Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I guess the best way to answer that is that ultimately decision bodies under this proposal under Bill S-6 will be making a determination of whether a new assessment is required. So until they sort out what that means in practice, it's just impossible for me to comment on how oper

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, currently at the designated office level we have a flow chart. So there's a way a project comes in. There is a certain amount of days set to review the information on that project, to do an adequacy determination and request further information. If it's a more complicated o

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't feel it's really my place to make a determination on the autonomy. The hallmark of the YESAA legislation has been its independence and its neutrality. The first purpose of the act that I talked about in section 5 speaks to that. It says “ to provide a comprehensive, neutr

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have 10 years of experience conducting environmental assessments on projects, from very small projects to very large projects. We have flexibility now in timelines that we have established under our rules, which for the most part, I feel, work fairly well. Certainly there ar

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A couple of areas in which I think changes will be required in our process concern the timelines. Our designated office assessments currently take an average of 52 days. The proposed timelines are 270 days. Those are the majority of our assessments. Currently we have the public

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This was an issue that was raised in the five-year review. There was a concern that, for instance, if an executive committee screening were under way, or perhaps a panel of the board, and a board member was either conducting that executive committee screening or sitting on that p

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It could. I just don't feel comfortable speaking to what the parties may or may not decide to do with the regulations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That may be one avenue to look at it, sure.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are seven members of the board. Three are the executive committee, and one of the executive committee members is also the chair of the board. Then there are four other members at large.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The Council of Yukon First Nations nominates three of the board members, the Yukon government nominates two board members, and the Government of Canada also nominates two board members, all board members being appointed by the federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern D

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, that certainly is made-in-Yukon legislation, and I believe it works quite well. I believe that, as with many pieces of legislation, there are always things that in practice we can do to improve it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm really not comfortable commenting on someone else's opinion.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it will be a challenge for the board to work through different ways. If these changes go forward in the legislation, we will have to find ways to make this work. Timelines would be one requirement in the legislation, but as I suggested in my presentation to the committee

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's called a designated office assessment. Those are the bulk of the assessments that are done. We've only done six other assessments that are screenings at the executive committee level.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's at the designated office level.