Environment Committee on April 24th, 2023

[Shane Thompson, Minister, Environment and Climate Change, Government of the Northwest Territories]

Thank you very much.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Ms. Goodridge on the birth of her little new addition to her family. I had the opportunity to meet with her in Fort McMurray at the Arctic Winter Games.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm located on the traditional territories of the Tlicho first nation and Fort Simpson Métis.

It is unfortunate that despite our request, we were unable to have an indigenous government leader from the Northwest Territories here with us to provide their input. I would highly recommend that you reach out to council leaders in the NWT to gain their perspective first-hand.

This issue is about people and the environment, not politics. All water in the Mackenzie River basin flows into the NWT and ends up in the Arctic Ocean. I live in Fort Simpson, a community located where the Mackenzie River and Liard River meet. Our legislative assembly is in Yellowknife, which is on the shores of the Great Slave Lake.

For all northerners, in particular indigenous people, water is life. Northwest Territories residents from Fort Smith on the Alberta border to Inuvik and beyond the Arctic Ocean rely on water from the Mackenzie basin that comes from upstream. The Slave River, Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River are used by northerners for hunting, trapping and fishing. Thirteen of the 16 NWT communities downstream of Alberta use river or lake water for their drinking water. The water is at risk of impacts from development that occurs outside the NWT.

We have a comprehensive water management agreement with Alberta that was signed in 2015. The agreement is not just about water quality and quantity, like others; it is about co-operation, mainstream ecosystem health, protecting traditional use and effective management of transboundary waters. We need the Alberta government to honour the terms of this agreement. We were not notified of the Kearl Lake mine incident or the Suncor spill that took place last week.

I recently met with the Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas. Minister Savage has assured me that Alberta will notify the NWT of any spills as soon as they are aware and will work on improving communications. They are supportive of an NWT indigenous member sitting on a transboundary bilateral agreement or management committee on the federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous working group in addition to the Government of Northwest Territories representative.

People are increasingly concerned and scared about the effects of oil sands development on the water, land and air in the Northwest Territories.

I was just in Fort Smith at a community meeting and recently in a governmental council meeting with indigenous government leaders. From the NWT indigenous leaders to the individual residents, trust in government's ability to keep their waters safe has been lost. This trust needs to be rebuilt. The Government of the Northwest Territories and the NWT indigenous representatives must be involved in the working group and committee struck towards rebuilding trust.

In closing, I will not support the plan to release treated tailings water from the oil sands into the Athabasca River unless the NWT is convinced that it is done safely.

I would now like to turn things over to Deputy Minister Dr. Erin Kelly to give a short presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Dr. Kelly.

[Dr. Erin Kelly, Deputy Minister, Environment and Climate Change, Government of the Northwest Territories]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present the GNWT's perspective on the Alberta oil sands and tailings ponds today.

I am here today in Yellowknife, which is in Chief Drygeese's territory of the Yellowknife Dene First Nation and home to the Tlicho and Métis people.

Water is life for the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Indigenous concerns about upstream development led us to collaboratively develop the “Northern Voices, Northern Waters: NWT Water Stewardship Strategy”, which formed the interests that were used to negotiate a bilateral water management agreement with Alberta that was signed in 2015.

An indigenous steering committee, which includes representatives from all regional indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, provided oversight on development of the strategy and continues to oversee its implementation. The indigenous steering committee was intimately involved in the negotiations of the agreement with Alberta, and an indigenous member from the Northwest Territories negotiating team liaised with the indigenous steering committee.

The Northwest Territories indigenous member on the bilateral management committee, which oversees implementation of our transboundary agreement with Alberta, is nominated by and is a member of the indigenous steering committee that guides the implementation of our water strategy. Regional representation on the indigenous steering committee is the same as the regional representation on the NWT Council of Leaders. Each regional indigenous government in the Northwest Territories nominates its member on the indigenous steering committee.

Our agreement was designed to support co-operative management of transboundary waters by provincial, territorial and indigenous governments and indigenous organizations. It's linked to the federal government through the transboundary waters master agreement for the Mackenzie River basin and the Mackenzie River Basin Board. The federal government plays an important role in transboundary water management.

Our agreement is much more comprehensive than traditional water quality and quantity agreements such as the Prairie provinces agreements. In addition to water quality and quantity, our agreement includes groundwater; broader ecosystem measures, such as biological indicators; and valuation of ecosystem benefits. It also incorporates traditional knowledge. It ensures that an indigenous member from each jurisdiction has a seat at the bilateral management committee decision-making table. The agreements have been established to respect and uphold the terms of NWT indigenous comprehensive land claims, self-government agreements and treaties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Excuse me, Dr. Kelly; we're a minute over. You can have another 10 seconds, which is fine, but if not, you could leave it to the question period to bring out the information you want to get across.

[Dr. Erin Kelly]

I will leave it to the minister.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

From the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, we have Mayor Sandy Bowman.

Go ahead for five minutes, Mayor Bowman.

[Sandy Bowman, Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo]

Tansi, edlanet’e, bonjour, and good morning, everyone.

Through the chair, I'd like to start by thanking the honourable members of the committee for this invitation to be here today. It's appreciated. While continued dialogue is very important, I wish this meeting were taking place under different circumstances.

My name is Sandy Bowman, and I'm the mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. I'm joined here today by our chief administrative officer, Mr. Paul Thorkelsson, who will be here to answer any questions you might have about the municipality's work since learning of this situation.

You are all now aware of the issues at hand and the points that everyone has made. You've heard recently about what's going on, so I won't go too much into that. Today I'd like to provide you with some additional perspective.

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is often known as being the home of Fort McMurray and the heart of Canada’s energy sector. However, it's much more than that.

The region is on Treaty 8 territory, the traditional lands of the Cree and Dene and the unceded territory of the Métis. It is northern, remote and diverse, geographically and culturally. Included in that is Wood Buffalo National Park. It's Canada’s largest national park.

The region itself is larger than the province of Nova Scotia. It's home to 106,000 residents and nine rural communities, including six Métis communities and six first nations.

As a municipality, we are deeply committed to truth and reconciliation with indigenous peoples and communities and we are proud of our northern and indigenous history and heritage. That heritage was very much on display during the recent 2023 Arctic Winter Games, which we were thrilled to host this year.

In recent decades, we have gone from a small town to a boom town to what is now a hometown. We've all experienced the highs and lows that go along with that journey.

Our people are hard-working, resilient and generous, and we are a representation of Canada’s diverse culture. Aware of what our people have contributed to Canada’s collective economic and social prosperity, we are a place where people come from all around Canada and the world to build a better life for themselves and their families.

One part of the region that is truly special is Fort Chipewyan, where indigenous people have been since time immemorial. As you know, it is home to two first nations—the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation—as well as the Fort Chipewyan Métis community and 847 residents who are part of our municipality.

Fort Chipewyan is the oldest settlement and is only accessible by water and air for nine and a half months out of every year. During the winter, the municipality funds, builds and maintains a winter highway to connect Fort Chipewyan to the rest of the region. It’s no small task for a municipality, but it’s something that is essential and important.

We also work alongside the Fort Chipewyan community to deliver municipal programs and services that are common in many parts of the country. This includes the operation and maintenance of the water treatment plant in Fort Chipewyan. We are the organization that is responsible for providing and maintaining safe drinking water in the community and across the region.

As I've heard from several elders over the last few months, water is life. Everyone in Canada deserves access to safe water, and they shouldn’t have to worry or be concerned about that access. We've continued to provide safe drinking water to Fort Chipewyan and elsewhere, even since learning of the Imperial Oil release.

My regular conversations and meetings with elders, Chief Adam, Chief Tuccaro, President Cardinal, and leaders and community members have made the importance of access to safe, clean drinking water quite clear. They've also made it very clear how understandably concerned they are about what happened and about how the overall process needs to be improved now and in the weeks and months ahead. There is much work to be done, and we are both here to support the community in any way we can on the path moving forward.

Since we've been made aware of the incident, AER has communicated very well with the municipality by phone, by text and by calls. I have to definitely give them a shout-out for what they've done since learning about this.

I'll just note, since I have a couple of minutes left, that it was a big win for the Oilers last night. Everyone is probably pretty happy about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Sandy Bowman]

I also want to congratulate Laila Goodridge on her newborn baby, who arrived four weeks early.

We'll be here to answer any questions if you like, and I'll drop a quick good luck to the Toronto Maple Leafs, considering where I am right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

I want to let you know that, in addition to the witnesses who have spoken to us, we have representatives from Environment and Climate Change Canada with us. They are here as resource persons, so we can ask them questions as needed.

We are starting the first round of questions.

Mr. McLean has the floor.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On a personal note first of all, Mr. Pushor, let me apologize for the way you were treated differently from all other witnesses at this committee. It's usually not done that way.

Mr. Pushor, you're the president and CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator, a quasi-judicial body acting at arm's length from any government, set up this way to make sure we engender trust in the way we develop our resources in Alberta.

I recall your appointment four years ago, and it was received in Alberta among the industry and among people as being refreshing. We were looking for you to fix what was a broken regulatory system at that point in time. Communities and industry had found, prior to your arrival, your organization to be aloof, non-communicative, and I will say unresponsive to everybody who came your way, and this is all based around trust, so communities need to have trust in the regulator, especially when it's a quasi-judicial arm's-length body. I would say that trust, as we've heard from so many witnesses through this testimony, is not there.

The first person I've heard who said you actually have reached out to them on many occasions is Mayor Bowman here, and thank you for that, but every other organization says they don't trust your organization. Therefore, after four years, do you feel you're succeeding in fixing what has been a broken organization for a decade?

[Laurie Pushor]

Just on a minor point, I've been here three years at this point.

The journey at the Alberta Energy Regulator has been not as smooth as one might have hoped when it was originated. It was brought together from at least three different parts of government and its predecessor, the Energy Resources Conservation Board, and through that time got involved in some things around international consulting that resulted in a number of investigations in the period prior to my arrival.

Those reports into those proceedings had just arrived, so we did a number of things at that time. About a year ago, we invited the auditor general back in, and they reviewed their recommendations around making things right in that space and concluded that we had met their expectations in attending to those things.

In addition to that, there's been a great deal of effort to try to reach out more and be more engaged with communities across the piece. Unfortunately, the pace hasn't been quite as fast as we would have wanted it to be. I'm not making excuses, but obviously COVID made it a little harder to move out and about and around the province. However, we are trying to move across the province and come into relationships with people so that it isn't always formal. When we know who we are and they know who we are, it's easier to reach out and—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Pushor, thank you. I only have a little bit of time here, so let me get to the question.

This was easily a communication problem, and potentially more than a communication problem. Numerous communities downstream from the seepage that happened last year in May did not receive adequate notification from your organization that their drinking water was safe. Inasmuch as testing was going on for what looks like three months between May and August, it didn't appear that people were assured that they had verification that there was nothing wrong with their water. Water is an essential, and people need to have assurances that drinking the water, bathing in the water, having their children bathe in the water, isn't going to harm them. Where did this communication fall down, in your opinion, and how can we do better next time?

[Laurie Pushor]

Notwithstanding what the rules are and what the procedures are, it is clear that we did not meet community expectations in this case, and as I've said, we are open and receptive to good engaged conversations with communities.

When you examine the notification procedures under EDGE and other places, one of the principles that's established is that the first communication should come from the producer. It should come from, in this case, Imperial, and as you know, our investigation will examine Imperial's conduct throughout this incident.

In addition to that, our board of directors has begun an independent review of our internal processes and what we did and whether we met expectations of our own processes and communications protocols, and hopefully will also make recommendations on now to make it better.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Okay.

I'll recap something that Imperial has said.

They demonstrated that they went through their process, which was informing the environmental committees of the indigenous organizations. That wasn't good enough; whole communities were at stake here. Whole communities needed to understand whether their water was safe. If their water's tainted, let them know it's tainted and take precautions accordingly.

On top of that, the environment minister in Alberta didn't learn about this until February of this year. What's missing in the protocol so that even the environment minister isn't aware of what's happening with your organization?

[Laurie Pushor]

My understanding is that the federal and provincial governments have agreed to review the entire communications protocol in this instance. We are very receptive to learning whatever lessons and changes need to be made in order to make this a more effective and deliberate process.

Notwithstanding all that, we have awareness of, and a better grasp of, people's expectations of us. We are doing our best to step up our communication and to communicate freely—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Pushor. I have pretty limited time here, so let me just make some observations.

In regard to water safety, I think for communities' sake, overcommunicating, and overcommunicating for the government, is probably better than under-communicating. I think we've heard that loudly through this committee. For the trust of the public, it should have been a principle from the outset for your organization to make sure that people know about the safety of their water and their air.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. The six minutes are up.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate all the witnesses who are here in person today and those who are joining virtually.

To Mr. McLean's point, I don't think we have just a communications problem here. We might have a cover-up problem. We don't have just a pollution problem. I think we have some serious governance problems at play here.

The Alberta Energy Regulator first learned of the seepage happening in May of last year, but it never actually informed anybody until the environmental protection order was issued for the second event, which was in February of this year. Why was this ongoing seepage not reported to the federal government, or the Northwest Territories for that matter, considering the intergovernmental agreements that are in place between the Alberta and federal governments and also the Alberta and Northwest Territories governments?

[Laurie Pushor]

There are a number of extensive communications protocols in place. The EDGE system, as I mentioned earlier, is a government-to-government agreement that involves a number of regulators and a number of governments. That system has procedures and protocols outlined in it. I understand that the province and the federal government have agreed that those procedures and protocols need to be reviewed to determine what happens.

As I mentioned in my earlier comments, this was an evolving situation as more research was done over the course of time to understand what initially was reported as some orange iron oxidization staining on the land. As we work through that, and I think as we work through the independent review, we are going to learn a great deal about, in a unique circumstance like this, the kind of communications changes we need to make so that everybody can be informed.

Of course, our investigation will also examine Imperial's conduct and whether or not their performance was as it should be and whether or not there is room for improvements there as well.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

My next question really revolves around this: What level of disaster would need to take place for this information to be communicated, then?

[Laurie Pushor]

The protocols outline some very clear things. For Environment and Climate Change Canada, they establish their protocols. One of the data points that Imperial has reported, which has been verified by the other testing, is that there has been no evidence presented that this reached a waterway, and that was delineated as part of the work that was done. That work has been verified by further testing. Some we've done ourselves to verify the results that Imperial is providing to us, but there is the also the environment ministry in Alberta as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada.

At that point, I think some really important conversations need to happen to strengthen and improve matters around tailings in the oil sands.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

When Imperial first notified the AER of the ongoing seepage in May of last year, why wasn't there an environmental protection order until the second event took place, which was in February of this year?

[Laurie Pushor]

As I've said, this was a bit of a different situation in terms of seepage. It took some significant analysis and testing to understand what was happening in the ground and where it was coming from. As that was verified and as we worked through our regulatory protocols, we reached a conclusion in January that an environmental protection order would be necessary and appropriate. At that time, we also knew that we needed to step up the communication extensively.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

In just the last week, we've seen two very significant events that were reported by industry: the Suncor event and the six million litres from their settling pond that made its way into the Athabasca, as well as the bird kill event that Ms. McPherson mentioned earlier.

What is the Alberta Energy Regulator doing, if anything, to proactively prevent these types of damaging events from taking place, or is the regulator simply waiting for when the industry will next decide to report such an event taking place?