Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 26th, 2019

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

My concern wasn't about who comes to talk about the estimates. It may be that it's after the budget. I don't know if we want to add the estimates and the budget.

As to whether or not the meeting gets televised, there are lots of committees that are trying to do that around this time of year. If our concern is trying to schedule that, I'd like a sense from Ms. Stubbs on whether that means we continue to defer it until a television slot is available, or whether that not be the consideration, but we try to get it if it's available. I know the citizenship and immigration committee is always trying to be televised; all the committees are.

My primary concern about the location of the room isn't whether or not television service is available, but that everyone can get there in a timely fashion after our votes following question period. I would prefer it be in this building. I'm not sure if any of the rooms in this building are television equipped.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Room 225 is television equipped.

I think there would be the additional problem of getting both somebody from the NEB and the minister here on the same date.

Mr. Hehr.

[Kent Hehr]

Of course, you want the minister to come and you'll extend that invitation. We just had the National Energy Board here, and I'm certain they could be contacted with any questions we have at this table. I don't really see the necessity of inviting them back at this time.

[David de Burgh Graham, Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.]

Can we bump this to the end of the meeting so we can deal with the witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Just so the witnesses are aware, Ms. Stubbs served notice of motion prior to today, and she's entitled to introduce the motion now. We're going to get back to you momentarily.

Ms. Stubbs, would you consider deferring this discussion until the end of the meeting so that we can continue with the witnesses? We'll set aside some time. The meeting's scheduled to run until five o'clock, and I think we'll finish before that, which will give us time to deal with it.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Sure, I'm fine with doing that.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

On that note, the floor is still yours to ask questions.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Great. How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have six minutes.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm giving you extra time.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for being here and for your testimony as we consider international best practices for engaging indigenous communities, particularly in Canada's context, with the challenges around indigenous consultation on major energy and other natural resource projects.

I wonder if each of you might be able to shed some light on a challenge relating to indigenous engagement on energy projects when it comes to who exactly would be the decision-makers or the ideal people at the table with the government representative, the government representative being one who has decision-making authority and can make reasonable accommodations based on concerns and feedback from indigenous communities.

I raise this because there have been a couple of examples recently that we heard about in this committee, for example, with the Lax Kw'alaams on the north coast of B.C., whose elected leaders had supported the establishment of an LNG project there. There were also individuals who claimed to be hereditary leaders of the community, and their perspective, which they certainly had a right to express, was opposed to the potential LNG project that the elected leaders supported. They claimed to be representatives of the band, and they opposed the LNG project against the will of the elected leadership. That matter was later settled in court, where a judge ruled that the person was not, in fact, a hereditary leader.

Sometimes there are differences in the Canadian context. For example, at this committee we've had representatives of the Assembly of First Nations come here to attempt to give an overarching perspective on behalf of indigenous communities, but there are many representatives of individual indigenous communities who say the representatives of the AFN don't speak for them or don't necessarily reflect their views or positions.

Chief Erasmus and Dr. Mack, do you have any feedback for us on how to sort through the complications with regard to who should be consulted with and who should be making the ultimate decisions in that consultation process?

Dr. Mack, Chief Erasmus is giving you the green light to go first.

[Dr. Liza Mack]

Thank you very much for the question. It's an important question. It's something that we deal with not only when we're talking about large energy projects, but also when we're talking about research and when we're talking about infrastructure within our communities, as to what's best.

I mentioned that in the past, I was doing economic development work in my community and also doing research in my community. It's a fine line. There are differences. There are the principles for conduct of research in the Arctic, and then within that, there are guidelines about ways to engage.

When we think about that, in Alaska, generally speaking, I would defer to my tribal council and the people who are elected leaders. You are going to have differing opinions. That speaks to giving yourself enough time to collect information to make an informed decision. That goes to the things I mentioned earlier, communication, early engagement and understanding the goals and the capacity you have within a community so that you get a holistic understanding of not only the cultural context, but also what's important economically.

In my hometown of King Cove, we have two energy projects. Ours was one of the first hydroelectric projects in all of Alaska to come on board. We've since put in a second one, so we've had some experience with this kind of thing.

As we talked about prior, on opening up the outer continental shelf, there were certainly two different sides and opposing views of how that should work and whether that should even happen. Being a coastal fishing community, and that being the cornerstone of our culture, of course there were people who did not think that was a good idea, and there were people who did. I think that it speaks to due diligence and making sure that you have the financial support to engage in those communities to feel it out for yourself and feel it out for what that project is.

In Alaska I would defer to my tribal leaders, and I would also talk to the leaders of the corporations to see that they also represent us as indigenous people. I would give yourselves enough time to talk to everybody to see what's important, as every community is different.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks.

If you have a brief comment, you can make it.

[Chief Bill Erasmus]

Thank you.

In Canada, at the pace we're going, it's going to take a long time to settle all of the outstanding differences between the first nations and the Crown. It takes decades to negotiate agreements, because Canada doesn't want to recognize the rights that we have within the Constitution.

That's why I was alluding to, in the meantime, developing protocols. You need to assist the communities so that they can develop the protocol that makes it really clear who is in charge. Who do you deal with and what is the process for them to come to agreement? In our instance, for example, we're organized by families. If you develop a land use plan over our territory, it will include all of our families, and our families then have to have a say as to how it ought to be developed. If someone wants to come in with a project, it has to meet the criteria within the land use plan.

I think that's the best way to look at it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you, both, for being here today. It's been very interesting, as usual.

I'll start with Chief Erasmus.

It's great to have you here today. I wonder if I could take advantage of your long standing in these matters to get a sense of the historical context. Specifically, I am curious about the role the Berger inquiry might have played both as an early example of how indigenous engagement could and perhaps should proceed, also how engagement like that affects in the long term the capacity of communities to deal with these issues and perhaps what we need to do more in that regard.

I know the Berger inquiry went to each village, used indigenous languages and things like that.

[Chief Bill Erasmus]

The Berger inquiry happened in the early seventies in the Northwest Territories and it actually happened because the Liberal government at the time was a minority government. They asked Justice Berger to travel throughout the Mackenzie Valley to speak to the Dene on the future of a potential pipeline. At the end of the day, after hearing everyone, Justice Berger decided that the issue of land claims needed to be dealt with, so he asked for a moratorium of 10 years.

As I said earlier, we still haven't settled. There are five communities out of 30 that have settled since then. That's why I'm saying it's going to take a long time. In the meantime there are ways to deal with the big questions. Those big questions are the following: Who has ownership of the resources? Who is receiving the lion's share of the wealth? Right now the resource revenue sharing goes generally to the federal government and some to the territorial government; very little goes to the first nation.

We can look at those big questions without solving the bigger picture, but I think we need to do that. We owe that to everyone to help stabilize the economy, to help stabilize the political future for all of us. In doing that, it then provides a different context to the whole discussion that takes place because the assumption right now is that Canada owns the resource and they have the right to go in and exploit. That whole question needs to be part of your equation that is looked at.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'll put another question to you, and perhaps Ms. Mack would like to comment on this as well.

Having issues where there is disagreement either within a first nation's community or between first nations communities, or between nations, and how those issues get resolved, has been alluded to in some of the previous questions. Chief Erasmus, you mentioned talking amongst the different families throughout the territory. We've had examples of this on pipelines. You have a linear resource development project that goes through many first nations, and some are for and some are against.

In the last meeting I brought up an example between Alaska and the Yukon, where you have a first nation in the north coast of Alaska that is in favour of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Gwich'in and northern Yukon really rely on those porcupine caribou herds that calve there, so they are very concerned.

I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on how those disputes or disagreements could and should be settled.

[Chief Bill Erasmus]

As said earlier, people within their own territories have a certain degree of legal and political authority which has to be recognized. They also have overlapping interests. You will find that there's more than one community or one tribe that needs to be dealt with in a lot of instances, and each of them work quite differently based on their own historical makeup, so you have to approach them the way they are organized and develop a framework on how to deal with the issues. Don't expect it to get done as quickly as most would like because it is quite complicated. If you really want to develop a positive outcome, then you need to develop that relationship and agree on a process that both parties can follow.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Ms. Mack, do you want to comment on that as well?

[Dr. Liza Mack]

Sure. Thank you very much.

I would just like to concur with what Chief Erasmus has already said regarding developing this framework and also creating the dialogue within the communities. I would then also just reiterate what I mentioned earlier on allowing the amount of time that it's going to need to not only gather multiple people's opinions, but to do it in a way that's culturally appropriate and sensitive to their time issues and your time issues. It's allowing the resources of time and funding, and it's also just being open-minded to the ways their communities work. A lot of western approaches to research and collecting information could be different from what they're used to.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Chief Erasmus. While thinking about Treaty 8, something tweaked me and I took a quick look online at the Long Term Oil and Gas Agreement between some of the Treaty 8 bands and British Columbia. It seems to be the type of protocol agreement that you're discussing. Doig River First Nation, Prophet River First Nation, West Moberly First Nation in Treaty 8 are within the agreement.

There are also protocols on how others can join. Is this the type of protocol agreement you're talking about? Is it a good example or a failed example? Is this a document we can learn from?