Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and committee members.
I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are meeting on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People.
I would also like to thank the Standing Committee on Natural Resources for inviting us to participate in your study of international best practices for engaging with indigenous communities with respect to major energy projects.
My name is Tracy Sletto. I am the National Energy Board's Executive Vice-President for Transparency and Strategic Engagement. With me today is Dr. Robert Steedman, Chief Environment Officer.
The NEB welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this study. Indigenous engagement continues to be an important part of our Canadian public discourse about energy projects. It has long been important to the NEB, as Canada's life-cycle regulator of energy projects, and is one of our core areas of focus. The NEB's approach to indigenous engagement is guided by the feedback and input from indigenous communities and people with whom we work, by domestic best practices and by Canadian law. We continually welcome any and all opportunity to learn more about international best practices in this area.
The NEB works to build relationships with indigenous peoples based on mutual respect and recognition of indigenous people's rights. Our approach is intended to be co-operative and respectful, ensuring indigenous rights are respected. The NEB's indigenous engagement activities have been evolving over the years. In the past we have focused on supporting indigenous participation during the regulatory application and public hearing phase for projects. We've heard from many indigenous people that they have concerns about these processes and we've been actively working to improve them.
More recently, our commitment to an enhanced indigenous engagement continues throughout the operational life cycle of the energy projects we regulate. We know that engagement with indigenous groups throughout the full life cycle of a project leads to better regulatory outcomes for all Canadians, including enhanced safety and environmental protection outcomes.
I would like to highlight the NEB's indigenous engagement activities and approach, talk about some of the more innovative initiatives under way and then turn to the future of indigenous engagement at the NEB.
The NEB requires companies to engage early in their project planning with indigenous groups that are potentially impacted by a project and respond to those concerns in their project design. We know that early and informal resolution of issues is preferable to more formal adjudication processes, and we are actively working to help facilitate and support early issue identification and resolution.
Once a company applies to us for approval to build a project, we reach out to indigenous groups that may be impacted and offer to meet to talk about the role of the NEB and share information about our hearing processes. More recently, we have started to explore ways to work with indigenous people and stakeholders to help design the hearing process. For example, this month the NEB convened a workshop of indigenous peoples, NEB staff and the proponent of a major energy project to identify hearing process design options that best meet the needs of affected indigenous communities. From this early engagement phase right through to a decision or a recommendation report, the NEB seeks to ensure that issues and concerns to indigenous communities are heard and reflected in the decision-making process.
The NEB strives to make its regulatory processes as accessible as possible to indigenous peoples. We have dedicated staff who work specifically with indigenous communities to ensure that they are informed and aware of these processes and that we can incorporate indigenous knowledge in our decision-making. In addition, indigenous peoples have an oral tradition of sharing information and knowledge from generation to generation and we understand that this information cannot always be shared adequately in writing as part of the hearing process. The NEB actively offers indigenous hearing participants the opportunity to provide oral traditional evidence, or OTE.
The NEB attempts to accommodate indigenous participants, including with respect to timing and location for OTE. For example, OTE has been heard at sacred sites, in gathering centres, as part of traditional feasts and in special locations within indigenous communities. We have also included cultural protocols of indigenous intervenors such as pipe or smudge ceremonies and traditional drumming, and feeding the fire ceremonies in our northern hearings and meetings.
The NEB has a long history of providing comprehensive reasons for its decisions and recommendations. Indigenous communities have told us that they want to see their specific issues and concerns reflected in our reports, with clear references as to how those concerns were addressed or mitigated. We've responded by changing how we write our reports, targeting a broader public audience and including information specific to the issues raised by each affected indigenous community. Summary tables of the general and specific concerns and issues raised by indigenous peoples are now included.
The NEB is encouraged by the success of the indigenous advisory and monitoring committees for the Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipelines. In the months that the IAMCs have been in place, trained independent indigenous monitors have accompanied NEB inspection officers on the majority of our 35 inspections for those projects. We have included indigenous monitors in our evaluation and oversight of companies' emergency management exercises, as well as in work to co-develop policies, procedures, processes and training for joint monitoring activities.
Both NEB staff and indigenous monitors have agreed that this has been a very valuable learning experience. Working collaboratively with indigenous monitors and incorporating indigenous perspectives significantly assist the NEB in our efforts to prevent harm and support the country's commitment to reconciliation with indigenous peoples. The NEB will continue to actively support the IAMCs and integrate indigenous perspectives in our work, including emergency management.
The NEB and IAMCs share a common goal of environmental protection, safety, information transparency and taking meaningful steps to address the concerns of local communities. Co-creating opportunities to advance these goals is giving rise to real benefits and driving a shift in how the NEB integrates indigenous knowledge into our regulatory programs.
The NEB is building our engagement capacity to work effectively with indigenous communities and advance reconciliation, informed and guided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. The NEB is working to provide all staff with indigenous cultural competency training and specifically targeting more in-depth indigenous awareness training for staff who work directly with indigenous peoples. We are committed to increasing indigenous employment and improving retention by focusing on increasing the number of indigenous employees working in key areas.
The NEB will also create policies, guidance, processes and governance structures that support board-wide engagement with indigenous peoples. We will continue to rely on the advice and support of indigenous people, including NEB indigenous staff, to improve our hiring and retention strategies. We will better incorporate the advice and support of indigenous elders and seek to increase indigenous representation in our leadership and governance structures.
Within our energy information mandate, the NEB is incorporating information about indigenous communities as part of the NEB's interactive pipeline map, which is available to the public on our website. Last fall, the map was updated to include information about indigenous reserves and treaties, which will enable people to more clearly see where pipelines intersect with indigenous communities and lands.
A key element of our success depends on our ability to integrate indigenous engagement best practices into how we work every day. To that end, we have established engagement as one of our four core responsibilities in our departmental results framework. We have set performance outcomes and expectations for ourselves as a regulator and are committed to continually improving that performance. Much of that engagement performance will be measured by the feedback from indigenous people, and we report our progress and our issues openly and transparently.
We are making changes to our management system to allow us to more effectively work with indigenous peoples. This includes ensuring that we have ways to incorporate and reflect indigenous perspectives in our work and by having ways to share and reflect the feedback we receive in improvement to our processes, policies and regulatory framework.
To conclude, the NEB is committed to creating opportunities for engagement between the NEB and indigenous peoples and stakeholders that enable people to listen to each other, ask questions, learn, share perspectives, collaborate and inform improvement to our regulatory work. We know that indigenous participation strengthens the NEB's life-cycle oversight by providing additional perspectives on the impact of construction and the operation of pipelines and related infrastructure on indigenous communities, the environment, as well as historical and cultural resources. We are continually seeking ways to connect, receive feedback and exchange information with indigenous peoples and are committed to trying new things, to work closely with indigenous people, to innovate, to adapt and adopt best practices. Ideally, we will be part of a made in Canada effort to design and demonstrate these best practices.
Our work in indigenous engagement is an ongoing, long-term effort and we know we are not there yet. We are continually learning and we will keep working hard to advance reconciliation with indigenous peoples within the NEB mandate by investing in meaningful and enduring relationships with indigenous peoples from coast to coast to coast.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for hearing from us today.