Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the House on Bill C-6, the Mackenzie Valley resource management act.
I am extremely pleased to be sponsoring this bill which will build on two other legislative initiatives that are already redrawing the political, social and economic face of the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories.
In December 1992 legislation was enacted to implement the comprehensive land claim agreement of the Gwich'in of the Mackenzie Valley. In 1994 the Sahtu Dene and Metis comprehensive land claim agreement was also given effect by legislation passed by this House. We are also continuing to negotiate agreements with the other claimant groups in the Mackenzie Valley. These are historic agreements for the beneficiaries, for the residents of the Northwest Territories and for all Canadians.
The aboriginal beneficiaries now have the land base and the financial resources that will enable them to more fully manage their own affairs. Residents of these areas in the territories as well as the territorial government and industry have the certainty of land ownership and resources rights that come with settlement agreements.
I am pleased to inform hon. members that many provisions of these land claim agreements are already being implemented. After many years of difficult negotiation, the Gwich'in and Sahtu Dene and Metis are finally beginning to enjoy the benefits of land ownership and financial security.
However, the government has a number of important issues to resolve on these agreements.
Chapter 24 of the Gwich'in agreement and chapter 25 of the Sahtu Dene and Metis agreement provide for the establishment of a system for co-management of resource use in the regions covered by the agreements.
More specifically, two agencies will be set up for each region covered by the agreements: a land use planning board and a water and land board.
Moreover, an environmental impact review board will be established for the Mackenzie Valley, which includes the whole western part of the Northwest Territories, with the exception of the region inhabited by the Inuvialuit.
Bill C-6 will establish these bodies. Also, in order to ensure responsible management of the environment and to strengthen the government in western Arctic, Bill C-6 will create a land and water board for the whole Mackenzie Valley.
The board will ensure a co-ordinated and consistent process to regulate the use of land and water throughout the Mackenzie Valley. This is very important to the residents of that region, since activities taking place upstream can have a major impact on communities living downstream.
I would like to take a few minutes to expand on the provisions of Bill C-6 so that hon. members can appreciate why it is a good bill for the Northwest Territories and for Canada.
Bill C-6 provides a co-ordinated system of regulating land and water use throughout the Mackenzie Valley. In so doing it ensures regulatory consistency between the settlement areas and adjacent lands within the Mackenzie Valley. Bill C-6 also meets the government's commitment to give aboriginal people a greater role in determining resource use as provided for in the two land claim agreements.
Within each claimant area the representatives of aboriginal people will make nominations for half of the members on each of these new boards. This will ensure that the traditional activities and lifestyles of the different aboriginal groups in the Mackenzie Valley will be considered in the making of resource management decisions.
It is expected that this type of resource co-management will allow traditional aboriginal activities and lifestyles to successfully coexist with other forms of economic development. This is resource co-management in the truest sense of the term and in the form of co-management that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples fully endorsed.
In addition to guaranteeing a voice for aboriginal people, the new land and water regulatory regime will provide more opportunities for the public to participate in decision making. People from the Mackenzie Valley will sit on these boards and there will be an opportunity for input from private citizens and interest groups through public hearings.
Bill C-6 defines how the new system will work and the interaction between the various bodies. However, I should point out that the bill does not deal with surface rights. A surface rights board designed to settle any dispute relating to private land access in the Mackenzie Valley will be established under another bill. In the meantime, land claims agreements include provisions for the settling of such disputes.
The bodies established under Bill C-6 are government boards whose mandate is to look after the public's interests. Members will be appointed by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, to whom they will be accountable.
Each body will have to consult the public, more specifically aboriginal groups, government organizations and industries, before making decisions or recommendations.
This new system is patterned on the Northwest Territories' resources regulating system which puts, as it should, the decision making process in the hands of local people.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is currently responsible for managing and regulating crown lands in the Mackenzie Valley, while the Northwest Territories' water board monitors the use of water.
Under Bill C-6, each region that will be governed by an agreement will have its own regional land and water board.
Outside the areas covered by the agreements, and with respect to transregional activities, the Mackenzie Valley land and water board will be responsible for making regulations. In other words, the land and water boards of each region covered by the agreements will become a standing committee of the main Mackenzie Valley land and water organization, which replaced the Northwest Territories water board.
Bill C-6 also provides for the establishment, in each of the regions covered by the agreements, of a land use planning board responsible for developing a land use plan, whose approval it will recommend to the government. These boards will develop land use plans for all land in the regions covered by the agreements.
An important purpose of land use planning is to protect and promote the social, cultural and economic well-being of the residents of the settlement area by setting goals and priorities for governments and industry. While the interests of all Canadians must be taken into account, special attention will be given to the rights and well-being of any affected aboriginal group.
Bill C-6 will also create a new environmental assessment regime for the Mackenzie Valley. The environmental impact review board will be established as the main instrument for environmental assessment and will carry out the duties currently performed by the northern affairs program of the department under the CEAA, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
While this new assessment regime has adopted many of the features of the CEAA, including extensive consultation requirements and the same assessment criteria, it goes beyond the CEAA in that it applies not only to the federal crown lands and projects but to settlement and commissioner's lands as well.
This means that virtually all lands in the Mackenzie Valley will be subject to the same rigorous assessment process. Industry will welcome the certainty, consistency and efficiency of the new regime. Great effort has been put into ensuring that duplication is avoided and all will receive equal treatment.
Additionally Bill C-6 undertakes the creation of a cumulative impact monitoring program. This program will carry out periodic environmental audits and will pull together the data which will help track the cumulative impacts of development activity throughout the Mackenzie Valley.
I want to assure the House that the Government of the Northwest Territories and First Nations were thoroughly consulted on this proposed legislation.
These past few years, federal officials met on a number of occasions with their Northwest Territories counterparts and with representatives of the Gwich'in and the Sahtu Dene and Metis to develop an approach to the establishment of these organizations that would be acceptable to all parties.
We also conducted extensive consultations about the legislation per se. Drafts of Bill C-6 were distributed to various interest groups to get their input and feedback. In addition, a background document on the proposed resource management scheme was released to the public.
After this information was distributed, Indian affairs officials went on a public consultation tour in the Mackenzie Valley. These consultations have proven highly productive. Government employees have prepared information kits on the bill and the regulations for the public to provide the private sector and the aboriginal and non-aboriginal residents of the Mackenzie Valley with a clear understanding of the entire process leading up to the resource management clauses in the bill.
I am pleased to announce to the House that there was a great deal of support for our bill. A number of the aboriginal groups in the Mackenzie Valley, however, have not yet settled their land claims, and therefore feel that the establishment of regulatory bodies for the entire Mackenzie Valley is premature.
Although the government acknowledges their concerns and is dealing with them, we feel that it is important to move ahead with the establishment of these bodies so as to avoid confusion later. These aboriginal groups will be entitled to appoint members to these bodies without jeopardizing their ability to negotiate their land claims.
I firmly believe that the new resource management regime offers these groups better representation than they currently have within the decision making process.
The establishment of a new regulatory mechanism for the Mackenzie Valley cannot be done piecemeal. The hon. members will readily understand that we cannot end up with more than one regulatory mechanism for the same territory.
A cohesive regulatory process for land and water use will be to the advantage of the entire Mackenzie Valley. It will provide the private sector with the transparency and certitude required to enhance the attractiveness of investing in the area.
From an environmental review perspective, it is also important to have a valley-wide regime. More and more we are looking at environmental problems in total. Rivers and streams cannot be arbitrarily separated by artificial boundaries. We must deal with entire ecosystems and adapt to a new way of managing environmental regions.
I want to assure the House that the proposal to establish valley-wide boards for the regulation of land and water use and environmental impact review is fully consistent with the Gwich'in and Sahtu agreements and has their support. These are examples of good planning and good public government.
First Nations that have not yet settled their claims will have the opportunity to be represented on these new boards. For all residents of the Northwest Territories the new regime will mean more immediacy in decision making.
This bill also is fully consistent with the devolution of provincial type responsibilities to the territories and with, as I mentioned, the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which endorsed this unique type of resource co-management for the north.
The Government of the Northwest Territories will over time assume the federal role of responsibilities in each of these areas. The territorial government strongly supports the concept of public valley-wide boards.
As hon. members can appreciate, Bill C-6 will accomplish three important goals.
First, it will meet the requirements of the agreements with the Gwich'in and the Sahtu Dene and Metis on regulating the use of land and water. Bill C-6 therefore represents a major step toward meeting our obligations under territorial claims and will form the basis of new partnerships with aboriginal peoples and other residents of northern regions.
Second, Bill C-6 will provide a new system for managing the Mackenzie Valley, which will be more user friendly, more transparent and easier to understand.
It will ensure that all residents will be involved in decisions on issues involving them. It will also ensure a fair assessment of proposals by allowing all residents of the region to give their opinion when positions are taken.
These improvements will encourage investment and economic development in the regions covered by the agreements and throughout the Mackenzie Valley. The people in the north, like all Canadians, will reap the rewards of this economic activity.
Third, Bill C-6 will also establish a system that complies with standards of prudent environmental management. In keeping with our national goal of protecting and preserving the environment for generations to come, the bill will guarantee that environmental assessments will be standardized and thorough.
I will now ask my hon. colleagues to support Bill C-6 so that the government's obligations under these regional land claim agreements can be fulfilled and that the evolution of strong, local public government can continue in the Mackenzie Valley.