Environment committee  From what I recall, I was invited to participate in the review panel's work, and I provided a presentation. Now I'm here today. I don't know whether this is considered consultation on your part, but I don't believe it was adequate and the timelines are quite aggressive in terms o

Environment committee  I will ask Mark to add in any details I might miss. Yes, the strategic environmental assessment was triggered out of our UNESCO petition. We had to go to the international community to call for an assessment on a world heritage site downstream from the oil sands. It's quite unfo

Environment committee  Absolutely. Our community has celebrated that success story. I want to also note that the livelihood that you mentioned refers to a way of life and cultural intactness in which we do need, I think, an environment that supports that way of life and that livelihood as well. We sho

Environment committee  Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members. It's an honour to be on Algonquin territory today. Thank you for the invitation to speak. I hold the position of director of government and industry relations with the Mikisew Cree First Nation. I'm joined today by Mark Gustafso

Environment committee  Actually, Phil has done some of this research. Maybe I'll get him to speak. He just explained to me some of the lab work he has done and how it really needs to apply out in the field.

Environment committee  Personally, I'm not aware of any resistance to this idea. I know that when we have asked for an increase in parameters in monitoring, in terms of toxicity and contaminants reaching our community, there has sometimes been some resistance from industry. They don't see that they'r

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely.

Environment committee  Yes, I would agree. I would also like to maybe follow up with a written response to that question. I think, just from my limited understanding of science, that exploring alternatives is always a good thing. That's if I understand your question correctly.

Environment committee  I'll let maybe Phil talk about—

Environment committee  No, I think that's good. I agree with Phil. The intention is there. I think it just needs to be backed up with adequate funding. I mentioned that we do our own monitoring within our community. It's completely funded by our community. We have no funding sources from any level of

Environment committee  To begin, we believe in the precautionary principle, as an example, so when you don't know, why keep approving? But that's what we see. We're sacrificing a lot of our traditional territory for the benefit of all Canadians with the economic opportunities from the development of th

Environment committee  Alberta has developed an indigenous wisdom advisory panel. I'm now a member of that panel. The only reason I decided to join was that I've been pushing for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in environmental monitoring in the oil sands specifically for a very long time. Now th

Environment committee  No. The federal government and the provincial government did form the joint oil sands monitoring program, which all five indigenous groups within the region refused to participate in. There was no meaningful engagement. There's no inclusion of indigenous knowledge. With the re

Environment committee  I can go first.

Environment committee  To me, when I look at environmental protection and any means or measures to protect the environment, it has to be inclusive of the people. The Mikisew Cree see ourselves as a component of our environment, so an indicator is us, just like indicators are clean water and healthy wil