Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Chief Adam.
I am here today to speak on behalf of Fort McMurray 468 First Nation. Neil Cheecham was going to attend, but he's unable to attend today. I am honoured to speak on behalf of him and the community members.
Today is a day we all thought would never happen. More importantly, the errors in disclosure and reporting to the DFO and indigenous communities were disappointing. To this day, we are still waiting for a scope of work to get approved to review technical documents from Imperial. Even requests of Imperial to review more documents of water quality have been delayed and postponed, or the details that have been provided have been very limited. This obviously creates distrust among the communities and community members.
We live in a rules-based society. I will repeat that: We live in a rules-based society. However, the recent incident at Imperial Oil's Kearl plant has shown that oil sands operators, regulatory bodies and governments continue to behave inappropriately and value interest groups over trust and transparency. Therefore, today we seek to express the growing request that regulations and policies in remediation, environmental protection and restoration need to be grounded in the protection and continuance of inherent aboriginal and treaty rights in the area.
Fort McMurray 468 First Nation is a treaty rights-bearing indigenous community based in Fort McMurray. In 2021, Canada's United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act received royal assent and came into force. This is very important to the communities in this area because it allows them the ability to practise their treaty rights on this land when the oil sand operators wrap up their operations. This legislation provides a road map for the Government of Canada and indigenous peoples to work together to implement the UN declaration based on lasting reconciliation, healing and co-operative relations.
Critical to exercising our rights is the use of the region's extensive waterways, including, most importantly, the Athabasca River watershed. With that in mind, there is a growing concern with the tailings ponds that contain process-affected water and industrial waste water, which is currently estimated to be 1.7 trillion litres and covering 225 square kilometres. The increasing risk of seepage will have a detrimental impact on wildlife, traditional fish sources and drinking water. Tailings ponds and seepage issues are difficult to reclaim and create a growing concern about environmental impacts and impacts to human health, treaty rights and culture.
To reiterate Chief Adam's comments, the indigenous communities in that area have been suffering increasing rates of cancer. We've all assumed that these ponds have been leaking, and today is the first example where there's evidence of these tailings waters escaping their site.
Everybody brushes off the increase in the risk of cancer—those in indigenous communities smoke, drink and live an unhealthy lifestyle. I think it's important to understand that there might be other reasons for the increasing risk to indigenous communities in that area.
The recent incident in Imperial Oil's Kearl plant and the ensuing environmental protection order highlight serious regulatory management deficiencies. The lack of regulatory oversight and decisive action regarding the incident, coupled with an absence of early communication, meant that communities like Fort McMurray 468 First Nation and all the other communities in that area were potentially exposed to acute and chronic human health risks through multiple pathways—on the surface and potentially in groundwater.
Now there's evidence to say that it was winter and the wildlife wasn't prevalent—they were all asleep—and that drinking from frozen rivers or tributaries was probably not as important as maybe in the summer. However, the risk was there. It's still there, and it continues to be there.
The way the matter has been managed is further eroding our confidence in Alberta's regulatory regime, its issue-management capacity and its ability to protect our rights. Therefore, we would ask the people in this room to consider our comments and take into consideration targets and metrics that are meaningful for the industry and stakeholders, which are the communities that surround this development.
We need regulatory frameworks that regulate the environment, a regional assessment under the Impact Assessment Act and a cumulative effects study incorporating not just Imperial but Suncor, Synoil, Syncrude and all of the operators in that area. It's important to understand here that everybody considers their own little piece of pie. Everybody could bring up LARP, but that doesn't have enough teeth. There needs to be additional oversight to ensure that the cumulative effects of all operations are being considered.
Considering the detrimental impacts seepage has on the environment, we're also disappointed and concerned about the industry steering the regulations and politics in regard to releasing process-affected water and industrial waste water from these tailings ponds. I note this again: It's easy to make this water disappear, but the risk to the communities won't disappear.
The proposed plan to amend the Fisheries Act to consider allowing the release of process-affected water and industrial waste water from oil sands operations is a step backwards. It's another great example of how indigenous communities have been constantly overlooked, particularly in the absence of a cumulative effects assessment.
However, I do want to take a moment of everyone's time to thank everyone in this room for the partnership regarding the federal government legislation. It can help provide a road map for the Government of Canada and indigenous peoples to work together to implement the UN declaration based on lasting reconciliation, healing and co-operative relationships.
The CIWG is one part of the solution that offers indigenous communities a pathway to finding meaningful solutions that help lead to consent. The structure of multiple subgroups within the CIWG allows the opportunity for open and honest dialogue to achieve consent and alignment with Canadian constitutional law and, more importantly, indigenous law. I think what was missed before was the gap between indigenous law and constitutional law, which has caused conflict and rift among the communities. I think the CIWG offers a pathway to bridge that gap moving forward.
We have an ask today. Because the concepts of reclamation and equivalent land capability are usually derived from an agricultural or forestry perspective—historically with minimal input from indigenous communities and knowledge keepers—we would like to begin to focus on a more active regulatory framework to evaluate the protection level and develop and apply indigenous standards, where required, to traditional foods, land use and cultural practice, rather than use the default guidelines being utilized by the AER. The Government of Canada's regulations and policies are required to support remediation and restoration to allow indigenous communities to exercise treaty and aboriginal rights.
There is a community member, Velma, who is a very knowledgeable person. She's been there supporting this community for a really long time. Her saying is “we didn't do this to ourselves; we had this done to us”. This problem is not going away. An active regulatory process can help achieve meaningful results in this area.
Thank you.