formal negotiations in October of 2010, with a restructuring of the parks with Parks Canada. We lost about six months of negotiations with illness. With other things, we lost another two months. We reached AIP stage in 2013, so that was an agreement in principle on the establishment agreement. We sat on that AIP until 2015, after the Government of the Northwest Territories assumed administrative control over all of the Northwest Territories.

We then re-engaged those discussions, after the Government of the Northwest Territories settled, and we reached a tripartite agreement between Canada, the Northwest Territories, and Lutsel K’e Dene on divvying up these Thaidene Nene areas of interest. Now it's 14,000 square kilometres as proposed federally protected area, 12,000 as a proposed territorial park, and another 2,000 where it's a wildlife designation area for caribou.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

The trust fund of $15 million, how do you envision that being spent?

[Chief Steven Nitah]

It'll be a legal instrument that will be owned by the first nation. The first expenditure will be towards the management operations of Thaidene Nene. No trust fund can be created in perpetuity, so every 25 years that'll be folded up, but the value of $30 million has to go back into another trust fund to go another 25 years. There will always be money there, in perpetuity, for the operations and management of Thaidene Nene.

The taxpayers of this country will have paid off their investment in 27 years, and after that, no taxpayers will be on the hook for the cost of Lutsel K'e's working partnership with Canada on the operations management of Thaidene Nene.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Just to wrap up then, do you have any suggestions about how the federal government might do things differently when negotiating deals like this in the future?

[Chief Steven Nitah]

One of the biggest challenges we had at the negotiating table was fettering the minister's authority. When we're talking nation-to-nation discussions, the minister has to be able to get into a partnership relationship with indigenous governments and be able to share responsibility and authority over those areas.

I'll leave it at that.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

You gave me everything I was looking for. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for that extra time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

That's all right.

I see disappointment. Some members didn't get a chance to ask some questions.

Would you be willing, should we send you more questions in the next day or two, at the most, to respond, to keep the dialogue going for just a little bit?

[Chief Steven Nitah]

I believe that Thaidene Nene is a damn good idea. If it has wings, I'll put wind underneath those wings.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Awesome. Thank you very much for coming back. We're not done, clearly.

[Chief Steven Nitah]

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We have more to learn. Thank you.

[Chief Steven Nitah]

Thank you for having me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I will adjourn the formal meeting, and in just a few minutes, we'll start the subcommittee meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.