Thank you. A few of the points that were made in the brief just need to be reiterated or emphasized.
First of all, the Katlodeeche First Nation has taken the position that Bill C-15, particularly part 4, the amendments to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act—more specifically, the restructuring of the land and water boards—will actually prejudice KFN's ability to negotiate with Canada and the GNWT full implementation of its land and resource management rights within its traditional territory, either on its own or through a regional body set up through the Dehcho First Nations. That opportunity is denied.
KFN would also like to point out that a question has arisen a couple of times this morning about why certain clauses might have been in the land claims agreements, specifically the Gwich'in and Sahtu agreements, if they weren't contemplating the creation of a territorial board and the loss of regional boards.
We would respectfully point out that, in fact, once the two claims, the Sahtu and Gwich'in claims, were settled and the boards were established, there's a section in both of those claims that says when there's a territorial board established, “it shall assume” the authorities of the regional boards. Also, then, sections 24.4.6 and 25.4.6 of those agreements—which is the key section—say, “Legislation may provide for regional panels of the Land and Water Board”, and say that the respective first nations will be consulted.
I think the point we're making is that those sections of the agreement were actually completed and fulfilled in 2000. The regional boards were established. Then, for sections 24.4.6 of the Gwich'in agreement and 25.4.6 of the Sahtu, where the territorial board was established in 2000 under the MVRMA, that was completed. Check that one off.
At the same time, paragraphs 24.4.6(b) and 25.4.6(b) were also implemented, so that the regional boards became “panels” of the land and water board. So in a sense, that section of the agreement was fulfilled. It was completed. It was done by the creation of the territorial board with the regional panels in 2000.
To say that these amendments are implementing the agreement is in fact not true. They are actually overriding sections of the agreement that have fully been implemented as per the agreements and as per the establishment of the MVRMA and the territorial and regional panels in 2000. Changing that again will affect KFN's ability to negotiate its own authorities.
The other point, which I think might be becoming a little obvious here, is that the intent of these changes was to create a more efficient and effective system. Well, with all due respect, you don't do that by pissing people off. I have lived in the north for 38 years, and I can assure you that development, proper and sustainable development, and proper discourse, and respectful discourse occur when parties speak and act respectfully towards each other. When one party imposes their will on another, it creates a situation where there is going to be more confrontation and a more adversarial relationship. So I'm going to predict there will be more challenges to decisions made by the body set up under this amended board, and that's something you need to take into account.
A quick point also in the KFN.... With all due respect to Mr. Pollard, when he met with the first nations—and I was a part of those most recent consultations—he was throwing numbers out about how this board structure would result in up to 50 members of the board. That was completely fallacious.
He knew at the time—or the minister knew at the time—that there were only the five regional boards that were likely to be set up, that the other claimant groups were not in fact requesting, and that in some cases their AIPs did not include the establishment of land and water boards, so that was incorrect. The maximum for board members might be 30. With the reduction in some of the regional board members, that could be anywhere from 20 to 25.
There are some options that were put forward. None of those were considered as to whether or not there was some way to do this that would allow the regional boards, so in that sense the consultation process failed because it did not make an attempt to accommodate.
Third is time limits. Along with no regional boards, the imposition of time limits, particularly ministerial-controlled time limits, will affect the procedural aspects of consultation. One of the things that seems to be overlooked is that the regional boards fulfill a very important role in the procedural aspects of section 35 consultation. There was buy-in through the claims agreements. They were respected and accepted, which meant that the deliberations and processes carried out through those boards could be seen to be fulfilling procedural aspects of consultation.
That opportunity is now lost. I believe it's going to result in more time being spent by the Government of Canada in having to carry out its own consultation processes, because the procedural aspects will not be adequately fulfilled. Again, that's KFN's position in the brief that's been submitted.
There are two points. On ministerial authority, whether it be federal or territorial authority, there is no reason for the increase in that. It will undermine the credibility of the board. It may put the boards in a position of being biased, particularly in the appointment of the chair, and ultimately you'd end up with a system that's micromanaged by politicians rather than being managed under legislation and regulation.
If you are wanting to look for a way to slow down processes or make them less effective, with all due respect to you who are politicians, let's get politicians involved, because as soon as decisions become political rather than technical, governed by legislation and regulation, the world becomes a little more complicated. I think you are going to find ministerial authority is not going to make things more efficient and effective, but in fact micromanagement is going to again undermine those processes.
Getting down to real specifics, there are two specific amendments that could be made to those sections and aspects of the bill, the MVRMA amendments, that are reasonable.
In terms of that ministerial authority, particularly with the environmental reviews on page 4 of the brief, the following could be added: “If the review board deems a development to be particularly complex due to its scope, technological or infrastructure requirements, location within or near an ecosystem recognized or designated as requiring special protection, and/or potential for high impacts on treaty or aboriginal rights, the board may set or adjust time limits at its own discretion, as long as all affected parties are notified in advance of these decisions.” The boards need to be given the flexibility they need in order to accommodate the complex geocultural and geopolitical nature of the NWT. That would be proposed subsection 128(2.5).
Another proposed amendment would be that proposed subsection 128(2.4) could read, “If the review board requires the person or body that proposes to carry out the development, or a first nation directly affected by the proposed development, to provide information...”. In essence they can call a time out. Basically the legislation allows the board to call a time out when industry requires and needs to gather information. It doesn't give a time out for first nations to gather information, and that would be traditional knowledge information of relevance to deliberations of the board. Traditional knowledge is recognized in the act but there is no mechanism by which first nations can use time within that process to carry out traditional knowledge research to better represent their interests.
Finally, in the latter part of the KFN brief that was presented, pages 6 to 8 point out in detail the formal consultation process that was carried out between June and essentially October and November of this past year. As you can see if you follow through that, and I ask you to review it, there were considerable problems with the formal consultation process. I know the term “consultation” has been applied to the work Mr. Pollard has done. I have not yet seen any documentation tabled by Mr. Pollard in terms of the details of that consultation process, such as who said what where, and how the decisions that he arrived at were reached. KFN would like to point out that in its view the formal process of consultation carried out in the last period of time was utterly inadequate under the law, and you as the committee need to be made aware of that.
Thank you.