Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 30th, 2015

[Allison Rippin Armstrong]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl. Kaminak has met with the Yukon first nations. We met with the Council of Yukon First Nations and with many of the individual leaders, some of whom are here today. We are actually surprised.... We think that if the parties came back to the table there could be a resolution to at least the two amendments you're referring to on the timelines and the adequacy review and renewal.

We are confident, based on our conversations with the first nations that—and you heard them today—they do welcome the opportunity to come back to the table and have discussions. So I don't think you heard this morning that.... I was here all morning and I did not hear that it's “either remove them or we go to court”. That's not what I heard.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Hartland, can you talk about the different offices? Has the Yukon Chamber of Mines seen different assessments or different procedures in place depending on which designated office may or may not consider an application from a mining company?

[Samson Hartland]

Yes, absolutely. I think that if you were to ask any proponent where they would like to have their application vetted, they would have preferences when it comes to offices, because there is a lack of consistency, a lack of consistent, clear, and transparent application of YESAA, from one district office to another. This is one of the important aspects of the reason why the Yukon Chamber of Mines is here supporting the bill as it is today. I could go on further, but I think that pretty much encapsulates it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you.

I'm glad you chose not to go on further because time has expired on this round.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

We will move to Ms. Hughes for the next six minutes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you very much.

I think this is quite interesting, because we've had panels of 12 where they've only had an hour, and then we've had small panels where we've had an hour, so I think we wish that we would have had more time to hear from first nations as well.

Ms. Armstrong, I think you've really put it on the table in saying that we need to take this back and we need to have an agreement. The principle of it is that there has been no discussion on those four issues—decent discussion—to try to find common ground on it. I think that's extremely important.

Mr. Thrall, you've talked about how it's important to mining, and I can tell you that, yes, sometimes mining thinks they're doing the right thing. I come from Elliot Lake. I can tell you that the Occupational Health and Safety Act came about because of people who stood up and said, “This is wrong and we need to find common ground on how to make sure our people are going to be safe.”

That is basically what these communities are doing as well. They're saying that we have to look at the social and the economic impacts of this. If there is an issue with the length of the assessment.... Because from what we can understand, if I remember correctly, YESAB has basically indicated that they had come into a disagreement, maybe, on the timelines.

That's one. I'm sure there may have been some other ones, but on the major ones.... For example, I know that Casino.... We're talking about tailings ponds here. We know what happened in B.C. I can tell you what tailings ponds have done in Elliot Lake as well, and how they had to look at remediation of that part when the mines closed down. I understand that when Casino went forward that there were 400-plus questions that YESAB had to ask in order for that project to move forward.

I think what we are looking at is the fact that the government and the territorial government went to the table and said they were ready to do the review. People put their cards on the table and said, “Here are our amendments and here's how we can try to fix this.” Seventy-three of them out of the 76 were accepted, but the problem is that the other ones came in after the fact with no detail.

I think the people want to work together and want to make sure that business and their communities thrive, and they want to make sure they can protect their environment.

I do have a couple of questions. You've indicated that there are two changes that are of most benefit, that you think would be most beneficial to you. What are your views on policy direction and delegation of authority, which are part of this bill? Is it of little benefit? Is there a lot of benefit? Or do you have a statement on that at all?

[Samson Hartland]

Recognizing the sensitivities around those two specific amendments that you've asked for a position on, we spoke to it a bit earlier, obviously, about the delegation of binding policy direction. With respect to that, that responsibility and that power already exist within the board. That already exists within YESAB. They have the ability to develop their own policy for implementation and for clear, concise, and consistent application of applications throughout all the DOs.

That said, though, going back earlier, we do recognize that these amendments are sensitive, and we want to be respectful as part of our comments, so that's the reason why we've not been speaking to it specifically today.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I have to kind of question of that. The fact of the matter is that there was a review process in place. It was meant to address maybe some of....

As you know, things change over five years. You may have an adjustment that needs to be made because you want to expand the mine or you want to do something else. Five years have gone by, so you do have to look at whether or not you need to have an assessment, at what is going to be the impact. I think that's what people are saying needs to happen.

If you're saying that those need to be adjusted, I'm sure that the conversation...because this is what it's all about. Should there have been a conversation about these major changes that are being made in order to ensure that there would be common ground in order to try to prevent any negative impacts from happening on both sides?

[Samson Hartland]

You're asking a pretty politically loaded question, right? You're asking as legislators whether we should be thinking like legislators and coming up essentially with a game plan as to how—

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

No, what I'm asking about is the impact that this is going to have on your business. On one side, you're saying that this is going to be good for you and the impact will be good if it's in there, but on the other side, as you stated just a while ago, the impact will be negative if it is passed because of the fact that it's going to go to litigation.

[Samson Hartland]

You've perfectly articulated how industry is between a rock and a hard place.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

So your recommendation is that they try to find common ground very soon so they can pass it.

[Samson Hartland]

I think that's pretty much fair. Exactly what was said—

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Or that they remove those four pieces from Bill S-6 and then deal with those three pieces so that the rest can go forward.

[Samson Hartland]

That's not what we said.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

How much time do I have? Fifteen seconds?

Oh, sorry, but maybe, Mr. Light, you can respond to this in writing if you'd like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

I think I'm going to have to cut you off. There's no way you'll get a question and a response in that time.

We'll move to Mr. Seeback.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Thrall, you were talking about a project with 10 reassessments. I've had the opportunity to talk to the board before, and I asked if they were aware of any projects that had to have a number of reassessments when there wasn't necessarily a significant change. They didn't seem to recall any specifics on that, but I think your evidence today is that this actually in fact does take place.

Would you say that it takes place often? How often are you finding that taking place?

[Brad A. Thrall]

I would clarify that not all of those 10 assessments were reassessments in the sense of what we are talking about today. Some of those were in fact new projects, and it was appropriate to go back through the process.

But our experience has been that we've had more than one example—several examples—of simply wanting to extend the timeline of an existing licence. We've had to go through, on our most recent one to include the mill as part of an assessment.... That mill was already permitted for 10 years. There was no proposal to do anything different with that mill other than to put additional ore through the mill, but it was determined that the mill itself, the timeline of the mill, would then be included as part of the assessment for a new ore body.

Those are the types of examples. I think I also spoke to another example, where we simply asked to extend the timeline of our care and maintenance licence. That was the licence that covered water treatment plants. We wanted to simply extend that from five years to 10 years, and the result was that the entire licence was opened up for a reassessment. In fact, what came out of that was a recommendation for a significant amount of additional work and requirements on our part—things that were never proposed in the first place.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

I take it that you wouldn't consider the examples you just mentioned significant changes.

[Brad A. Thrall]

Certainly not, and again, I wouldn't classify as “significant” just continuing to do what you're doing today for a further period of time.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

In the previous panel, the board suggested that they've implemented their own process to deal with this kind of reassessment on non-significant matters. Would you agree with that or not?

[Brad A. Thrall]

I couldn't comment on the detailed discussions and those types of things that happened at the board level of YESAB. I do understand that those are topics, but I guess I'm not privy to the exact details of what those discussions are and how they're going to deal with these types of examples.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

But you would think, or your position is, that the “significant change” aspect of these bills—one of the four things that has been requested to be removed—is something that's necessary for the industry.