Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Jan. 27th, 2014

[Tom Hoefer]

I'm not trying to eat up all your time. I'm trying to give you a fair answer.

I think what's happened now is that our companies have started to work very well with a lot of the boards. The boards are actually starting to work in a good style with companies, and companies are saying, “We like this.” The boards are also creating good relationships with their regional land claim groups.

In all fairness, they are doing a good job now, and we like that. We don't want to lose that.

So we say, yes, there's an opportunity in having a single board, but the big proviso is don't lose the relationship that those boards have created with the communities and don't lose the expertise that those boards have created now to be able to work well with industry.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I would just say that it's a larger relationship than just with communities. It's with aboriginal governments that are protected constitutionally, and that's what you're upsetting. It's not simply a relationship with communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We'll turn to Mr. Leef for the next questions.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I suppose notwithstanding the opportunity today for each of you to present to the committee, just by way of comment, our being able to get up here is great. This is our tenth meeting on the devolution agreement. Today's collective meeting hours would be about the equivalent of two and a half weeks' worth of meetings in Ottawa.

Obviously you can see that with this set-up it's not always possible to move throughout the communities, but it's nice for us to be able to get to them when we can. I know, as a Yukon member of Parliament, that it would really be nice to be able to move this big machinery around with us to all of our communities when we need to consult, but it's not always in the essence of either budgetary issues or time.

On a note that Mr. Bevington made—again, notwithstanding the opportunity you have here today to comment—I think in terms of any other opportunities to have provided your recommendations ahead of time, obviously it falls to each of us, as your members of Parliament, to hold consultations and to hear from you ahead of time. Mr. Bevington would have had ample opportunity to provide that to government had he held those consultations directly with you.

Moving on to my set of questions, Mr. Stanzell, you did mention the Yukon example, the YESAB situation where there are six regional offices occurring. Of course there's an outlined structure for the makeup of this board. Do you envision that makeup somewhat the way as articulated, that regional boards could still exist, or regional offices could be opened under the new structure? Do you envision the current structure then to be somewhat of a minimum?

We've established the.... It's being called a mega-board, ironically, when it's actually a smaller board than what exists in terms of raw numbers. Do you envision that as somewhat of a minimum, with nothing preventing, as you go forward, regional offices from being established to ensure that localized input?

[Allen Stanzell]

I think that's a fair representation. I think there are recommendations for regional representation on the board. If that's supplemented with representation in the communities, that's something that we support. The regional flavour in the whole process should be maintained.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

We're hearing that and certainly it's important to the Yukon. It was embedded in our transition and devolution, and as it's played out over the years I think it has, for all intents and purposes, worked quite well.

You mentioned the technical expertise challenge, so you have regionalized boards. You mentioned that a more centralized board would allow for that capacity development, that technical expertise. Of course Ms. Lockhart mentioned, and we're very alive to this—I certainly am, coming from the Yukon—that having that technical expertise to understand some highly technical projects doesn't always exist at the community level. To move that to an area where the financial and human resources can meet the technical demand is something that ensures environmental protection, effective timelines and progress, or in some cases, just out-and-out stopping of projects that aren't good for the region. Would that be a fair comment of your analysis of the centralized board?

[Allen Stanzell]

I think a centralized board does allow a concentration of resources, technical expertise certainly chief among them.

Mr. Bradshaw will add to that.

[Michael Bradshaw]

I think the lack of technical expertise is fairly evident if you're either an applicant or someone involved in the process. But it's not just an outside-in view. The Mackenzie Valley review board signed an agreement with the National Energy Board about a year and a half ago, which we were very grateful for because the NEB was offering its technical resources to all the other boards in the Northwest Territories that required a particular area of expertise. I know of at least three or four occasions where that expertise was used if we had it. To Allen's point, if the resources were centralized then we could staff up appropriately and operate efficiently.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Bob or Ms. Lockhart, in a hypothetical situation, I appreciate the challenges you raised because they very much existed in the Yukon with email and broadband and Internet communications and flights being.... It would be interesting to be in southern Canada listening to us talking about some of the mechanisms we have to build in to make sure that people can make meetings because flights don't go, but that's the reality of living in the north. Those are our real-life challenges. I appreciate that.

I see some of the ideas in centralizing this board as a way of addressing those challenges and dealing with them. Now if we were to merge the idea of having the regional offices exist—similar to the Yukon—to provide that input, to provide that very localized expertise, the local knowledge and community-based input, would that address some of the concerns that you have at this time and at the same time allow that centralized capacity development, financial and human resource ability and deal with some of those very real northern challenges with flights and communications, etc?

[David Bob]

I believe that would possibly address some of the concerns, having regional boards remain and continue to be established within the regions and working together with a centralized board.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Okay.

[Sandra Lockhart]

I want to clarify our position. We are still supporting regional boards. When you talk about centralization, what happens is when the community wants to share their traditional knowledge—you have to remember that this is done in traditional languages—when we talk about emails and transfer of knowledge and traditional knowledge, the component that we may not have expanded on is interpretation. There are some concepts that in English are difficult to put into language. If you take and centralize those regional boards or those offices—because I can see that coming down the road that everything will be in Yellowknife—you still need...because traditional knowledge is very much alive and very much related to the land and to the people. The people are in touch and alive to the land. So you have to capture that and you can't capture that just on paper. You have to be able to be with the people with the land.

So yes, it would help but I don't want it centralized just in Yellowknife. That knowledge can be centralized in the region and Yellowknife can go to the region and get that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Leef.

We're going to now turn to Ms. Jones for her questions.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, all, for your presentations. I agree, I wish we had so much more time to have these discussions, but your input is being heard. Certainly it will all come into consideration as we do our work as a committee.

As a committee, one of the things we have an option to do is to bring forward amendments. You've proposed a number of them today. I would ask that you prepare them appropriately and have them submitted to our committee, to the federal minister, and to your current government. I think it's important that your input be acknowledged not only at this committee but in the full process of what we have to do in the next few weeks.

I found the discussion very interesting around especially the Internet and the connectivity, because I think the whole north suffers from un-connectivity. I live in an area where I can't even get connected to the Internet any longer, because we're out. I think as long as northerners are disconnected through technology, we're going to be disconnected in many other ways. I think that has to be fixed. But that is a whole different committee and a whole different discussion, for sure.

One of the things you talked about was the loss of trust between government and first nations. You are here today representing chambers of commerce, mining chambers, the labour federation, and so on. You have a very different view, I guess, from what aboriginal governments would have, but yet you're expressing a lot of concern with regard to this bill.

My question comes right down to the fundamentals of it. Are you prepared to support the devolution bill as it exists today, in the Parliament of Canada, if no amendments are forthcoming to that legislation?

It's a big question, I know, but we need to know where you stand.

[Michael Bradshaw]

As we said at the outset of our remarks—Mr. Stanzell made it clear—our members from Inuvik to Hay River, from Fort Smith to Fort Simpson, are in favour of, or not opposed to, the legislation. It was also in our remarks that a devolution agreement poll, held a year ago, indicated that almost 7 in 10 NWT residents were supportive of that agreement.

Now, of course, those opinions were formed in the absence of the points that we've made here today. I think I can say, without too much fear of contradiction, that we'd be disappointed...but we also see devolution as a great step forward for the Northwest Territories.

[Sandra Lockhart]

I'd also like to go back to the statement we made that Bill C-15 should really be split into two. What's hidden inside is kind of like an omnibus bill. You have the devolution and then you have the whole Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act hidden inside of that.

We would say there is a will to support devolution, but not in the current manner in which it's being presented. It's one that is not worthy of a government wishing to be transparent and democratic, and the government represents us, both the federal and the GNWT.

So it's no—not the way it's currently being presented.

[Tom Hoefer]

If the question is whether we would we support the devolution bill as it is, with your...let me say the committee's inability to make the changes that we ask for, I think we would say yes. But what we would have to do then, and what we will certainly do anyway, is that we have an opportunity now, under the mineral development strategy, which the NWT government has released....

It has five pillars under it. One of them is regulatory improvement. One of them is aboriginal relations. If those changes don't come through this process, we then need to formulate plans to work more effectively to try to fill in the gaps.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I asked the question simply because when we as a committee questioned the federal minister, I actually proposed to him separating the bill. The answer was no; the bill would go forward as it is in those two components.

I look at it and say that the best we can hope for now is to make amendments to the sections that need to be amended. We can continue to push to have it divided into two bills, but that was not supported by the premier and the Government of the Northwest Territories because it would delay the entire process of devolution and therefore have an impact economically on the entire region.

So I asked that question because we can propose some of the amendments that you're bringing forward and that have been brought forward by the aboriginal governments. At the end of the day, I guess I have to ask whether there is any confidence left to negotiate those other sections that we may not accomplish at the table or at the legislature immediately. That includes some of the things you've brought forward already.

[Sandra Lockhart]

I'm going to answer with another question. It really baffles me. The resources and the economic reasons to pass this legislation are not going anywhere right now. Nobody can touch them until we say, “Go ahead and touch them”. If something is that valuable, the value always goes up, does it not? So there's lots of room here, and time is not the only essence we need to consider. We should be considering something that's sustainable, that is supported with social policy, that brings inclusion and unity among the federal government, the traditional peoples of the land, and the northerners.

I think there will be a will to continue to push, to push, to push, because ultimately this is about our territory and it's about living with land that can sustain this in the long run, not just for our generation but for seven more generations beyond today. I'm going to end by saying that if the resources we have today are going to make an economic boom out of the NWT, the value of everything is only going to go up. What needs to happen here is to make trust amongst its citizens the real priority. How could you put a price on that and want to rush that through if we're going to have progressive social policy that is divisive? It doesn't give any merit to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Ms. Lockhart.

Your time is up, Ms. Jones, but I think there were a couple of other responses.

Mr. Stanzell, we'll hear from you.

[Allen Stanzell]

Just briefly, we would look at Bill C-15 as a bit of a beginning. We would have the confidence that changes could continue to be made. If you look at the relationship between businesses and government throughout the course of history, that's the way things have worked.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

That wraps up this panel. We thank you for being here. We appreciate that you all have busy schedules and important things to be doing. The fact that you chose to share your day with us is something that we certainly appreciate. Your expertise is important for our committee. Thank you so much.

We will suspend shortly. But we do have representation—I want to make note of it—from the Northwest Territories Association of Communities. We also have Alternatives North, as well as the Town of Inuvik. They will be our next panellists.

Thank you to our current panellists. We appreciate your contribution. We'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'll call this meeting back to order.

We're just getting some final logistics information and then we'll begin the process.

We appreciate everyone's willingness to stay with us through the day. We know that it's been a long day and it's been an important day. We appreciate everyone's willingness and patience to work with us.

Today, for the final panel, we have representation from Alternatives North, as well as the Town of Inuvik and the Northwest Territories Association of Communities. We are going to start from my right, moving to the left. Starting with Alternatives North we have two representatives from the organization. Pardon me, I'm...we're starting over here. No, we're starting over there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Folks, it's been a long day, and I do appreciate your patience. I'll get my bearings. We're going to begin with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities, and Ms. Brown and Ms. Gargan. Thank you for joining us. We certainly appreciate your patience and we look forward to hearing your opening statements.