Environment Committee on April 17th, 2023

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Chief Adam, Chief Tuccaro and Mr. Grygar for their very powerful testimony today and for highlighting the major breach of trust that has occurred not only to you but also to other downstream communities.

I'll start with Chief Adam. We wish your father-in-law all the best and hope that he recovers his health.

To my understanding, there are 31 Dene and six Inuvialuit communities downstream from the Kearl site. There are a number of Métis communities as well. My understanding is that there has been a gathering, or at least a discussion, with all of those nations. To all those nations, water is sacred. In your culture you depend on it for food and for drinking water.

Could you perhaps amplify the mental health impacts, the psychological impacts and the worry this is causing all those communities, based on your recent meetings?

[Chief Allan Adam]

Yes.

When it comes to the issues in regard to safe consumption of food and water, after being notified about the spill from Kearl Lake and finding out that it was all true, I went back home to Fort Chip. I had to turn that tap on to cook my food. I drink two cups of coffee every morning. Where does that water come from?

Knowing that turning that tap on could be detrimental to my health, I had to take into consideration how many other people in our community felt the same way, and they didn't even know of this information yet. When I went home, knowing this information, I felt so alone. I did not know how to tell the people what was going on and sometimes would be called down for telling the truth.

I'm a good man. My dad raised me up to be a good man, and my mom did also. I don't hurt people. I try to give people a good life and the good responsibility of raising up their kids so that our life will continue on. Why do I have to come before the committee to defend our community again? When is all this going to end?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Chief Adam, for those powerful words.

I think Mr. Grygar wants to end it.

Go ahead, Martin.

[Martin Grygar]

I think the mental health impacts, the concerns, the lack of transparency and the continued lack of transparency are only causing more and more concerns among community members, especially when we're entering spring and everything is going to flow a little easier. I think we have to keep that mind.

We came out of COVID, and communities have been isolated. Indigenous communities have very social people. Now we're coming to where communities know that the tailings ponds were leaking or they were assumed to be leaking. This is the first case to actually validate everybody's concerns that these things were escaping outside of their control.

I also want to answer a question that was posed before. Yes, the CBAs keep things confidential. However, I think it's important to note that it was the duty of Imperial. For Imperial not to engage communities when they started their investigation and not to continuously release information and data as it was acquired was the initial breach to those CBAs. I think we need to keep that in mind. However, we still continue to honour the CBAs, because we maintain the trust in ourselves and respect for ourselves to ensure that Imperial has a duty to work with the communities and continues to work with the communities.

I will close with this. The communities of Métis Local 1935 and Fort McMurray 468 First Nation proposed a more collaborative proposal to work with Imperial, to collect data with Imperial and to look at human health impacts with Imperial. The response we got was that this was too complicated and we should give them a cost estimate for just the EPO technical review process. That is the fundamental break within the system where industry is self-regulated. When you leave an industry self-regulated, you expect them to behave in a manner that upholds the values of Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Madame Pauzé.

[Callie Davies-Flett, Regulatory Advisor, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation]

Can I answer the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Please be very brief, because Madame Pauzé would like some time to ask questions as well and get some answers, which are so important.

[Callie Davies-Flett]

The chief asked me to say something from the youth perspective when you asked about mental health. I think it's very important that we communicate that way, through the youth. I'm speaking as someone who grew up with industry. I was born and raised in the Fort McMurray region, and Fort Chip has a special place in my heart. My family is from Fort Chip. I go there every second week, or every week sometimes now with work.

As somebody who is just starting on my journey and starting in life, I question whether it's a safe place to bring up a family and to bring children to swim, as Chief Tuccaro said. I swam at the lakefront. Is something going to happen to me because I grew up with industry? These are mental health things and the questions we're asking ourselves.

Thank you to the chief for helping me say that today. It's very important to say that people my age and people who are younger than me are growing up with this. Either they're going to become so jaded that they're not going to look out for themselves anymore, or they're going to become more and more active in this process, so we should start moving on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madame Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here and for this truly touching and moving testimony.

When this case was publicized, Chief Adam reacted strongly, as did I.

I think I'll wait a few minutes, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Very well.

Chief Tuccaro, your hand is up. Is it regarding the sound?

[Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro]

No. I'd like to add to the mental health question.

First of all, the gentleman who asked the question made reference to the Inuvialuit, the Dene and the Métis in the area. I have a correction to that. You also have to remember that there is the Mikisew Cree First Nation in this area, downstream. Thank you.

As the chief in the community, I know that since the start of the year, we have probably had 18 deaths in the community. There is a crisis in the community. People are committing suicide. Is it tied to what's going on with the water and with what people are thinking is going on? It's something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

I truly feel where Chief Adam is coming from. I'll go back to the kids swimming this summer. How do we give them the peace of mind and certainty that they're okay to swim there? You have to remember that the swimming pool here in the community is only open from Wednesday to Sunday. The kids use these water bodies for swimming during the winter months when they can't access the swimming pool. I'm being questioned by parents: “What are you guys doing? How can you give me certainty that my kids can go into that water?” I'm going to be honest. As the chief of my first nation, I can't. I can't give them certainty.

That's why I'm saying this to the federal government, the Alberta government and everybody involved: You guys need to pick up your socks and quit having these meetings in silos and coming into the community. That's where we're getting the divide and conquer. One week we'll have Imperial Oil here and they'll say, “No, those are RMWB's questions.” Then RMWB comes into the community and it's, “No, that's for the AER.” I met with the AER on Friday, and I had the same question about kids swimming in the community. What did they tell me? “That's a question for ECCC.”

All you guys are doing is turning this little merry-go-round, and the people whose lives are at risk here are the people of the Fort Chipewyan community. We are sitting ducks. Nobody cares about us. This is the truth. It's profit over people.

Do you know what? We do have IBAs with industry players. As Chief Adam said, we are always the good partner on the other side, always thinking that they have our best interests in mind. How can we think or have assurance that they have our best interests in mind when we only find something out 10 months after the fact?

As a parent of two young daughters in this community, it's stressful. What Chief Adam said about turning on that tap was the same thing I thought about a week ago when I was taking a shower: Am I okay?

Imagine that, the undue mental stress just because we want to do something. You guys have every right to do whatever you want in your healthy communities, where you guys drink the water. If this were in Ottawa right now, I guarantee that there would be a crisis. When will indigenous lives matter?

I think you guys need to take a hard, serious look at this and think that the time is now, because if this were ever to happen along the Athabasca River, where one of the tailings ponds is actually situated.... If this were to go on, it would be the death of the Mikisew people—and all for profit over people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Chief Tuccaro.

Go ahead, Madame Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for delivering these testimonials, which I found moving. At the outset, I would like to say that if you have any documentation that you would like to send to us, please do so. We will most certainly read it.

Chief Allan, I want to tell you that your composure is remarkable. I've seen you on television a few times as your communities are subjected to unspeakable slurs, discrimination and direct threats to their health. This has not been going on for 11 months, but for decades.

Many years ago, the Alberta government and Health Canada had complained to the College of Physicians following the intervention of a family physician in your community, Dr. John O'Connor. Dr. O'Connor blew the whistle about the high incidence of cancer in Fort Chipewyan. For example, a very rare cancer, which normally results in the death of three out of every 100,000 people, had the same prevalence in Fort Chipewyan, where the population is only 1,000 people.

On a few occasions, you have asked Health Canada to do specific, comprehensive health assessments of your communities. Has there been any action on your request?

[Chief Allan Adam]

No, Madam, I did not receive any confirmation about what you asked in regard to the health issue.

Feeling the effects of what goes on and not knowing the future if we continue going down this path is a crisis on its own. The health issue that I talked about in the past—and I don't speak about it too much anymore—is still there. It never went away. It only increased.

You heard Chief Tuccaro mention that one of his friends passed away from bile duct cancer. You talked about Dr. John O'Connor. We were the first nation that lobbied on behalf of Dr. O'Connor to get his licence reinstated because of what Alberta did to him. It wasn't right for him to be punished and to have his doctor's licence taken away for speaking the truth.

I still hear from Dr. O'Connor. I talked to him last week. Do you want to know why? He took over the file of my father-in-law and will be his doctor. Do you know what he told me? “Chief, I'm worried that your father-in-law has bile duct cancer.” I did not want to hear that.

What they are saying is true, and we feel the effects of it. I'm trying to sit here before you, Madam, and hold back the tears in my eyes right now because of this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Lepine has her hand up.

Ms. Lepine, did you want to say something?

[Melody Lepine, Director, Mikisew Cree First Nation]

It's in regard to some of the work I've done on health and requesting a health study. We started requesting a health study in 2003 at the joint review panel hearing for the CNRL Horizon mine and the Shell Jackpine mine hearings.

We've been advocating for and requesting health studies for over a decade. Just recently, at the Teck Frontier hearing in 2019, we presented the federal government with a health study proposal. Health Canada and the federal government have that proposal and have sat on it since 2019.

This is not something we have not been requesting and pushing through various regulatory proceedings. That includes the federal government and joint review panels. There is a health proposal. We can give the requests and proposals on how to do a health study in the community; however, no action has been taken.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, please make a brief comment, as I would like to recognize Ms. McPherson.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I won't have had my six minutes, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You will have had almost six minutes, but go ahead.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I wanted to address Ms. Lepine again, because she is the one who initiated the complaint to UNESCO about Wood Buffalo National Park, which is dying, unfortunately. It is thanks to her that UNESCO came to study this park, where there is a lot of drinking water, once again, and which is located near indigenous communities. So I wanted to thank her for all her efforts to protect this very important body of water. Our bodies are two-thirds water, so access to clean water has to be what we call an essential service.

Ms. Lepine, are you still in touch with the folks at UNESCO? Has there been a ruling on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Ms. Lepine.

[Melody Lepine]

We launched a petition to UNESCO in 2014 calling on the federal government to take greater action on protecting Wood Buffalo National Park. We have hosted and co-hosted two reactive monitoring missions. The last one was last year. They are close to finalizing the report with recommendations to the federal government.

Wood Buffalo National Park will be addressed at the World Heritage Committee meeting this year. They may decide to make Wood Buffalo National Park a world heritage site, listed as endangered. However, the health concerns have been shared in our UNESCO petition. We have expressed the concerns to the World Heritage Committee numerous times, but again, no action has been taken on the health matters, specifically on protecting water quality, traditional foods and the flow of water into the delta. There are numerous compounding issues. This has the attention of the World Heritage Committee, and they will be making a decision this year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As an Albertan, I'm sickened by the testimony I've heard today. I'm so sorry that you had to come again and demand the rights that every other Canadian takes for granted. You have been betrayed by the AER. You have been betrayed by Imperial Oil. You have been betrayed by the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta. I am so sorry this has happened and that you have children who don't know whether they can drink the water. I'm sickened.

Chief Adam, the fact is that this isn't the first time you've had to come here. This is not the first time you've been betrayed.

My question is for you.

We are going to have representatives from the AER here. We are going to have representatives from Imperial Oil here. What would you like me to ask those representatives?