Good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you this morning.
Ensuring that Canadian citizens can prosper in the future requires much more than an active economy. Canadians' social and physical health depends on the natural environment. No amount of economic activity can compensate if human social and physical health and the natural environment they depend on is impacted. For this reason, the Yukon Conservation Society is focusing on climate change and mining in these recommendations this morning.
As you know, climate change is impacting the north--first and worst. This is an ecological disaster, where polar bears are unable to hunt due to melting sea ice and massive insect infestations or fires are completely changing forest habitat. We read in The Globe and Mail this morning that evidently the pine beetle is moving north now, in addition to the spruce bark beetle. It's also an economic disaster, as infrastructure like roads, pipelines, and buildings are impacted by melting permafrost and communities that are dependent on the forest industry are left high and dry.
Mining has serious economic impacts as well as economic benefits, for example, on traditional livelihoods such as trapping and nature tourism. It also creates boom and bust economies, with the concomitant social and health issues.
There is a long history of mines that have left environmental disasters in their wake, such as the Faro Mine in northern Yukon, which is likely to cost the federal budget $500 million to clean up and will leave a permanent legacy that needs to be monitored and maintained.
We are therefore recommending that the federal budget end subsidies, such as the super flow-through share program for mining and exploration and to instead create tax incentives and subsidies for mineral recycling and economic initiatives based on a healthy environment, such as developing national parks and supporting community stewardship initiatives.
Enhanced funding is essential for the cleanup of abandoned mines and for monitoring and regulatory oversight of mining and exploration. For example, here in the Yukon, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is creating a new regime to manage placer mining. Without adequate resources to monitor water quality and fish health, the new regime will not be effective.
A Canadian climate change strategy must immediately begin freezing carbon dioxide emissions and then begin sharp reductions. Tax incentives for renewable energy are needed, combined with an end to subsidies for oil and gas. There should be carbon taxes on oil and gas production and consumption. Public transit within and between northern communities also needs federal support. Energy conservation through energy efficient buildings and renewable energy sources must also be encouraged through education and financial incentives.
It's essential that Canada's climate change plan develop a strong focus on the north, because as we said earlier, it's here that the impacts of climate change first appear.
In summary, we're recommending a freeze on carbon dioxide and related greenhouse gas emissions; long-term funding for EnerGuide-style programs and low-income energy efficient housing; tax and other incentives for renewable energy; ending subsidies for oil and gas; tax incentives for energy efficient vehicles; taxes on vehicles that are inefficient; funding for initiatives in education that help Canadians to reduce greenhouse gases on an individual level; funding for mitigation and adaptation as well as modelling; continued federal involvement with programs like the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Arctic Council's “Arctic Climate Impact Assessment”; and a focus on the north for climate change initiatives.
Under mining, we're asking for enhanced funding for the cleanup of orphaned and abandoned mine sites; funding for enhanced regulatory oversight, particularly by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with regard to the Yukon's new placer regime; tax and other incentives for mineral recycling; economic initiatives based on a healthy environment, such as developing new national parks; and supporting community stewardship initiatives rather than mining exploration.
Finally, cancel the super flow-through share program for mining exploration. That's a federal tax incentive for exploration. Instead, concentrate on mineral and metal recycling. Simply cancelling the super flow-through share program and the investment tax credit for exploration could bring in $105 million per year, which is currently lost by the federal government.
If you are still interested in making yet more cuts and saving more money for Canadians, this would be a good way to do it and switch over to funding metals recycling instead.
Thank you very much.