Thank you for the opportunity to join you tonight. As mentioned, I'm the director of the nuclear sector for Creative Fire. I'm also a Métis woman, a Ph.D. candidate in public policy and an instructor in indigenous governance at Yukon University.
My research and my practice are really focused on indigenous inclusion, economic participation and engagement in the nuclear industry.
Many of the communities in Canada's northern and remote areas are still reliant on diesel. The high cost of energy, infrastructure challenges and the harsh climate indicate that Canada's north is facing an energy crisis.
In order to reduce this reliance on diesel, we will need to explore other options to produce clean and reliable energy for these communities. This is challenging, given the vast distances between these communities that make a connected grid cost-prohibitive, so one solution is to add nuclear to the energy mix.
As we heard earlier tonight, the history of development with our indigenous communities adds a layer of complexity, as it contains many examples of conflict, controversy and lack of local control. This complexity only becomes greater when we start talking about nuclear development.
In the past, many uranium developments have been in close proximity to indigenous lands. However, indigenous people had a minimal presence in the energy sector. Some of these developments have even resulted in adverse environmental, social and health consequences for these communities.
Currently, however, indigenous people have become much more involved in the sector through engagement, employment and even as direct investors, but the conflict of the past has created a trust deficit, and this trust deficit still runs deep in the community memories and shapes the community's assertion for meaningful and transparent engagement in development projects, including nuclear. It looks for active involvement in the decision-making process and a consistent recognition of indigenous self-determination over traditional resources.
There is a need for increased indigenous energy sovereignty. These communities need to be empowered to own and operate their own energy systems. UNDRIP, modern treaty agreements and recent court cases all provide frameworks or avenues for increased recognition of this indigenous energy sovereignty. It will be of the utmost importance that these indigenous nations have their free and prior informed consent on these development projects recognized.
Indigenous participation is integral in driving the decisions about the future of Canada's energy mix. SMR development in Canada will not happen without the support of the indigenous communities. Engagement is iterative and ongoing. It's rooted in information sharing, trust, and relationship building, and successful engagement employs numerous methods. It needs to be adaptable to be able to change from group to group, and it includes multiple framing of related energy issues in addition to just the development of nuclear energy. It will need to be adapted to recognize and to mitigate the trust deficit that exists in our indigenous nations, by including some key elements to increase the opportunity for forming new and positive relationships.
This increased indigenous participation in Canada's energy decisions will have a positive economic benefit. This includes the value add of indigenous involvement, from the incorporation of traditional knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge to strengthen the technical assessments, but also of the local knowledge and lived experience to help guide the engagement process.
Early training and mentorship of the indigenous workforce is also key. As we heard Dr. Novog say earlier, this can take quite a bit of time, and this process really needs to start immediately.
Finally, there's realizing the economic benefit of the intentional inclusion of indigenous businesses in the procurement process, as well as deliberative partnerships with indigenous-owned businesses.
To summarize a few of my key takeaways here, SMR implementation is dependent on community support. A poorly executed engagement could jeopardize the overall implementation and adoption of SMRs, and this will hinder Canada's reduction of GHG emissions. We need to remember that indigenous nations are self-determining nations, and local control will need to be central to the implementation and success of these new developments.