Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2010

[Robert Reid]

Under the current regime, that's correct.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

How do you sell this to the Government of the Northwest Territories?

[Robert Reid]

There are benefits, as I indicated in my presentation, to the Mackenzie Valley and to the people of the Mackenzie Valley, perhaps not to the GNWT. But the Government of the Northwest Territories has been very supportive of this project, because of the benefits it brings to the people of the north.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay.

With this $500 million socio-economic fund, where we can mitigate the socio-economic impacts of this major development, as the government has it set up now, the money is in a trust and won't be given to the people until there's a firm commitment to build the pipeline or until the pipeline construction starts. Yet many of the projects these people want to work on are multi-year projects, in order to prepare them for the impacts of a pipeline. The pipeline development season is two or three years. Are we in danger of having a pipeline mitigation fund that will come in too late to actually do the proper work to ensure that people are prepared in those communities for the development of a pipeline?

[Robert Reid]

I don't think so. Remember, construction doesn't start in earnest until 2016.

The government and the aboriginal groups negotiated that socio-economic fund with very specific benchmarks, specific points in time by which certain events would be accomplished and then certain dollars would flow. Both sides agreed to the deal, and I think it will allow the dollars to flow at the appropriate times.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington, Mr. Reid, and others.

We'll go to Mr. Duncan for the last question of the first round. That will be followed by our second round of five minutes. I have Ms. Neville, Mr. Rickford, Monsieur Lévesque, and Mr. Payne on the list.

Let's go with Mr. Duncan for seven minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you very much. And thank you for the written submissions.

To Mr. Berger, I did read the The Nunavut Project report, which was published in 2006, in March, I believe.

I have a question related to something you said, which was that the government, in your opinion, was opposed to the financing of education in Inuktitut. I'm sorry, but I'm going to take issue with you on that, because I think we're talking about a jurisdictional issue here on K to 12.

Your recommendations suggested that an investment of about $20 million annually would accomplish the objectives. We have certainly increased transfers to the Nunavut government by a much greater number than that since 2006. They have choices to make. We have never indicated that, to my knowledge, and they've had every opportunity to make an appropriate choice.

I didn't want to leave that sort of hanging out there. I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

[Thomas Berger]

Well, I'm sure you're right, sir. My point was that it has been the policy of the federal government under Liberals and Conservatives, and Liberals and Conservatives again, not to subsidize education in any language except English and French. That's what I was saying.

I'm grateful to you for reading the report. I did say this would cost $20 million a year, and I thought the money should come from the federal government.

It is no doubt true that the government has increased the subvention to Nunavut by $20 million, or perhaps more. My point I think remains that we should be concerned about the situation in Nunavut, because I think you'll find that the dropout rate is worse there than anywhere else. You'll find that the indicia of sociopathology are more worrisome there than anywhere else in Canada. The leaders of the Government of Nunavut know it.

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

I can tell you that this committee and the federal government are well aware that this is an area of major concern. I appreciate your report, because I think you've said all of the things that are appropriate in getting out the facts. Those facts are now well entrenched with people, and there has been some progress, but a lot more is required.

I did have some questions for the other two witnesses. I don't know if I'll have time, though.

To Steven Quin of Capstone, thank you for your written report. There is a statement on page 5 of your brief, where you're talking about a copper project that “got through the YESAA process, only to have the regulator reject the decisions”. Because we're a federal committee, one might assume you're talking about a federal regulator, but in this case, you're really talking about a territorial regulator. Am I not correct?

[Stephen Quin]

Yes, that's correct, because the entire process in the Yukon is local. It was the Yukon Water Board that rejected the YESAA recommendations, specifically, the government decision document that came from the YESAA recommendations.

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

Correct.

On the NUPPAA legislation, the new legislation for Nunavut that's been tabled in this place, do you concur with the endorsement of the legislation by the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines?

[Stephen Quin]

Yes, I think the enabling legislation is long overdue and absolutely necessary, but I don't think it gets to the core of the issue.

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

The legislation does include timelines, for example, and where there's capacity, it allows for local decision-making, and where there isn't capacity, it allows for federal review.

Are those not major moves forward?

[Stephen Quin]

They're progress, but timelines are timelines. There is no process anywhere that has a fixed timeline. There are always opportunities for extensions in time. That's driven by regulators coming back and saying, we need more time. You can't force the issue; the company or the promoter or the project has no ability to force that timeline. Every single process I've ever been involved in has never happened in the timelines that were set out, either in legislation or by policy, because the regulators will come back and ask for more information on a repeated basis.

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

I'll just follow up quickly with Mr. Reid. One question that a lot of people have in relation to the APG is whether or not the Deh Cho are aware of the economic development prospects built into the agreement, which would benefit them, should they be signatories.

[Robert Reid]

Yes, we've spent a great deal of time with the Deh Cho. They're the only right-of-way group that is not currently a member of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group. We visited the communities. We've certainly indicated the benefits that would be provided to them through membership or ownership in APG. The Deh Cho, to this point, have indicated that the land claim and land use plans are priorities for them. They want to at least conclude the land use plan, and perhaps the land settlement, prior to committing to APG. In effect, they're using the pipeline as a lever in those negotiations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You weren't even a little bit over, Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much.

Now we'll start our second round. This is five minutes now to our witnesses for both questions and answers. We're going to begin with Ms. Neville and she'll be followed by Mr. Rickford.

Go ahead, Ms. Neville.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing here today.

My questions are directed to Justice Berger. It goes back to education and your report of 2006, which I did read at the time but have not looked at since, I must confess.

This morning I had in my office, as I expect a number of us did, representatives from the prospectors and development group. The overriding message they gave to me was certainly the importance of education.

I'm wondering if you have been following what in fact has or has not been happening in Nunavut. Most of the recommendations that I'm aware of in your report, as it relates to education, have not been implemented. Where do you see it going and what do you see is the potential for economic development activity without at least some of your report being implemented?

[Thomas Berger]

Thank you.

I think the potential for economic development is there and the impetus for economic development will make itself felt. I think there will be economic development. My concern is that the progress of the aboriginal people, their capacity to participate in that development, should be given as much importance as anything else.

Let me say that the people in the education department in Nunavut have been, for some years now, developing a written curriculum of materials in Inuktitut. Their people have always, and certainly in recent years, been eager to carry out the recommendations I made, which were by and large a reflection of the thinking in Nunavut anyway.

I don't know what the figures are at the moment, but I think 90% of Nunavut's budget comes from Ottawa. The problem is, they have many needs. There is the need to take a good look at their system of education, which isn't working well--we have to concede that. But to implement the type of system that they themselves want can only be done with wholehearted federal support. I'm not blaming the government. I mean, this insistence on subsidizing only English and French has been a policy of the federal government for a long time now.

I just don't want to see us go ahead and extract those resources and provide some very good jobs for very good people who, to a great extent, will come from metropolitan Canada and who will probably not stay for longer than the job lasts in these northern communities. I think we should make sure those jobs are jobs the Inuit are able to do themselves.

I'm afraid that's what I said in 2006, and I'm taking the liberty of repeating it now because you folks were good enough to invite me along today.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Neville and Your Honour.

Let's go to Mr. Rickford for five minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I suspect, in fairness, what's on the minds of PDAC as much as any issue right now is their desire to see Bill C-300 voted against to keep the mining industry alive, and I'm sure Capstone Mining Corp., like other mining companies, would have something to say about that. I work very closely with them because of the mining sector's importance in the Kenora riding, and that's obviously not the purpose of today's discussion.

I want to ask you a couple of questions first, Mr. Reid. I had a chance to review your notes, and I was just going through some of the highlights and summaries from Canada's economic action plan. I noticed significantly that there was a firm commitment to the aboriginal pipeline group to continue operations as a partner in the proposed Mackenzie gas project. It seems that not only is this a substantial investment, but it is significant for that group to participate in the community economic opportunities program. I believe that's called CEOP.

I was wondering if you could comment very briefly, in a minute or two perhaps, on what you understand as the importance of that investment and what it's going to do in relation to the work with the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline.

[Robert Reid]

The funds you're referring to are part of a federal grant that provides for our operating expenses. Initially, we had an arrangement, and it was actually finalized by Robert Nault, who was, I believe, from the Kenora riding a number of years ago. That was a six-year arrangement. It was intended at the time to fund us through to the commencement of a pipeline operation. That ran short, of course, because the pipeline was delayed.

There's a federal government grant and a GNWT grant as well that come together and provide our operating expenses, and those are essentially salaries, travel expenses, legal fees, and that kind of thing on an annual basis. In addition to that, we, of course, have a loan agreement with TransCanada Pipelines, and TransCanada provides our cash calls to the project, the investment in the project itself.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

So you see these as very positive investments and support from the federal government. They're essential for the aboriginal community.

[Robert Reid]

I believe it's very positive and essential for us to participate in the project, and the leverage is huge. The point I was going to make is that for the small contribution from the governments towards our operating expenses...the loan with TransCanada is now in excess of $140 million. That's our share. So it's hugely important.