I am very pleased that you have invited me here this morning to speak on the important subject of offshore oil and gas drilling and production in Canada.
My name is Raymond Ningeocheak, and I'm vice-president of finance for Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.
Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated is the organization that signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement in 1993. We represent Inuit living in Nunavut, and that is about 85% of the population of our territory. I'll speak to that later on.
As an organization, it is our responsibility to ensure that our land claims agreement is implemented and that Inuit interests are protected and advanced.
Nunavut is a maritime community. The word itself means “our land”, but with the possible exception of Baker Lake, all Nunavut communities are coastal regions. I want to emphasize this.
I will not speak too long, but I will give some geographic facts to you.
Our shores make up 35% of the world’s arctic coastline--twenty times more than Alaska. We include three of the ten largest islands in the world. Our northern tip is only 770 kilometres from the north pole.
Inuit are traditional and current harvesters of the resources of the sea. This reality is reflected in the Nunavut agreement. We need to remember that the preamble states that Inuit assert an aboriginal title to the Nunavut settlement area “based on their traditional and current use and occupation of the lands, waters and land-fast ice therein”.
Later, the preamble states that one of the objectives of the Nunavut agreement is:
to provide for certainty and clarity of rights to ownership and use of lands and resources, and of rights for Inuit to participate in decision-making concerning the use, management and conservation of land, water and resources, including the offshore;
There are 42 articles in the Nunavut agreement, and 14 of these refer directly to marine areas. Article 15 is the most obvious, because its title is “Marine Areas”, but there are direct references to marine areas in 13 other articles.
In other words, marine areas are at the heart and centre of the Nunavut agreement. The facts are there.
The articles are as follows: article 5, “Wildlife”; article 6, “Wildlife Compensation”; article 8, “Parks”; article 9, “Conservation Areas”; article 11, “Land-Use Planning”; article 12, “Development Impact”; article 15, “Marine Areas”; article 16, “Outer Land Fast Ice Zone--East Baffin Coast”; article 23, “Inuit Employment Within Government”; article 24, “Government Contracts”; article 25, “Resource Royalty Sharing”; article 27, “Natural Resource Development”; article 33, “Archaeology”; and article 34, “Ethnographic Objects and Archival Materials”. So you can refer to those.
Sometimes we wake up only when something happens. We don't think about it until something disastrous happens. Right now, we have seen the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that is really serious. When is it going to be cleaned up? How long is it going to take and how long is it going to have an effect on the resources and on the Inuit of the north?
We are lucky that nothing like this has happened so far in the Arctic. We know what happened with Exxon Valdez in Alaska. We were not prepared for the Exxon Valdez spill, and 20 years later it is still affecting the environment and the animals up there.
In the Arctic, our infrastructure is undeveloped. Our remoteness and lack of local resources mean that any spill would be much more difficult to respond to, in a timely way, than further south.
As someone said earlier, the ice pack up north makes it more difficult, too, because they're not up there right now. There has never been any training or education in case of a large-scale spill in the Arctic. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is currently planning a small-scale exercise in conjunction with “Operation Nanook”, but as I mentioned, this is small-scale.
Our closest response team would be in Goose Bay, Labrador, in terms of air support from the Department of National Defence and wherever the closest coast guard might happen to be.
We are very concerned about the spill in the Gulf of Mexico today.
I'm having difficulty with my eyes. I'm trying to hurry, so I made a mistake here. I'll have to go back to where I missed. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman.
We are really looking at this from the Nunavut perspective. As I said, the presence of sea ice would make any effective response even more difficult.
We understand that in Canada the National Energy Board commenced the consideration of drilling policy applicable to the Beaufort Sea in February, but broader consideration is required. This is a broad question, and events in the Gulf of Mexico show that spillage has effects far beyond the energy sector. As well, there are international considerations. The spillage has effects beyond us.
The oceans wash on all shores. Not long before the Gulf of Mexico blowout, on March 31 of this year, President Obama said he would allow the development of oil and gas leases off the coast of Alaska, notably in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. In the east, Greenland recently licensed approximately 12 offshore exploration licences in Davis Strait, near Baffin Island.
Besides reviewing our own drilling regulations and requirements, we must ensure that we are comfortable with the practices of neighbouring countries. Minister Prentice is quoted on CBC Radio news on May 10 as saying that he has discussed Greenland's exploration licences with the home rule government and that the environment will be protected.
We are pleased to hear that the issue has been raised with the Greenlandic government, but we would like more information on exactly how the environment will be protected. We are not comfortable with simple assurances. The terms and conditions under which development occurs in the Arctic from exploration to drilling to shipping must ensure the protection of our environment and the continuation of our traditional way of life.
We must not endanger opportunities in other emerging industries, such as commercial fishing. There is a lot of fish up there between Greenland and Canada. There is a lot of harvesting in that area, so of course we are concerned about this.
Nunavut Tunngavik urges the committee to do the following things.
One, endorse the general principle that any future offshore oil and gas drilling and production in the Arctic should proceed only on the basis of the most rigorous international environmental standards available. This would need to include adopting best practices from around the world.
Two, beyond this general principle, support the adoption of supplementary environmental protection measures that address unique Arctic circumstances and vulnerabilities.
Three, reject the Canadian government's December 2009 relaxation of mandatory offshore drilling regulations. There was a decision, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen of May 11, to ensure that environmental management of oil and gas drilling and production contain mandatory and reliable safeguards applicable to all projects.
Four, endorse the proposition that the timing and pace of development of oil and gas should balance two primary considerations: the energy security of Canadians and the socio-economic well-being of Inuit and other permanent residents of the Arctic, and should contribute to a larger Canadian and global strategy to reduce dependence on hydrocarbons and thereby mitigate climate change impacts.
Five, recognize that the participation of Canadian Inuit, who have local knowledge of unique and fragile Arctic conditions and geography, is vital to decision-making on Arctic emergency response--for example, on site selection for placement of remote response infrastructure.
Six, review, in light of recent oil spills, the adequacy of the ship-source oil pollution fund as set out in the Marine Liability Act.
And seven, carefully review and consider the recommendations in the Arctic Council's Arctic marine shipping assessment 2009 report.
For western Arctic people living up there, the current is slower than the eastern Arctic Ocean. In the Kivalliq and Qikiqtarjuaq regions it is very much faster, considering the environment is different, and we also need to consider the icebergs.
Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Chairman. If you have any questions with regard to this presentation, we are here.