My name is Chief Sharleen Gale. I'm chief of the Fort Nelson First Nation, and I'm also the chair of the board of directors for the First Nations Major Projects Coalition.
I am here in my role as the chair of the First Nations Major Projects Coalition. I'm with Mark Podlasly, who is from the Nlaka'pamux First Nation, also known as Cook's Ferry. He is the coalition's director of economic policy and initiatives.
It is important that I recognize I am speaking to you from my home in Fort Nelson First Nation, which is part of the Treaty 8 territory.
I'd like to begin by expressing the First Nations Major Projects Coalition's support for the Government of Canada's commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. For our members in B.C., we have had a record year for climate catastrophes that stem from decades of inaction on climate change in Canada and around the world. Examples of climate catastrophes that many Canadians have heard about are in B.C. The first nations along Highway 8 had access to their communities destroyed by floods that were also down most of the B.C.'s highway arteries. Last year's wildfire season destroyed the entire town of Lytton, and an overall catastrophic wildfire season for the whole province followed an unprecedented heat dome in North America.
First nations are on the front lines of climate change. Diminished habitat availability, species extinction, poor air quality, infrastructure loss and extreme weather events are all having a direct impact on first nation communities. They have serious financial, health, economical and emotional impacts on our communities, and the first nations have been sounding the alarms for decades.
We need to ensure that the measures put in place to achieve the Government of Canada's target of net-zero emissions by 2050 do not disadvantage first nation communities, further increasing the hardship to indigenous communities. In any policy, including the GHG cap, hardship should not fall disproportionately upon first nation communities, including those indigenous communities invested in oil and gas. While multinational corporations can better absorb the transition costs required to meet these caps, first nations, typically, cannot.
We recommend that you build indigenous opportunities into Canada's GHG cap, in particular, clean energy opportunities with indigenous equity ownership of new projects and financing government collateralization of investments. We emphasize that this degree of indigenous involvement in investments in both clean energy projects and the oil and gas sector bring value not only to first nations, but also to the Canadian economy in the form of investor certainty.
The Tu Deh-Kah geothermal clean energy project in my own community, Fort Nelson First Nation, is an an excellent example of the clean energy investment that has enabled transitioning away from fossil fuel-driven electrical generation, indigenous equity ownership, local indigenous jobs for those previously in the oil and gas sector, indigenous board management-level decision-making and repurposing an old oil and gas well site to develop this geothermal project. All five of these aspects should be the centre of a Canadian net-zero policy, including the GHG cap.
We should all remember that the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act requires a recognition-of-rights approach, implementation in accordance with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as consideration of indigenous knowledge when setting greenhouse gas emission targets. We recommend that the same approach be taken with your committee's study of the establishment of a cap on oil and gas sector emissions. It should include similar requirements.
Finally, we emphasize the value of capacity development to support first nations to participate effectively in the transition to clean energy opportunities as part of the development of an emissions cap. For examples of what this may look like, I would welcome your committee members and others to attend the upcoming First Nations Major Projects Coalition conference, Toward Net Zero by 2050, in Vancouver, April 25 and 26. This is an online and in person hybrid event that will feature provincial and federal ministers, senators and corporate sector and indigenous sector thought leaders to discuss the most cutting-edge aspects of indigenous ownership and net-zero projects.
Mahsi cho, hai hai. Thank you.