Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 31st, 2009

[Stephen Traynor]

Certainly. That's why it's often very complex up north, given the ownership by Inuit, for example. They have responsibility for the land, so they would be responsible themselves for the ownership and how the mine operates, based on the environmental assessment from the impact review board.

If, for example, there is some disaster that flows into a body of water, it would, as you mentioned, be up to Environment Canada and DFO to sort it out; they would have their inspectors come in. A multidisciplinary group of inspectors would come in to deal with those issues, whether from the Inuit or our own group enforcing a water licence, or whether there's an issue with regard to water involving DFO or Environment Canada. Depending on where the mine is located and the nature of the environmental problem, as you indicated there is an appropriate response.

We have good working relations with all other federal departments in the north between inspectors, including aboriginals, and usually, if there is some sort of environmental issue, they as a collective go out to respond at the same time, so that everyone is able to understand what is going on.

In addition, in the north we have what is called the spills line. It's for NWT and Nunavut and it functions in a multi-disciplinary way between all the different inspection agencies and the aboriginal organizations. If you have a spill on your site, you call in to the spill line, let them know the nature of the spill, and let them know what your response has been to it. The organization that we put together for the spill line will distribute the information to all the appropriate regulatory bodies, and they will determine what the response should be: whether they need to go up to look at it right away or whether they can go out on their next routine inspection to make sure the company has done what they've committed to do.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemay, go ahead please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have two more minutes. You have nothing to add? That's fine.

Mr. Duncan, you have five minutes.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

We have infrastructure priority funds set aside for Clyde River for the cultural facility, for the Yellowknife bypass road, for Yukon water treatment, for Pangnirtung harbour. Once we get past those priorities, how much infrastructure funding do we still have, and are there already identified commitments beyond these?

[Patrick Borbey]

The Building Canada fund, which was established a year and a half to two years ago, allocated to each of the territories an amount of base funding, rather than funding on a per capita basis, and treated the territories the same way as the provinces, in recognition of the fact that they have some huge infrastructure gaps.

So they already have some base funding that they can allocate to their priorities. And then they can apply to the other programs for which Infrastructure Canada is responsible for other projects, such as the projects that have been listed here, which were mentioned in the budget. Yes, certainly they can apply for more.

We have a role to play in providing some technical, on-the-ground advice to them, and we also are helping manage the old municipal program fund, MRIF, which is in its last couple of years. There are still some projects we're responsible for.

As the new agency gets up and running, we expect that the folks we're going to have on the ground will be able to work with Infrastructure Canada to help those projects become better articulated and get better priority.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

The budget included an amount of money for broadband. Can you describe in a nutshell what the broadband access situation is in the north?

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes. The new fund is under Industry Canada, so they're responsible for developing the terms and conditions under which that will function. So I can't really comment on that, because we don't know yet, but we are certainly interested both from a south of 60 as well as a north of 60 perspective, because particularly our aboriginal communities across the country do need better access.

As I explained earlier, we did help both Nunavut and the GNWT access a fund that was called a satellite program, which was previously with Industry Canada. That fund has since been drained; it has been sunsetted. Almost $40 million was provided to help increase the broadband through the local providers in both territories. So every one of those isolated communities in the north, 26 in Nunavut and at least a half dozen in the Northwest Territories, benefited as a result of that. On services such as e-health and e-education, the equipment actually is in place in many of those communities--state-of-the art equipment--but it was not being used because of broadband width problems. For example, they could not send a digitized X-ray down to Edmonton for a doctor to be able to see it and give a diagnosis.

So I think that's going to help the functioning of some of the services that are available. It's also going to help from an economic development perspective. There are a lot of small enterprises being created in the north that are using the Internet as a way to get their services around the territories or outside of the territories.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

This request may be a little unusual. The committee wants to ensure that whatever we choose to do in the way of a study isn't going over ground that has already been looked at by others. Sometimes it's difficult to know actually what has been looked at and what hasn't. From your vantage, is there any obvious area where this committee could perform a useful role? I know it's a rather unusual question. We'll definitely decide our own fate, but it occurs to me that we are very much trying to focus on something specific and useful.

[Patrick Borbey]

Well, obviously, any advice and help that we can have in terms of what the priorities should be from an economic development perspective, in terms of how you make sure you leverage to the maximum the opportunities in the north for the benefit of northerners, is certainly welcome. The agency will need to have that kind of guidance.

On the regulatory side, we would like to keep you very busy, because we'd love to be able to bring forward a number of pieces of legislation to deal with what Mr. McCrank recommended and to fill some of those gaps that exist currently or to modernize the legislation in the north. So we're hoping we'll be able to bring you some bills to keep you occupied as well.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Now we'll go to a brief question from Ms. Crowder and then I think Mr. Albrecht might also have a very brief question.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Yes, it's really brief. I was just referring back to the map. There are a couple of sites, Rayrock and Echo Bay. I don't see them on here, and they're remediation sites. I just wonder if this is intended to be a complete map.

[Patrick Borbey]

No, you're right. We haven't put all of our remediation sites on there. There are dozens of them. Some of them are former mines, some of them are former parts of the DEW Line that we're also responsible for remediating. So, yes, I apologize. This is a snapshot in time. Even from a mining perspective, these are advanced projects. They don't include projects that are at very early stages of exploration.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Is it possible to get a list of the remediation sites?

[Patrick Borbey]

Certainly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. Albrecht.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't take long.

Mr. Borbey, in your opening remarks you mentioned the discussion context paper. We were all given a copy this morning, so I didn't have time to look at it earlier. I was impressed with the great questions that are in there. I'm wondering if you could comment on the type of response you're getting from these hundred stakeholders that you've sent this off to. I noticed this is a second draft. Have you had a good response?

[Timothy Gardiner]

The comments have been of a pretty general nature at this point, just because the plan is really at its early stages and clear announcements haven't yet been made as to how the agency will be implemented. But I think the comments we've gotten are generally supportive. People are happy that this is happening. They think having an institution devoted to economic development in the north is a good idea.

There are some concerns—and my colleague Patrick alluded to them earlier—around the way the agency will deal with this pan-Inuit vision. Given the way it's defined now, its focus would be on the three territories. So kind of figuring out how to address that is definitely a concern we heard and are looking into.

I think we also heard there's a sense of a likelihood that some programs fromthe Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development would be transferred to the agency. Folks are generally supportive of that, but want to make sure that the programs, as they currently exist, aren't significantly changed, in particular that aboriginal-only programs would be maintained as a separate pot of money.

The other big comment we've heard is they want the headquarters to be in the territories.

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

I'm pleased to hear there's been a pretty good level of engagement in the dialogue. I think that's helpful.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

Before we finish up with our witnesses, there were a couple of points that came out today that I just wanted to get some clarification on.

Just for the record, you made reference by acronym to what sounds like a couple of programs. One was YESAA. I wonder if you could state for the record what that program is. I'm sure some members may know these, but if others don't, maybe you could explain.

[Patrick Borbey]

YESAA is the act and the organization that is responsible for the environmental assessment processes and permitting in the Yukon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

And CEAA?

[Patrick Borbey]

CEAA is the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay, very good.

And then finally, in your opening comments you referenced the continuing development of a northern regulatory improvement plan, that this was in the works. Is it contemplated that will be published at some point? And I apologize if this came up earlier and I missed it.

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes.