Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to enter into debate with the former speaker, but I will restrict my comments to the legislation under consideration, Bill C-6, an act to amend the Yukon Quartz Mining Act and the Yukon Placer Mining Act.
It should be noted that the Yukon Quartz Mining Act was first brought forward in 1924 and the Yukon Placer Mining Act in 1906. They have been virtually unchanged since that time. I think everyone is in agreement, while they may not be in agreement with some of the details of this bill, that there is need for change. That is the reason I am supporting this bill.
In 1924 and 1906 the bills basically provided administrative direction, dispersal of federal lands for the use of mining and mineral rights and the collection of royalties. There were really no environmental regulations at all at that time, quite understandably given the era.
It is very important to say at the beginning that there are environmental and other regulations related to mining in the Yukon, but these amendments are restricted to exploration activities for which there has not been environmental regulation. When one looks at the number of pieces of legislation both federal and territorial that apply to mining in the Yukon, no one should be left with the thought that there has been no environmental regulation. In fact 14 pieces of federal and territorial legislation are currently on the books that relate to mining activity in the Yukon. This is of itself a problem which I will address a bit later.
As has been pointed out by other speakers on mining in the Yukon, the quartz mining and hard rock mining are basically larger companies but the placer mining is very often small family operations, some larger than others. Mining is the largest private sector employer and largest private sector income generator in the Yukon. Therefore it is a very important industry to everyone in the Yukon because of the spin-off effects of the jobs created and the taxes collected. To all of us who want to see greater economic development in the Yukon, it is very important that mining continue to be a essential part of the economy.
At the same time we live in a territory that is almost the size of Sweden which is really in many ways and to many people the last wilderness frontier. Many other industries are based on the wilder-
ness from outfitting, to trail guiding, trapping and so on. They also rely on land use in the Yukon.
I want to address specifically some of the issues and not so much the content of this legislation. Previous speakers have talked quite a bit about the content. Essentially the legislation addresses certain environmental issues related to exploration that have not been covered by existing pieces of legislation.
I am empathetic with those in the industry who say that we have an extremely complicated process to facilitate mining in the Yukon and they are right. I strongly believe there should be good regulations and good environmental controls, but I also feel it should not be such a cumbersome process for those who wish to do exploration or who wish to proceed further.
As I mentioned earlier, there are 14 pieces of legislation which affect mining in the Yukon. As came out quite clearly during the committee hearings on this bill, those pieces of legislation in and of themselves are often incompatible and at odds with each other. That is clearly unacceptable and must be addressed. It is not addressed by this legislation and continues to be an outstanding issue.
Essentially the bill contains four classes. Under each class there are different requirements for notifying the public of the kind of work the company will be doing. Each of the four classes has different requirements.
There is not opposition to the entire bill but there is a concern with respect to a lack of requirements in certain classes. For example, under a class I licence for developing exploration it is not necessary to give notification to any public body. When a company does exploration there may not be intrusive harm to the environment but there usually is some. They may be taking in a Caterpillar; they may be going by river; they may have to cut down trees and so on. A real issue for a lot of groups was that there should be a notification requirement for all of the four classes.
A good aspect of the legislation is that it does allow time for implementation. For example, in the quartz mining amendments there is a six-month transition period for implementation. For placer mining there is a 12-month implementation period. The current operating conditions obviously would apply during those periods.
Another positive element of the bill is that a full review of the regulations will have to take place after two seasons of implementation. That is particularly important because it is not always possible to foresee the long term effects of some aspects of legislation or regulations. Certainly no one wants to see the industry regulated out of business.
I can say that in the 10 years I have been the member of Parliament for Yukon and have worked with the mining industry, there has been a real desire on behalf of the industry to see that there are good environmental practices. There have been many advances.
The Yukon Mining Advisory Committee was established in 1990 by the previous government to bring together representatives of industry, the conservation groups and the First Nations to formulate amendments to these two acts. It was very tough to find a consensus in this diverse group which has differing interests on these issues. It is fair to say that after two years of meeting, in 1992 the Yukon Mining Advisory Committee worked hard to reach a consensus. The mining community gave up something and other groups gave up something. They came up with a fairly good consensus on what could be done in the immediate term. It was not seen necessarily as a long term objective.
Other jurisdictions could learn from this. The process of the mining advisory committee was exceedingly good. It was an attempt to sit down face to face to come to grips with difficult issues. The resulting report was positive. The problem was that in the intervening time, from 1992 to 1996, there was a change in government which again changed the mandate. There was certainly a lag when the committee was not as active as it had been. Also in 1995 the land claims and self-government agreements came into force through this Parliament. There were certain requirements under those agreements which had not been met in the mining advisory committee process.
The lesson to be learned is that the YMAC process is an extremely good one to use. However, we cannot have a process of consensus making and then have a lag of three to four years and expect the consensus will hold together. That is essentially what happened with this issue. It is not the fault of anyone in particular but we and other jurisdictions could learn from this process.
I would like to raise a few things about the legislation which were raised as concerns in the committee. Although I am supporting passage of the bill, these are issues which will have to be dealt with down the line.
We should understand that these proposed amendments do not really conform with the Whitehorse mining initiative which was set in 1994. The proposed legislation does not make our mining legislation as strong as that of the NWT, British Columbia or Alaska. It is a true compromise but certainly by Canadian standards it does not come up to that of our neighbours in the Northwest Territories.
Another concern which needs to be addressed is that it does not meet all the objectives of the Whitehorse mining initiative. Again, that came after the 1992 consensus and is another example of why this gap between the process of consensus making and implementation created a real problem.
I mentioned earlier the concern about notification on class I. That is a general concern of a number of groups.
Security and security deposits. Everyone in Canada can understand that there have been huge costs to the Canadian taxpayer in terms of environmental clean-up of various mining sites, and this is quite true in the Yukon. People want to see adequate security provisions. This legislation basically states that security will be determined on a case by case basis. It has been suggested that this is not sufficient but should simply be required as a cost of doing business.
I am somewhat empathetic to those, particularly small operators, who say that this would be very difficult to fulfil. This section of the act will have to be watched really closely in terms of the implementation I spoke about earlier.
Another issue as a result of the time gap is a very serious concern which was raised by the Council of Yukon First Nations. Under the land claims and self-government agreements there is a very clear clause that the federal government must consult with the First Nations in terms of any legislation it is bringing forward. This came up around Bill C-68, the firearms legislation, where the four groups including the Council for Yukon First Nations who have constitutionally entrenched agreements, according to their view which they substantiated, had not been properly consulted. It is equally true with this bill.
These agreements came into place after the 1992 consensus. We have an adjustment here to a new political dynamic which in respect of this legislation I would have to say was not met. It must be addressed by the federal government.
Wildlife habitat is an issue of great concern. Between the territorial and federal government there is a bit of contention about who is responsible for the preservation of wildlife habitat. To make the point, CPAWS, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society unbeknownst to most Yukoners did staking in some very sensitive wildlife habitat areas. Of course, it did not have to notify anyone because that was not in the law. The society did it not because it was going to mine, but to point out that wildlife habitat areas are not protected under this legislation. It has not been sorted out whether the federal or territorial government is going to take responsibility for this. It is an outstanding concern.
Another concern is competing land use. Historically, under mining legislation there is what is called the free entry system. In other words someone can stake and mine with free entry into any lands. There was an incident in Whitehorse recently in green space behind a residential area and people were fairly upset. The free entry system is not part of this legislation. I will not dwell on it, but it is an issue with regard to competing land use between outfitters, wilderness guides and trappers that people did raise which needs to be discussed at length.
Many people see this piece of legislation as better than nothing. As much as anything it points out what we have to do in the future.
Mining is important and it needs to be supported. We need to streamline the regulations and process. The involvement of all stakeholders in the regulations would be a very important step on behalf of the federal government to perhaps bring together some of these concerns in a constructive way.
The federal government has put forward a proposal to the Yukon for the devolution of northern affairs programs by 1998 and that includes mining. We see that within two years, should these amendments pass today, there will have to be a comprehensive review of mining legislation by the territorial government if it is to assume responsibility for mining as a territorial responsibility. The YMAC process illustrated the usefulness of that kind of body of consensus making but also the faults if one does not follow up with action immediately.
The real challenge within the next two years will be for the federal and territorial governments to work together to consolidate some of these pieces of legislation to make sure that mining legislation conforms to the Whitehorse mining initiative, and to ensure we can have a viable industry but also an industry which respects environmental standards and regulations.
I will conclude by simply saying that this is a step in the right direction. It will require a lot of further work but it will take us one step toward better mining legislation in the Yukon.
