Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2009

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

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for having us. I am from northern Quebec, and I am the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. My friend Larry was telling me yesterday that I do not know what the Yukon cold is like, but let's just say that Nunavik is very similar to the Yukon.

That leads me to my question for Mr. Austin. You talked about infrastructure. In my riding, in Nunavik, water is distributed to homes by truck. In your region, is water delivered by a water supply system? Are sewers—

[David Austin]

It's a combination of both. The bulk of Whitehorse of course is on city water and sewer. However, in the rural communities a lot of the water is delivered by trucks still.

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

It is about the same, apart from the light, since we have more daylight in Nunavik.

Let's talk about resource revenue sharing. If I understand correctly, it is $3 million that you have to share with first nations. Anything over that amount, you have to deduct the royalties you get from the federal government, that is, the equalization payment.

Is it possible to have a measure where the $3 million would stay in the province's coffers and where what is owed to first nations would come from the federal government's revenue from those resources? Is that what you want?

[Dr. Harvey Brooks]

Well, I'll take a stab at that, but I suspect it's for a deeper intergovernmental negotiation and discussion, one I'm assured is ongoing as the devolution agreements are being negotiated with NWT and Nunavut. But I suspect what we're looking for is a higher cap and a way for more of the resource revenue to remain in Yukon, and then some of the sharing can continue and move forward. We think there's a win-win here for all Yukoners and Canada as we develop Yukon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Monsieur Lévesque.

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

Let's talk about the ability to adapt to industrial, mining and hydroelectric development. I am especially interested in hydroelectricity. We would probably need another day here with you in order to understand the differences across the country. As for hydro development, where do you stand in terms of self-sufficiency?

[Dr. Harvey Brooks]

While I'm not an expert on electricity, I'll again take a stab. For the most part, our main grids are serviced with hydroelectric capacity and we are right on the knife's edge of utilizing all of that, but we have many communities that are serviced solely with diesel power generation. It's an issue I'm sure Mr. Austin can speak to as well, but many of our communities are not connected by transmission lines to the main generating areas. One of the aspects of the Mayo B project will be connecting our two major grids to allow for a much more efficient distribution of our hydro potential. So our north grid and south grid will be connected. We'll have more hydro power on that grid and that will enable us to move forward.

But I would say we are a very small power generator, in the neighbourhood of 130 or 140 megawatts. Any major project that comes on stream from a mining perspective would be.... A small project would be in the neighbourhood of 10 megawatts; a large project could be in the neighbourhood of 100 megawatts. So these present huge challenges for us as we move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lévesque.

Mr. Duncan now has the floor for five minutes, and then, Mr. Bagnell.

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

Thank you.

Good morning. I just wanted to continue for a minute on the hydro question.

The Government of Canada has now contributed to a major new transmission extension in British Columbia up to Bob Quinn Lake, which is starting to get within reasonable distance of the Yukon, I think. I wondered if there's a degree of awareness of that, and if so, if this is leading to any sort of strategic planning in terms of linking up with the North American grid. Have you've had any thoughts in this direction?

[Dr. Harvey Brooks]

We're certainly aware of the extension and welcome that. Clearly, if Yukon can be connected to the B.C. grid in the future, that would be a huge advance for us. We would be considered a rounding error in the context of B.C.'s electrical capacity, and we would welcome the access to that type of hydro capacity.

The extension to Bob Quinn Lake is very significant and gets us within a planning horizon for connection to Yukon. That is one of our desired futures in terms of power access. The other potential is the possible development of the Alaska Highway pipeline project. That would also provide unlimited access to natural gas power generation, and that's a potential for Yukon as well.

I would say that the dollars still required to connect Bob Quinn Lake to Yukon's existing transmission would be considerable.

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

I think the Bob Quinn Lake extension is 335 kilometres. Do you have any idea what the distance would be to connect to the Yukon from there?

[Dr. Harvey Brooks]

I wouldn't want to give a number at this point. We do have experts who have planned for that. We've certainly seen some ideas, lines drawn on the map, but touching the border is one thing and then touching an existing transmission line is another.

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

I have a question for Mr. Alexander.

In your talk about marketing of tourism, perhaps I missed it, but I didn't hear any mention of the Canadian Tourism Commission, which is now headquartered in Vancouver, our only federal agency that is headquartered in British Columbia. I'm wondering how much overlap you have with the Canadian Tourism Commission, how helpful they may have been.

[Brian Alexander]

Thank you very much for that question.

Historically, the Canadian Tourism Commission has been responsible for marketing Canada to the exterior of the country, in foreign markets. We rely a great deal on their research capacity, their people who work in offices overseas. We've found them to be very helpful and very integral to what we try to do in terms of marketing campaigns.

This past year there was an announcement by the federal government of increased funding for the Canadian Tourism Commission to assist in domestic marketing as well, and we've been participating in those programs with them.

A key element for the Canadian Tourism Commission coming up, of course, will be marketing Canada as part of the Olympics and trying to generate that increased awareness that will come into all of Canada as a result of these games, not only leading up to the games but also capturing the afterglow market. They've been very good, very helpful, and we have a great relationship with them.

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

As a follow-up, you mentioned two specific issues: rental cars from Alaska, and the border crossing on the Top of the World Highway. I wonder if it would be possible for this committee to receive some background specific to those two issues, just to set out the problem and what should be done to fix each of those.

[Brian Alexander]

I'd certainly be delighted to do so.

In a nutshell, if you look at car rentals, there is a longstanding issue with people in border communities being prohibited from renting American vehicles. That could be of detriment to the Canadian providers. So they're forced across the border into Canada and rent a Canadian vehicle, and away they go, which would be a great solution for us if we had any capacity along the Alaska border to rent vehicles. That does not exist. That's an issue, and again, we're working with CBSA on that.

In terms of the northern border point, in 2008 there was an early winter and they had some difficulty in closing their facility—that would have been around October 1. Their solution was to essentially close the border early this year, again without prior notice or consultation, and that caused a lot of consternation in the north of the territory because it had a direct impact on the city of Dawson.

Our recommended solution is not to close early but to better winterize the facility to allow it to remain open even longer. Again, these are the types of discussions that are under way with CBSA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Alexander.

Now we'll go to Mr. Bagnell for five minutes, followed by Mr. Clarke.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for coming. I also want to thank all my colleagues for coming this long way to the farthest riding. I know you'll find all the MPs here very interested in the Yukon, and I thank them all for taking this so seriously and coming here.

First, Mr. Alexander, as you know, the Yukon is the only area in Canada where tourism is the number one private sector employer. Sometimes I have a hard time getting a lot of agenda items in Ottawa, but if we could just pick one to move forward and make an improvement, would it be increased funding for the Canadian Tourism Commission; putting back the GST rebate for individual tourists; increasing the small museums funding, which you've already mentioned; the rental car problem, which I've been working on for years too; air access, which the Tourism Industry Association of Canada is working on; or restoring the historic places initiative, which you talked about? What would be the first one or two priorities that we could fight for?

[Brian Alexander]

Thank you very much for the question. It is almost like being in a candy store and trying to figure out which globe to grab.

I think there's a way to get at all those under one element, and that would be the tourism strategy that is being championed by the Minister of State for Tourism and Small Business, Diane Ablonczy, because tourism actually cuts across 13 to 15 different federal departments and agencies. Whether it's the Departments of Transport, Public Safety, with the CBSA linkage, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Environment, or Parks Canada, if indeed the Minister of State can get her colleagues to recognize the importance of tourism to the Canadian economy, that would be a way for us to follow on that initiative, then try to work on all of these specific areas, and then try to move forward.

I think tourism is probably not well known or recognized across the country. In fact, it represents 2% of the federal GDP and it has a larger financial impact than forestry and fishing combined. So it is a way to generate wealth for all Canadians and it is extremely important for the Yukon. And as you mentioned, it is the largest private sector employer up here.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Bob, I have a similar question for you.

There is a list of things we can do for mining in Canada--tax breaks, etc.--but could you tell me if we do one thing what would be most important for the Yukon or the north? It may be different from a mining company in Ontario. Maybe they have different barriers; I don't know. What are the various things that mining is lobbying for? What would be one of the top priorities we should address first?

[Robert Holmes]

That is a tough question, Larry. I don't know if I have a real answer for you on that.

The Yukon is doing very well in terms of exploration. With the grassroots exploration, we have 100,000 mineral claims out there now, which is an all-time record. Given the recession, we've done really well at attracting investment. It is so busy it is hard to keep up.

The other good thing that has been happening, of course, is mines are in development now. It is very hard to take a project from exploration through to developing a real mine. Only one in a thousand ever gets that far. We have three projects that will be in production next year, so we're very busy on that front too.

It seems to me it's almost a case-by-case issue. If we get a big project like Casino--that's one that is on the board there as possibly coming into the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act process for assessment--that's going to be a $2-billion capital investment and probably a 100-megawatt power source. For the Yukon that's really hard to swallow. So we would need federal support with that.

For the most part, I think the projects we've managed to move along have been done incrementally. They are smaller. They're not too far from the roads. They're not too far from the grid. A little bit of help here and there has been able to move these projects ahead.

I would have to say it's going to be case-specific.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I have about five seconds left.

Dave, you and Harvey mentioned infrastructure. Are things fine on that front? Secondly, climate change affects the north more. Is it having an effect on municipal infrastructure?

[David Austin]

Another tough question, Larry. From an infrastructure standpoint we are treated extremely well by both the territorial government and the federal government. I don't think we have anything to whine about there.

As for climate change, this issue is being currently dealt with. It was mentioned yesterday in India. The Copenhagen meeting is coming up here very quickly.

As a city councillor, we put a motion on the table to encourage Canada to get off its proverbial butt and get on board with this whole issue.

Locally, yes, things do break. At 40 degrees below zero things break. We just went through a major subdivision development here in Whitehorse, where infrastructure is very difficult to install. We have another portion of that particular subdivision where the infrastructure is something like 50 years old. When we actually get into the ground we are dealing with wooden sewer lines. That is unheard of in the rest of Canada.

So, yes, it is a big issue with us, and keep it coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell.

Now we'll go to Mr. Clarke, followed by Mr. Gaudet. Before we do that, though, I have to ask this question. I have heard you refer to the territory as both Yukon and the Yukon. You used them interchangeably. Is there a proper protocol here? It's a trivial question, I suppose, but maybe not so much.

[Dr. Harvey Brooks]

We're in transition. We are trying to move to the designation of Yukon. You wouldn't say the Alberta, you just say Alberta. So it's Yukon.