Finance Committee on Oct. 15th, 2018

[Nathan Schultz]

In short, yes.

I don't know that I would want to speak to exactly the right way forward in terms of the implementation of the dollars. As you can see from my brief, I've been leaning on the suggestions of other organizations. However, as you're describing it to me, I do think that would be a good way forward.

That's a horrible way to frame that. I'm sorry.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

No, that's excellent. What it does is that it shows the importance of providing supports.

You've spoken of increasing overall financial supports up to 9% of what we spend on health care generally, but the health care costs of not providing supports for mental health and addictions are enormous. Every family, including my own, has been impacted by mental health issues, and they often lead into addiction issues.

How would you characterize the provision of supports for mental health and addictions currently in the Yukon? Is it centred in Whitehorse? Is it available—

[Nathan Schultz]

Actually, I'm also a clinical counsellor with the Yukon government and provide service in Carmacks, across the river from Pelly.

They've implemented a new wellness strategy in the territory and are trying to provide service and support in the community. I don't want to speak too much to what they're doing because it would be going above my capacity as an employee with the government.

However, it's heartening to see the emphasis on collaboration with first nations in terms of allowing them to guide the process for what sorts of supports they want to see. It's also bringing the supports into those communities in the same way that we're trying to bring education into communities, so that people have the option to stay and the opportunity to have the support of their family and peers, and their first nation, while they're getting that support.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you all.

Peter, we'll probably have time for another round later.

Ms. Rudd.

[Kim Rudd]

Thank you.

Once again, thank you all for coming.

I have a couple of things.

To Kelsey and Catherine, could you give me a sense of your total operating budget for your organization?

[Kelsey Wrightson]

Over the last three years, we have had an operating budget of $2.5 million. That has allowed us to do program delivery across the Peel River, in the Dehcho region, as well as the core delivery in Chief Drygeese territory.

With that, we've really built up the capacity. We graduated a bunch of students, and we're now at the cusp of being able to deliver programming across the territory as well as expand.... Weekly, we have students looking to do short-course programming, full-semester programming, and we're just trying to meet them—

[Kim Rudd]

I read your brief, but I also did a bit of research. I'm very fascinated. My background is in post-secondary education, and mostly for adult learners.

Is there some sense of the ability to replicate this program across the north? Obviously, you have to start somewhere. You've made great strides, I must say, with the amount of money and supports you've had. Congratulations.

Now, what's next? I was in Iqaluit earlier this year and had the opportunity to talk to some folks about the Nunavut law program and the partnerships they're doing, as well as to meet with a number of mining companies around their need for labour and skilled trades.

As I'm listening around the table, collectively you're the solution. Between PDAC and MAC, and the companies and universities and you, you're almost the starting the point for all the rest of it to work.

Can you tell me a little about what thoughts you have about replicating this?

[Catherine Lafferty]

In terms of partnerships with indigenous governments particularly, there's a distrust with the government.

We have proven ourselves. However, we need to have the funds in order to come to the table and say we can offer these programs in their respective regions, that we're not just asking for their money and can actually meet them halfway.

[Kelsey Wrightson]

We also have students from across the north who have come to our program. Over the last 10 years, we've had numerous graduate students. We've seen them start to develop their own programs in their own communities, which I think is really heartening.

Especially in the last two semesters, we've had a number of really strong indigenous women who've gone back home and said, “This is something I'd like to try and do in my community.”

It's really incredible to see there are things that Dechinta and our program can teach that can then move to different places and be respectful of the cultures and the communities and the first nations that they are rooted in there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I just want to add that we have been watching Dechinta's work and the really wonderful groundbreaking things they're doing.

I would also add that Yukon College recently received a very significant grant of $5 million from the Mastercard Foundation. With that money, we are working on building all sorts of different kinds of strategies related to making sure there are more indigenous students going through post-secondary. That is the outcome they're looking for.

We have been putting programs in place in every community in the Yukon, related to trades and to women and children. We have a youth university, which is encouraging youth to get engaged in post-secondary. This summer we had a mobile science lab that went to every community in the Yukon to talk about science education.

We're working very hard to start that conversation early in people's lives, so that they can start thinking about what they want to be when they go to post-secondary education.

[Kim Rudd]

Thank you.

I'll go to Mr. Hartland, and to Patrick and Scott as well on the coordination that needs to continue to happen around tapping into our vast resources, especially in the north. Yes, of course it is about economic development, but it's also about community development and about opportunity.

Can you tell me a bit about what you said earlier in terms of how you talk to the same people but not necessarily to each other? What do you think collaboration among the three of you and your organizations might look like, and how might it provide additional heft, if you will, particularly for the projects you're presenting today?

[Samson Hartland]

We actually work very closely with our colleagues across the north. We haven't worked with these proponents specifically, but we work with the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines. Tom Hoefer there has been a long-standing leader of that organization. We coordinate it through the Canadian Mineral Industry Federation, otherwise known as CMIF.

We meet on the margins of PDAC. We also meet at Mining Day on the Hill and other opportunities in Ottawa to share and collaborate on issues of mutual importance.

You'll see that we've identified infrastructure and competitiveness as being our issues in the north. We've collaborated through those organizations, through PDAC and MAC, to communicate that consistent message.

That's why it's actually quite serendipitous that we have some consistent messaging this morning, even though we haven't met each other before. I've never met Patrick or Scott in my life, but we clearly share the same priorities and values and perspectives, and we're glad to have the opportunity to be able to have that emphasis here this morning for your members' deliberations.

[Scott Northey]

I have just one other thing to add. It's awful watching two white guys from the south talk this way, but at the heart of it we're hired to execute the vision of the Inuit. It's their vision and their product, and we're here to help execute it. Our project is unique in that sense.

The model of having Inuit as proponents is something that could be translated and transferred over to other jurisdictions. Both the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have multiple jurisdictions in first nations communities and have to find ways of bringing them into the fold, but my sense is that the Inuit tend to be a bit more united because they are one homogenous group. When they settled their land claim, the entire Inuit world settled its land claims.

This at least provides a model for indigenous proponency of essential lease and infrastructure, because at the end of the day there can be no regional infrastructure in any northern territory unless there is indigenous buy-in. If they can own and develop it, they'll buy into it.

That's the one thing I could say in terms of co-operation and providing a model.

[Kim Rudd]

Do you want to add to that?

[Samson Hartland]

Back here at home we also coordinate with other stakeholders as well, so we work closely with the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce, the Yukon Chamber of Commerce and the Yukon First Nations Chamber of Commerce, which represents all the first nations development corporations here in Yukon. We ensure that we have a consistent message coming out of Yukon through PDAC.

PDAC meets with Parliament quite regularly. I know they meet with your office and the Minister of Natural Resources to communicate those messages effectively. As well, the Mining Association of Canada hosts their Mining Day on the Hill, typically in the second week of November, so that's coming up fairly soon. You'll be hearing some of those consistent messages over and over again.

As we coordinate on project issues specific to jurisdictions like Grays Bay or, in our case, the Yukon resource gateway project, our specific approaches in our jurisdictions can be complementary to each other as opposed to competing against each other. We share the same value system on opening up the north to opportunities, but also, as you have indicated, Ms. Rudd, supporting communities in their growth and opportunities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

I think Mr. Duxbury wanted in and then we'll go to Mr. Kelly.

[Patrick Duxbury]

I just wanted to build on what Colette had mentioned earlier that a motion from the Kitikmeot Chamber of Commerce had been ratified and brought up at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce AGM in Thunder Bay late last month. That was endorsed by the other northern chamber of commerce territorial groups. It just indicates that, while as proponents we're working with partners ourselves, other entities and other groups are also recognizing the importance of this project and they're moving ahead with it. We had a very small role in getting that resolution passed, except to obviously explain the project to the members of the chamber of commerce in Kitikmeot, in which they did a lot of great advocacy work and obviously communicated with Yukon and NWT chambers of commerce and got something passed, which is obviously very important for us and we thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to everyone for appearing today.

Mr. Hartland, you mentioned that it's good that you and colleagues around the table have a similar vision and a similar message. That is helpful to the committee. When the committee prepares a report, the government, then the Minister of Finance can either accept recommendations, not accept them or disregard them as he sees fit. The committee is independent of the government. We make recommendations and the government ultimately decides what it will do.

I want to actually pick out one piece that you mentioned. What we've been tasked to do is to have a lens on competitiveness. The competitiveness of the Canadian economy is our theme, as our chair sometimes reminds us. You mentioned the carbon tax and its effect on exploration and the ability for businesses to be able to compete compared with other jurisdictions and choices for capital allocation. I would like you to expand on that a bit if you will. We have now seen the beginnings of carve-outs on the carbon tax for large emitters in manufacturing, but not any consideration on the primary resource industries.

I will let you comment on that, if you like.

[Samson Hartland]

Thank you for that opportunity.

I will just preface my comments. It probably would be important to know that Yukon's mineral exploration industry has been a primary driver of Yukon's private sector GDP growth over the course of a century—ever since the Klondike gold rush—and continues to be the largest sector employer of indigenous people, as well as supporting the quality of life that we've come to enjoy.

Having prefaced those comments, I think it's important to note that in Canada's north, given the remoteness of our mineral deposits, it's an energy-intensive industry that has very little option for fuel-switching opportunities. If we talk grassroots exploration, there are roads—Yukon has a number of roads—but to get to an actual mine site requires, for a grassroots prospector, lots of driving and lots of ATV exploration. It's difficult to get in and out of these remote areas, including with our junior exploration companies with helicopter costs and various other fuel costs. They really have little choice except to say whether we go ahead with that project this year or not. It makes a big difference.

Then, more close to home, I'd like to talk about the quartz mining companies. We have, or had, one operating quartz mine in Yukon, which has recently announced that it is going to go into care and maintenance as of last week. We understand that a couple of hundred employees will be laid off over the course of the coming month. Given that we're on the front lines of implementation of a carbon pricing regime here in January, we're concerned about what that means, not only for the current operation, of which there will be none now.... There will be two mines in care and operation, one of which is Capstone's Minto mine, a copper mine just north of Carmacks, and another one is the Alexco's silver mine just north of Mayo in the Keno Hill district.

When I say all of that, I want to also go back to levelling the playing field. There is a report we co-comissioned with the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, the Mining Association of Canada, Engineers Canada, as well as the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, that quantified the increased costs of operating in Canada's north. As I indicated earlier in my presentation, it's six times higher for explorers and two and a half times higher for operating gold mines compared with our southern counterparts. That self delineation is simply the 60th parallel.

I just want to say that with this increased cost, when mines are shutting down and when employees are being laid off, this is probably the least opportune time to introduce a new tax in our jurisdiction.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you, but you didn't even get to another thing that you had mentioned, which is the dependence on diesel for the generation of electricity in the north, which is widespread, of course. It affects all remote communities, in both households and businesses.

You have a moment here, at the committee, so do you have a particular recommendation on this? Would you recommend rescinding the tax? Would you recommend further carve-outs for the mining industry or for northern communities? Do you have any particular recommendations that you'd like to make to the committee on this?

[Samson Hartland]

Thank you for the opportunity.

In fact, we had written a letter to Minister McKenna on this topic and had provided a number of recommendations for consideration. We have said that, if exemption is not on the table, then consider what the Mining Association in Canada presented to you, which is delayed implementation. In December 2016, Pierre Gratton wrote about carbon pricing in northern Canada and he spoke to the need to balance the emissions mitigation with the northern mining realities. He provided a number of recommendations, which were mainly to “Phase in the carbon price on a different schedule in the North until the transitionary programs and investments proposed below have been established, born fruit, and facilitate economically viable pathways to emissions mitigation.”

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

May I ask, did she respond to your letter?

[Samson Hartland]

We have not received a response, although we have received indication from our local MP, Larry Bagnall, that the ultimate decision will lay with the Premier of Yukon. Our intent is to relay the same recommendations to the Premier of Yukon.