Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 7th, 2008

[Gordon Peeling]

Our preference obviously is to move quickly. With a five-year review, you'll have ways in the future to fix any inadequacies that people may perceive once it is fully operating. But our view is to get it up and running.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

That completes the first round. We have time for a couple of questioners in the second round, so to the Liberal caucus for five minutes.

Mr. Russell, go ahead.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here. It's certainly a different perspective from some of the witnesses we've had, in terms of looking as a third party from the outside and seeing what impact that can have on your particular industry.

I note that when you made a comment--and you may correct me--you said that there aren't many small specific claims that you know of that are having an impact on your industry right now. Is that what you said?

[Gordon Peeling]

That's right.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

But you said you wanted to clear up that backlog in such a manner that you can get at the larger claims. Are you talking about the larger specific claims, or are we talking about comprehensive claims?

[Gordon Peeling]

I mean comprehensive claims, and larger land claims, and things beyond the $150 million limit. But that political agreement will deal with some of that.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Yes, because this particular bill caps it at $150 million, so when you say you want to get resolution of those larger claims, you're talking about the claims greater than the $150 million?

[Gordon Peeling]

And I'm talking about comprehensive claims. I'm not sure what level they would come in at.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Some may make it in under the $150 million; some may make it over the $150 million.

I guess the underlying premise here is that you want certainty as an industry, and you want clarity as an industry, in terms of not only larger specific claims, but comprehensive claims. I totally agree with you on comprehensive claims, that in fact we may have to look at some kind of process that not only talks about comprehensive claims in terms of resolving the outstanding ones--in terms of accepting them for negotiation and then going into negotiations--but there's a lot of talk about the implementation of comprehensive claims. Many times, even once a treaty is signed, the parties are bogged down in ongoing litigation about exactly what a clause means, or was intended to mean, and that type of thing. So I understand the need for clarity.

I just want to come back to your industry itself. In terms of the respectful relationship your organization is trying to engender between the mining industry and the minerals industry and aboriginal groups, it seems like one of the most problematic areas we have is the actual staking of claims, because there's a sense--and maybe I'm wrong--in the industry that the level of participation prior to staking is far less than the engagement they would have with an aboriginal community after staking claims.

What we have is a system where you can actually go in on the computer, as you said, and for a credit card that has a good limit on it, you can start staking out claims all over the map. Before you know it, a company--maybe one of your partners in this--has 200, 300, or 400 claims staked over aboriginal lands, or disputed lands in some cases, and even over lands that have been settled under treaty. For instance, I look at the Labrador Inuit in Labrador, the Métis in Labrador, the Innu Nation.

What kind of reasonableness test do you use in terms of your industry, in terms of the staking of claims? Because a lot of your Canadian mineral association people do stake claims, and you see it as part of the mining process.

[Gordon Peeling]

Most of our members would be staking claims around existing mine sites that would tend to have agreements. It's the junior exploration companies--which I don't represent and which I really can't speak for--where what you describe is often the case. They're small companies and they have limited resources to consult. But even there, their own guidelines in the e3 process, the environmental excellence in exploration, is also made available to aboriginal communities, and aboriginal communities should be using that document and demanding the performance that is described in e3 for any company that may enter on to their lands, staking or otherwise. Often there's a level of exploration that takes place on a reconnaissance level, where you've not necessarily staked specific ground yet.

We've even had consultations with government geoscientists from the Geological Survey of Canada about their need to consult. Even from a government science point of view, they need to talk to communities and consult with communities before they go on the lands. One of the Platinex issues is the surprise factor for a community suddenly realizing that somebody is out there drilling in basically their backyard, and they had no idea.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you very much.

Before I go to Mr. Clarke, I'll just remind committee members that we invited the PDAC, and unfortunately they were unable to come. In hindsight, I think we were right to invite them, and it's too bad they aren't here, because I think some of these questions would have been interesting to put to the Prospectors and Developers Association.

Mr. Clarke, you have five minutes.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

This will only take about a minute.

This is to the Mining Association of Canada. You mentioned consultation as a whole. You indicated that law cases coming up from civil suits hamper your exploration needs. Has your association considered, in consultation with first nations, speaking with elected officials—which you mostly do, I believe?

Do you also seek the opinions of the membership?

My rationale, from what I've seen in the past, is that band memberships of first nations reserves criticize not being consulted.

Has your organization thought about taking that approach?

[Gordon Peeling]

When we look at community consultation at a company level.... Clearly, you have to talk to the existing political structure in the community; you need to also consult the elders; you need to consult the community broadly. It's almost at three levels. Particularly if the activity is substantive, you need to consult the community widely. It isn't just talking to the chief or the band council; it really is much more than that.

Out in the area where you want to operate, there may be traplines and there may be other activities that not all of the community is aware of. You need to cast this net as widely as you possibly can.

[Pierre Gratton]

I want to add to this point to illustrate, too, how the industry has been evolving, it's becoming increasingly commonplace now for companies to have on staff community liaison officers who actually come from the communities where they're operating.

They're the go-between, in a sense. They have to be careful sometimes; they don't want to be perceived by their community as having been co-opted. They play a very important role, because they know from their community's perspective, and can provide the company with advice on, how to go about talking to and working with the elders, the political chiefs, the women in the community, and the youth, and they know how to do it in such a way that it's not going to go against community norms. That's becoming an increasingly strategically important role within the mining industry.

You're seeing it more and more. At first I saw it in larger companies like Diavik, those engaged in some of the bigger projects. There's a little project in northern Ontario at Lac-des-Îles, a palladium mine, and they have a community relations officer now from the community. It's becoming very commonplace.

If I may, I also want to pick up on another point that was raised a few times about the fact that this bill is dealing with specific claims. While the specific claims are not the primary concern of the industry—it's around the larger, comprehensive claims—in the experience of working with first nations, there's a big difference when you go into a community that doesn't have pre-existing grievances with the federal government on anything. It's a lot easier to sit down, in practice, with communities like that. Being able to deal with these more expeditiously helps us get to a point where you have a much more hospitable environment to negotiate with. So there are other less tangible but nevertheless meaningful benefits that come from this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you.

For the last turn, it's Monsieur Lévesque from the Bloc, for five minutes.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

As you know, I represent a region where most claims have been settled. That goes for land claims as well as general claims. This is a well accepted principle in James Bay and in Nunavik, which has a regional government.

You stated that the industry was engaged in consultations. When you carry out a project exclusively in a given community, do you consult with your members or with first nations?

[Gordon Peeling]

There are consultations at that level, and as you probably are aware with the example of Raglan, there are consultations at the Makivik Corporation level that cover a wide range of communities right across northern Quebec, literally from Val D'or over to Nain, over in Labrador.

When you get to that level.... We tend not to create new communities, so we look for that workforce to come from existing communities, and they might be within a 200-kilometre radius. It might be even beyond that in some circumstances, depending on the size of the operation, the opportunity that presents itself. Consequently, you would negotiate agreements with those communities, and maybe training requirements to create a body of educated specialists who could be employed by the mine site. You may identify business opportunities; the operation would work to see entrepreneurial and business spinoffs in the communities, etc.

It is quite a broad net at times, or it can be quite focused, depending. It's all regionally specific, really. There's not one way to describe this.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

You say that you hold consultations of some kind, depending on the territory involved. For example, last week, Makivik Corporation received a nice cheque from Xstrata.

When one community is recognized and another is not, how much time to you spend trying to work out an agreement with them?

[Gordon Peeling]

Again, it all comes down to the specific needs of the communities. There may be no difference in either case. The negotiation that we would have would be an interest-based one where both parties want to take advantage of the economic opportunity that is there: job creation, business development, investment opportunity, partnership, revenue flows to communities, revenue flows to business. That interest-based negotiation is likely to be a bit more focused in a settled-claim area, but it will depend on what the community needs are at the end of the day.

These agreements, from our side, always have to be respectful of and driven by the community needs. They are very different in every part of this country. And that is often a challenge for us, because you can't say I've done it here, so I can just go do it there and it's going to be very easy. Well, the reality is that it may not. It may end up taking two or three years to get to an agreement in some areas, just because the community may find itself having a very difficult time focusing and getting a community view, consensus, on how it wants to translate a need into specific demands with the company.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you very much.

This concludes our first panel today. I'd like to thank my colleagues for their questions, and I'd like to thank our witnesses, Mr. Peeling and Mr. Gratton, for appearing before us today. We've appreciated your input.

We are going to take about a five-minute break now so that we can get the video-conferencing equipment set up for our second panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I would ask members to take their seats.

Good afternoon, Mr. Paulette and Mr. Erasmus. Can you hear us?

[Chief Bill Erasmus, Regional Chief, Northwest Territories, Assembly of First Nations]

Yes, we can. Can you hear us?

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

We can.

My name is Barry Devolin, and I'm the chair of the committee. We would like to welcome you today.

This is meeting number 22 that we're holding regarding Bill C-30, an act to establish the Specific Claims Tribunal. We have heard from many witnesses over the past few weeks, and we are approaching the end of our hearings. We really appreciate that you gentlemen could make yourselves available today.

We will give you about ten minutes to make a presentation. I'm not sure whether one of you will present for the whole ten minutes or whether you will split that. I will leave the two of you to arm wrestle over the time.

After you've done your presentation, we will do a round of questions. I think we will probably only have time for one round of questions of seven minutes today. This is the first time I have chaired a meeting with a video conference, so I am hoping this will go well.

Gentlemen, if you could introduce yourselves first and then make your presentation, it would be greatly appreciated.