Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 4th, 2026

[Gary Vivian]

I would sort of agree with you: It does create a threat, to be quite honest. It's not something that's taken lightly by industry if there's an opportunity that something can be removed. That's why I think it's extremely important that specific areas have land use plans. If land is going to be alienated, it needs to be up front and very clear.

I would give Nunavut a tremendous amount of kudos for what they did in their selection of lands. Even though they recognized that a lot of the areas they picked were good economic areas—greenstone belts and those sorts of things—they are the owners of those pieces of land, and what happens on those lands is decided by them. They're actually going through a new land use plan.

The bottom line is that land use plans are critically important, but having areas where there's no land use plan, where somebody or some community can come out and say they want to conserve a piece of land after somebody has already staked there, is what I'd say gives the NWT a bad name, in a lot of ways.

I sent a quick PowerPoint to Paul Noble, Mr. Zimmer's assistant. I'm hoping he might share it. It shows for 2007 to 2026 what actually happened for exploration in NWT, Nunavut and the Yukon. The NWT has done nothing but go down. The largest interim land withdrawal, probably in North America, is the Akaitcho one. It was put on to basically hold industry as a pawn while they got land claims settled. That's been going on for almost 20 years now. That's not good.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

You also talked about the important role played by the Dene, Métis and Inuit in the Northwest Territories in terms of economic development and resource development. There is huge potential for those communities to benefit from mining jobs, contracts and business opportunities.

Can you share with the committee your thoughts on how we can make sure that conservation decisions don't accidentally close the door on future opportunities for those communities in the Northwest Territories?

[Gary Vivian]

I truly believe that the only way you can effectively introduce conservation is to make sure that communities understand the benefits that could be removed if you alienate a piece of land. That's what I'm saying about proper MERAs. You need proper mineral, energy and resource assessments on land before you freeze it in perpetuity, and communities need to understand what benefits they might get from that.

I would also say that mining is not the same as—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much. We have to go to our next questioner.

[Gary Vivian]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

That's quite all right. You're very knowledgeable.

MP Greaves, you have five minutes.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Vivian.

I'd like to pick up on the theme of infrastructure that you've been touching on. It's really fascinating to hear about your long experience living and working in the north. I'm sure that in that time you've seen a lot of change.

We know that the level of public interest in the north has varied over time. We know that the level of governmental interest in the north has varied over time. We know that the north has often found itself at the intersection of large global or macro forces, whether those are geopolitics, global economic trends or, for example, the impacts of global warming and global climate change, which have such a profound impact on northern communities and northern infrastructure.

I would expect that in the context of your particular field of geology and mining, where there's so much change happening in terms of the landscape of the north—the physical soils, the permafrost thaw, etc.—you are aware that the government is focused on investing in northern infrastructure, but the focus is very much on dual-benefit or multi-use infrastructure that will help meet the needs of the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces and northern communities, which of course have been significantly underinvested in with regard to critical infrastructure over many decades.

I'm wondering if you could share your perspective on what would be the best types of investments for dual-benefit, dual-use infrastructure in the north that in your view would help serve not only the needs of local communities but also the needs of industry, the needs of geoscientists such as yourself and—if you're able to add this—the needs of the defence community in northern Canada.

[Gary Vivian]

Obviously, the Canadian government is talking about an Arctic economic and security corridor. I think the biggest benefit to that for communities is that it would touch communities. That road or corridor infrastructure has to get as close to communities as possible so that we can join them and make them socially better. Those are the words from the Tłı̨chǫ nation, to be quite honest, and I think the Akaitcho would agree. I think joining communities is number one.

The business case for that road is that there's going to be economic payback on it, so who's going to pay for it? It's going to be the mining companies that have to send concentrate out on that road either north to Grays Bay port or south to Yellowknife, whichever way it has to go. There's use pay on that road.

There hasn't been any infrastructure in the north that hasn't been paid for by the mining companies. I'm thinking of Yellowknife or Hay River. The rail and hydro for Hay River were paid for by Cominco after they were put in by the feds.

There are opportunities here, but I would say road infrastructure is the thing that's going to cut costs the most and provide the biggest benefit.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

That anticipates my next question, which is about inviting you to reflect on how the federal government might best spend the $1 billion that's been allocated for the Arctic infrastructure fund to support lowering costs and increasing affordability for northerners. It sounds like your answer might be investing in road infrastructure, but I'll give you an opportunity to elaborate, if you'd like.

[Gary Vivian]

I'm the past president of the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines. I've been doing this for about 35 years. I would say between some sort of energy infrastructure and road infrastructure, it's clear to me that if we want a business case scenario for corridors with payback and benefits to communities, the most important is probably road infrastructure.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Drawing on your experience as a professional geologist, somebody who I imagine has spent a great deal of time working on the land, working in communities and working on different kinds of sites, I'm wondering if you could speak to how climate impacts—and I am thinking specifically of permafrost thaw, although there may be other relevant impacts—have driven the cost of these infrastructure projects up. We know they've increased the cost for industry in the development of new mine projects, but likewise, they will increase the cost for government to invest in infrastructure like roads.

Can you reflect on that in our final 20 seconds, please?

[Gary Vivian]

I would say, quickly, that certainly climate change has played an effect in cost, but the bottom line is that every project now—even advanced stage exploration projects—is asked to submit a cost for monitoring permafrost, and the road will be the same thing. I know that process. The significant part of putting a road across tundra is going to be evaluating permafrost. That's always part of the permitting process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

We have a wee bit of time.

Mr. Zimmer, I believe you wanted to ask a quick question. If anybody else wants to ask a quick question, I'll allow it.

I don't see any nodding or anyone raising their hand, so you have a couple of minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

Gary, again, thank you for coming.

For context for the viewers, in terms of region size, we were talking about protecting 30% of the Northwest Territories. That might seem insignificant to somebody who is not living there, but the Northwest Territories is the third-largest region in the country, at 1.346 million square kilometres, so 30% of NWT is very significant in geographical size.

I want to go back to something you said before. Exploration has been on the decline in NWT since 2007, and you said this isn't a new problem and that the Northwest Territories has a bad reputation. Why is exploration in such sharp decline in the Northwest Territories, Gary?

[Gary Vivian]

That could probably take longer than five minutes to answer, but there are probably two or three major issues here.

The first one would be that the permitting system is extremely extensive. I will agree and say that we have the best permitting system in the world, but it's not easy, and it's not cheap to get through. A lot of companies have been worried that when they come here, they need to have an environmental permitting person on their staff. It's not simple for a junior mining company to come here and apply for a permit. They basically need an environmental engineer to submit their permit.

I would say the biggest thing with the NWT is the decline from 2007. I provided Mr. Noble two PowerPoints yesterday. The bigger one shows the decline since 2007, and the biggest thing that happened was the Akaitcho interim land withdrawal. That is a land claims problem. We basically have a land claims problem in the two largest areas of the NWT, so that's a significant problem.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I appreciate what the Prime Minister had to say last election. He said he was going to develop our economy “at speeds we haven't seen in generations”. It's one thing to be hopeful that that actually happens, and I'm sure you would agree. It's one thing to say that, but for that to happen is a completely different thing.

I will ask this as a last five-second question. Do you see that happening in the next couple of years?

[Gary Vivian]

What I want people to think about is that we have spent 30 years developing a permitting system that's probably the best in the world. It's robust and absolutely difficult to get through. It's creating very safe operational mines.

Do I see streamlining permitting as a simple answer? I don't see how it's going to work. I don't see how you change a community's input into this by saying that we're going to simplify it without having a significant amount of education on where we've gone in the last 30 years and where we're trying to go in the next 20.

There's only one other thing I would like to say, Mr. Zimmer. You talked about NWT and Nunavut. [Technical difficulty—Editor] the Yukon, and you're going to give 30% away. That's a significant piece of land that's coming out of those three territories.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Could you repeat the last 30 seconds? There was a glitch in the video. Just repeat your last two sentences.

[Gary Vivian]

I was just speaking to the fact that you raised [Technical difficulty—Editor] big, but 40% of the land mass in Canada is in the three territories, and you're going to do 30%. It doesn't matter. You're not going to get that land in the provinces. It's going to come from the three territories, and that's 40% of the land mass. That's an unequal amount.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

That brings us to the end.

Thank you very much to the witness.

We are done.