Natural Resources Committee on June 19th, 2012

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

I'm going to direct my first question to Mr. Miltenberger.

First of all, I'm going to say, sir, it has been too long since I've been to the territories. When I was in university I was a fishing guide on Great Bear Lake at a little place called Arctic Circle Lodge, which is adjacent to the mine at Port Radium, which is where the uranium was extracted, I think, for some of the items that were used a long time ago, dating back to the Second World War. I certainly appreciate from that experience some of the difficulties in trying to operate in that northern environment. Everything is done by float planes, it seems. Thankfully there's a lot of water.

I remember my very first de Havilland Beaver trip from Yellowknife to Great Bear Lake. The engine quit about 20 minutes away from our destination, and as I looked out the window I noticed that there were lots of places to land, so I didn't feel all that bad.

With the vastness of the resources in the territories that I had seen, I think we're only beginning to discover what's available with the geo-mapping and everything the federal government's investing in. I know as an Albertan the value of having natural resources transferred to the provinces in 1930.

In your devolution agreement, how much is modelled on the Yukon experience? Can you tell me where you're at? What can you tell this committee about the difference between what you're trying to strive for and what the Yukon has in place? What are the commonalities and what are the differences? Could you give us a signal about how that process is going?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Miltenberger, go ahead, please.

[Michael Miltenberger]

Thank you.

The devolution negotiations are proceeding apace. We're targeting to have a deal by the end of this calendar year.

We've negotiated on a comparative basis improvements to what the Yukon did. They set the initial bar in terms of the A-base money, the resource revenue sharing agreements, and now they are of course watching with great interest to see what we finally sign on. The AIP, the agreement in principle, lays out most of the key elements. From what we understand, the Yukon has already indicated that they will be expecting to reap the same benefits that we negotiate because of that process, and we've built off what they negotiated.

On the A-base side, we've negotiated an AIP of about $65 million for taking over the positions and programs. On the resource revenue sharing side, we've agreed to a formula and a cap that would give us this year, if we had it signed, about $60 million in added resource revenue sharing dollars that we would share with the aboriginal governments, 25% to them and 75% to the public government.

This is probably our top political priority for this government.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I thank you for that. I think in your opening remarks you did stress how important this was for the territories.

I know as an Albertan—and I don't mean to keep harping on this—having the ability for us to make decisions in Alberta about how our resources are going to be extracted, setting our tax rates, having those agreements respected in cooperation with the federal government, where there is cooperation and where there is a shared jurisdiction and being able to make decisions by Albertans for Albertans, must be the same goal that you're trying to achieve in the Northwest Territories, decisions made by the folks there for the people who live there, to their benefit.

Can you give us some kind of indication of where this is going to go once the agreement is in place?

[Michael Miltenberger]

I appreciate your comments. Yes, we're one of two jurisdictions that don't have those authorities. Every other Canadian jurisdiction, like Alberta, for example, as you've indicated, couldn't even imagine today not having that authority.

It's absolutely critical for us to be able to map out the way forward, how we want to go, where we want to go, and how we want to get there. We have relationships with the aboriginal governments. We want to map out our economic future and our environmental future, and we need to have that done in the north by northerners. We need to have Ottawa hand over those authorities. They have plenty of other business to occupy themselves. We are well ready to take over those responsibilities.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Taptuna, I believe in your comments you said something about how the prospective opportunities would result in up to 5,000 jobs just in Nunavut itself. Did I hear you say that correctly in one of your responses?

I also think I heard you say that the total population in Nunavut is just over 30,000 right now, 33,000 or 34,000. Did I hear that correctly?

[Peter Taptuna]

Yes, for the new jobs, and the population is just over 33,000.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That is an absolutely astounding number of new potential job opportunities. Those are direct jobs in the territory, right? I'm not talking about the spinoff jobs in the rest of Canada--those are direct jobs in the territory. Is that correct?

[Peter Taptuna]

Absolutely. With our growing population, within four years we need 2,500 new jobs. That's just to stay in tune with our growing population. In ten years we need about that amount—5,000.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

So you don't actually foresee a massive labour shortage, as long you have the training and all of the mechanisms that get that already available workforce there to the actual job and that also get them over the barriers Ms. MacDonald has talked about. You don't actually see a labour shortage issue in Nunavut?

[Peter Taptuna]

We do see that. Just like every other jurisdiction, we do have that problem with the lack of skilled labour. We foresee that coming, and we want to try to keep in pace. We want to educate and train our people for some of these skilled semi-professional and even professional jobs that come with development.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for your testimony today and for your answers to questions. You've certainly provided information that will be helpful to this committee in writing our report. I thank you very much for that.

With us as an individual we have had Dr. Ginger MacDonald, adjunct professor, Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia. From the Government of Nunavut, we have had the Honourable Peter Taptuna, Minister of Economic Development and Transportation. From the Government of Northwest Territories, we have had the Honourable Michael Miltenberger, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Again, thanks very much to all of you for coming and for giving us this information.

I will suspend the meeting now. If the witnesses and anyone else at the back who isn't entitled to stay for an in camera meeting could leave, we'll go into a short in camera meeting on future business of the committee.

[Proceedings continue in camera]