Thank you.
First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to make a presentation. My name is Hugh Wilson. I'm vice-president of environment and community affairs for Tyhee NWT Corp., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyhee Development Corp. We are developing a small gold project about 90 kilometres north of Yellowknife, adjacent to the historic Discovery Mine, which some of you may be familiar with.
Today I'd basically like to highlight some of the other information that is being presented through consultation with various department people, and I refer to the McCrank report on the northern regulatory improvement initiative, which covered a broad range of issues, including the environment and aboriginal issues. I'd like to reiterate some of those issues that I think are applicable today.
The first issue I'd like to talk about is clarification of the requirements for aboriginal consultation. The need to bring clarity to the issue of community consultation in relation to resource development proposals in the NWT grow stronger each year. If left unresolved, this issue will continue to deepen divisions within the northern community and lead to unnecessary litigation. If that is the case, there will be a profound negative effect on the new mineral exploration activities that are necessary to ensure that new ore bodies are discovered to replace the existing diamond mining operations, two of which have already reached the midpoint of their proposed lifespan.
What we recommended in relation to the McCrank report was that the federal government give the highest priority to developing and implementing a policy that will clarify its own role, the role of proponents, and the role of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act boards in relation to responding to the requirements of aboriginal consultation under the MVRMA, which definitely addresses the requirements for consultation and accommodation under the common law. The preparation of a detailed manual of aboriginal consultation procedures and accommodation policies should form part of this initiative.
The next recommendation was to develop a policy for impact and benefit agreements. Impact and benefit agreements continue to present significant challenges for proponents, communities, and regulators alike. The recommendation we made was that the federal government should develop immediately an official policy on the scope, nature, and purpose of impact and benefit agreements in the NWT that reflects an appropriate division of responsibility between government and proponents for the consequences of mineral resource development projects on northern communities. The policy should clarify the role played by impact and benefit agreements in the context of the overall process for the assessment, approval, and regulation of mineral resource developments. As an add-on, I'd say that the policy should consider the scale of any new or proposed project.
The next one I'd like to highlight is the recommendation to ensure adequate capacity and appropriate expertise. The dedication and diligence that members of the MVRMA boards bring to the discharge of their duties are well recognized. Nonetheless, significant concerns have been expressed as to how well government has fulfilled its obligation to ensure that the best-qualified individuals are appointed to board positions and that each appointee receives the necessary instructions and training in order to properly fulfill his or her responsibilities.
The recommendation we made was that the federal government establish a comprehensive process to identify, in concert with aboriginal groups, the appropriate candidates for appointments to MVRMA boards; develop a curriculum for instruction to ensure that appointees have the knowledge and understanding required to discharge their respective responsibilities under the legislation and in keeping with applicable overarching principles of law; verify the state of readiness of each candidate before board appointments, to confirm the candidate's capacity to discharge the applicable responsibilities; implement an ongoing program to ensure that board members have the benefit of further training and instruction to expand their knowledge and expertise, taking into account significant legal, technical, and other developments that may impact the MVRMA process.
There are a couple of other ones that I'll just go into on the next point.
The next point is to establish an independent body to support northern boards. Experience suggests that a program of the kind described above will not be possible in the absence of specifically dedicated or focused resources.
The recommendation was that the federal government establish an independent permanent body having a broadly defined mandate to oversee the process outlined in the previous section that I just read. This body should be established on a pan-boreal basis and serve all the boards established in all three territories.