Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Chief Nitah.

Now we will go to Mr. Duncan.

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

These are good presentations.

You made an offer, Chief Nitah, to provide 17 chapters. Am I right that those 17 chapters are in a form ready to go to your community? Did I misunderstand what you were saying?

[Chief Steve Nitah]

The chapters are currently being developed. We hope to finalize them by the end of this calendar year or early in the new year before we take it to the membership. The membership will review it, and if they are happy with it, then it will be presented to the federal negotiating team. At that time, we will be able to make copies available to the standing committee.

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

Okay, now I understand.

I want to say that you actually have more than one unique circumstance. This is the only case I know of in Canadian federal negotiations where this has been the procedure that was followed. A lot of other first nations south of 60 are watching with much interest to see how this works out. And it's not just first nations that are watching with interest; I am as well. If it works, I think this is a way to try to expedite things. I detect a sense of urgency on your front as well as from the federal government on this, and no doubt from the Northwest Territories government.

I have a question regarding the economic development. Darrell talked about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Fred, I think you made reference to it as well. I am aware of a couple of projects. The Gwitchin First Nation, which is where you're from, Fred, made its strong interest known to connect Fort Good Hope to Inuvik. And Mr. Bevington was talking today about the bridges that are either under construction or are planned in the southern section to get toward Tulita.

In a sense, the Mackenzie Valley Highway project is proceeding. I know there have been moneys allocated for 2009-10 from the community adjustment fund of about a million, and I think this is between the Gwitchin and the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government. Is that correct? Do you have more detail on that, Fred?

[Fred Koe]

I think that money you're referring to is for the feasibility study for the extension from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik.

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

It's not from Fort Good Hope to Inuvik?

[Fred Koe]

No. As far as I know, there are no moneys allocated for the extension from Wrigley to Inuvik, and that's what we're pushing for.

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

But that consists of progress. What I'm getting out of the background documentation we have is that there is a strong interest, and we've heard it from other presenters as well. This seems to be a priority that is coming through very strongly. It's good to see there's support across the board on this.

In terms of some of the barriers, Fred and Darrell, I think you both mentioned technology: Internet, cell coverage, how this affects banking and so on. What is the current status? What's needed in order to get Internet and cell coverage to where it needs to be in NWT? Can you give us a flavour for that?

[Darrell Beaulieu]

Right now the Internet service we do have in some communities is through satellite service, such as in Nunavut. There really are no land lines, although in southern NWT there are some fibre optic cables being laid. Yellowknife is served through fibre optic. The majority of the communities that require it don't have that type of capacity or speed that Canadians have in southern Canada, or the infrastructure required for that. The Mackenzie Valley Highway proposal does include a fibre optic cable that runs alongside the highway that will make sense, and then it will branch off to the communities.

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

Thanks for that.

There are parts of southern Canada that don't have these technologies in place yet either, and some of them are in my area on the B.C. coast.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That will have to do it, Mr. Duncan. Thank you. You can come back, though. We'll have time in the next round.

That finishes up the first round. Now we'll go to Mr. Russell. To get a few extra questions in, we'll go with three minutes, if we can.

Mr. Russell, a three-minute round.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Your points are well taken. If you have 50% of the population, you damned well have to be included if we're going to have any kind of just economic development. I think we can create wealth, and wealth can be accumulated in a few hands, but that's not economic development. I don't think that's our vision of economic development, either, from the committee's perspective.

What is important for us, as a committee, is that we have to listen very carefully about imbuing our study with some of the values and cultural ideas, and that nuance should be there. We should at least recognize it as we go forward. That's a very important point for us. I'm glad you reminded us and emphasized that to us so that we don't repeat the mistakes made by other studies or by other interventions, if you want to put it in that fashion.

Did those three diamond mine companies--and we have talked about others--talk to the Akaitcho or the affected first nations and aboriginal peoples? Have there been any impact and benefit agreements? I would think that if that didn't happen to some extent, there would be more than one outstanding court case. That would be the sense I would get, coming from Labrador, where we have unsettled land claims. Developers want to go ahead and that type of thing.

Can you give us a sense of what the relationship has been like over the development of those mines and where the Akaitcho have been involved?

[Chief Steve Nitah]

I certainly can.

The Akaitcho, as a whole, have not been participating with these mines. However, my community of Lutsel K'e, the chief's community of N'Dilo, and Dettah, in Yellowknife, have individual agreements--not as a group--with Diavik and De Beers.

We have a collective agreement with BHP, which was the first one. That agreement was pretty much forced upon us. At the eleventh hour, there was a shotgun to our heads to make an agreement before 12 o'clock. If we didn't make an agreement, they were going to give them permits anyway. That was under the minister back in the day.

We do have impact-benefit agreements that give some financial resources to the community to mitigate the impact--the social impact and the cultural impact--of the mining activities on our people. But that doesn't replace what we should be sharing with Canada in terms of royalties and taxation revenues from both personal and corporate taxes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Is that about it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Yes, that's three minutes.

This is the rapid-fire round we're now on. Let's go back to Mr. Clarke or Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Duncan, did you want to continue with your line of questioning?

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

Sure.

Darrell, you were cut short when you were making your presentation and you were talking about barriers. You talked about MERX, but then we didn't get the full context of what you were wanting to tell us. Could you explain how MERX is not working for you in the NWT? I didn't understand.

[Darrell Beaulieu]

It's not necessarily that MERX doesn't work. Most of you are aware that you have to register to be part of MERX. You pay your annual fee. But that's not the issue.

The issue is that contracts over $5,000, which, according to the procurement strategy for aboriginal business in Canada.... I'm saying that it's not really being applied. We've seen contracts worth up to $70,000 a month or $160,000 a month--and these are five-year contracts--that are not being made available to aboriginal businesses in the Northwest Territories. They're being deflected directly into the market.

If aboriginal people are going to participate in the northern economy here, I think it's very important that the federal aboriginal procurement strategy be fully implemented and that aboriginal businesses have the opportunity to fully participate. For example, recently there was an RCMP contract and there were other contracts that just bypassed the aboriginal procurement program.

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

Are you saying that you find out about them after they've been awarded? Is that what you're saying?

[Darrell Beaulieu]

Not necessarily. We're finding out while they're going out, and they're not being awarded--both.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have a minute.

Do you have anything more, Mr. Clarke or Mr. Dreeshen? All right.

Mr. Gaudet will close out the meeting.

You have three minutes, sir.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is for Mr. Koe.

I don't know if I understood you correctly. You stated that you had received $12 million in investments and that you had made 200 loans.

Is that in fact what you said? You went on to state that you have received an additional $6.5 million in loan capital. Is that correct?

[Fred Koe]

The amount of loans over a period of time is equivalent to over $12 million, so it's not--

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

That is not just happening here. We're seeing this back home as well. Some companies go bankrupt and shut down their operations. What is the success rate of businesses in your region?

[Fred Koe]

I don't have an exact percentage, but it's fairly high because--