Environment Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[Chief Patricia Faries]

That's one nation. That's the Moose Cree people. That's our area.

When you talk about development or any areas like that, right now it's the responsibility of the chief and council, basically, and we have processes that we're continuously developing that recognize the uses, the families, and development. Various processes like that are always ongoing.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Chantal, do you want to add a bit? I think your area is a bit bigger.

[Chantal Otter Tétreault]

Yes. I'm staring at the map, and I can see a bit our community of Waskaganish. We're more on the.... Obviously, that's Ontario or Quebec.

At the Cree Nation Government, we represent 10 communities. They each have their own pressures. In the south, it's more about forestry, obviously. More to the north, it's hydro or mining. We need to look at it globally, yet we need to keep their priorities at the front, you know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Front and centre.

[Chantal Otter Tétreault]

Exactly. When it comes to the south, we have to take into consideration that there's more development potential, so we need to find a balance there. They want to also have some protection, yet they face more development.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're kind of out of time. Do you want to do one more...? Will is up next. We'll go six minutes, but we won't finish the round. We said we would go until 5 o'clock. Then we have a second panel, so I'm very mindful of the second panel and their time as well.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

If you want to share, Will, I could use a minute.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I'll try to be quick.

Meegwetch. We appreciate your presence here on Algonquin territory. Pontiac, the riding I represent, has a big piece of that.

I appreciate your reference to the watershed in the Pontiac.

Mr. Branchaud, could you take a minute or a minute and a half to describe the collaboration that you would like to see between provincial, federal and Algonquin governments in terms of that part of western Quebec?

[Alain Branchaud]

The first thing to do would be to bring together officials from the various parties who are interested in a transparent process. At the moment, most of the processes in place are not transparent and do not include the various NGOs and parties. Transparency would prevent the often unproductive little turf wars that stop things from moving forward. That would be a first step.

There are various possible avenues of collaboration with NGOs, which work more with the private stewards of the areas to ensure corridors there. For example, in terms of nature conservation, it could be possible to link Gatineau Park with other protected areas. That is one aspect.

There would have to be discussions with the provincial government to see how a provincial national park could be established in either part or all of the watershed. That could be one option. Establishing mirror legislation could also be considered, as is done in other sectors, in order to create co-managed national parks, either with the First Nations or with the two levels of government. That is one of the possibilities.

So there are a number of options to consider. This is all about leadership and about making sure that civil society participates in the process. As long as officials and departments keep working behind closed doors, we will continue to be in the same situation where things do not move forward quickly.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you for those comments.

For the representatives from the Cree nation, what do you think the federal government could specifically do better to engage directly with your nation and with the Quebec government towards greater conservation achievements, either marine or terrestrial?

At the end of the day, what I'm seeing from my vantage point is not enough collaboration, and not enough willingness to put skin in the game and to commit to process, which does take time. Can you suggest what could be done, including budgetary allocations?

Mr. Quaile.

[Geoffrey Quaile]

I'll try.

First of all, I think, the big picture—and that's in play right now—is broad national targets on various things that everybody commits to equally and then works on together on to try to meet those targets, whether it's on climate change or whatever. More specifically, with the federal government, as Chantal mentioned, we do have an opportunity to work in collaboration on these coastal protected areas and marine protected areas, so that's something.

It gets a little bit trickier inland because of the various provincial jurisdictions. I couldn't hazard a guess on the best way to do that other than broad funding everywhere, particularly to the first nations people everywhere in Canada, because of the ability to have the funds to be able to research this kind of thing. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to develop plans for your own areas and traditional areas, and you need resources for that. I would say that probably assisting first nations first and then allowing them to work with both levels of government would be the best solution.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have a minute and a half.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Patricia, in your submission and your comments, which we received in advance—and thank you for that—you said:

...economic development must be sustainable and must be pursued in a manner that protects our cultural integrity and is consistent with our cultural pursuits and protection of our treaty and inherent rights.

I'm wondering if you can explain the process for determining when those principles have not been adhered to. How do you do that? Is it in an ad hoc fashion? Do you have a set process that you use to determine that? How is that handled?

[Chief Patricia Faries]

It's an interesting and great question, and I know I don't have that much time to answer it.

Our reserve is on the southern tip of James Bay, and recent development really just came in 2005. Our systems to have the capacity to deal with the influx of development are really evolving as we speak, to be honest. De Beers came up into our territory in 2005, and also OPG. We had to deal with Ontario Power Generation. We're also dealing with Detour Gold and with various companies that have stakes, with young junior mining companies that continuously come in. Our systems are not designed to deal with that, so our first nation has really had to reallocate or allocate our energies to deal with these people.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It sounds like currently it's done in an ad hoc fashion, as something—

[Chief Patricia Faries]

It really is.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes. Is your objective to move to a more process-driven approach so that you can assess those principles?

[Chief Patricia Faries]

Yes, absolutely.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It is your objective to do that.

[Chief Patricia Faries]

Yes, it is. I think it really has to be largely community driven. We've done a lot of the research now. We've set up the lands and resources secretariat, and that has all our family groupings, where the animals are, where the burial sites are, and where people are going for what time of season. Our map is really alive. It's a living entity. It continuously evolves as young people come in. We're very active up there. We're the only people up there in that territory, right, so I think it's critical—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much.

[Chief Patricia Faries]

—that we evolve that way.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Amos, for sharing your time.

[Chief Patricia Faries]

Thank you for the question.