Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for appearing before us today. I'll start by saying that in September of this year I wrote you a letter asking the department to consider separating these two bills and presenting them to Parliament. The only answer I received was that of the bill arriving in Parliament two days ago.
This issue of these two bills proceeding at the same time has caused a lot of division and confusion in the Northwest Territories, and certainly many of those first nations groups that you mentioned were supporting devolution now are not supporting the recommendations made about the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. That's a statement.
I want to talk a little about some of the things that you talked about. I want to stick with the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, because it is the contentious part of this legislation. You said in your speech yesterday, “For those who may be skeptical about what this bill can achieve, look no further than the Yukon to see the benefits that devolution and a modern regulatory system can have on an economy”.
Fair enough, but in the Yukon, the process of assessment approval of course depends on whose land the proposed project is on. If it's under the jurisdiction of the territorial government, then that body makes the decision on the approval process. In Bill C-15 we have a problem that already existed in the environmental audit for the Northwest Territories in 2010, when they said that most of the problems with environmental assessments were showing up when getting approval from the minister. In Bill C-15, the minister of the crown is the one who continues to make the approvals on environmental assessments under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.
So now we have a situation whereby one government is in charge of land and administration, environmental issues, and the federal government retains full control over the decision-making for development projects.
Can you explain how this is going to modernize the system when all you've done is change it very slightly?
It's certainly not in the model put forward 10 years ago for the Yukon territory.