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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

0905

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance))

Mr. Ian Scott (Manager, Northern Canada and Pipelines, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers)

0910

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. George Sinclair (Senior Director, Bitumen, Pert-Canada, Athabasca Oil Sands Developers)

0915

0920

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. John Lavoie (Individual Presentation)

0925

0930

0935

0940

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Michael Barrett (Acting President, Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee)

0945

Mrs. Paule Halley (Member, Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee)

0950

0955

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris--Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. John Lavoie

Mr. Roy Bailey

1000

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Roy Bailey

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Ian Scott

1005

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. John Lavoie

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, BQ)

Mrs. Paule Halley

1010

Mr. Bernard Bigras

Mrs. Paule Halley

Mr. Bernard Bigras

Mr. Michael Barrett

Mr. Bernard Bigras

Mr. Michael Barrett

Mrs. Paule Halley

Mr. Bernard Bigras

Mrs. Paule Halley

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor--St. Clair, NDP)

Mrs. Paule Halley

Mr. Michael Barrett

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. John Herron (Fundy--Royal, PC)

1015

Mr. Michael Barrett

Mr. John Herron

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Ian Scott

Mr. John Herron

Mr. Ian Scott

Mrs. Paule Halley

1020

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.)

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

1025

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.)

1030

Mr. John Lavoie

Mr. Julian Reed

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.)

Mr. Allan Cunningham (Vice-President of Human Resources, Community Affairs, and Sustainable Development, Suncor Energy; Athabasca Oil Sands Developers)

1035

Mrs. Karen Redman

Mr. Allan Cunningham

Mrs. Karen Redman

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. John Lavoie

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

1040

Mr. John Lavoie

Mr. George Sinclair

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Ian Scott

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.)

1045

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Allan Cunningham

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Rick Laliberte

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Roy Bailey

1050

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Roy Bailey

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Roy Bailey

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Roy Bailey

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Roy Bailey

Mr. Ian Scott

Mr. Roy Bailey

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mr. Joe Comartin

1055

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. George Sinclair

Mr. Allan Cunningham

Mr. Ian Scott

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Mrs. Karen Redman

Mr. John Lavoie

Mrs. Karen Redman

1100

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

Ms. Hélène Scherrer (Louis-Hébert, Lib.)

Mrs. Paule Halley

Ms. Hélène Scherrer

1105

Mrs. Paule Halley

Ms. Hélène Scherrer

Mrs. Paule Halley

Mr. Michael Barrett

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills)

CANADA

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

NUMBER 067

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0905)

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance)): If I could call the meeting to order, we will get started. We have some members still finding their way here, I believe, but we will get started.

I'd like to welcome our guests this morning to the War Room. It doesn't mean we're necessarily going to go to war or anything. I think this room has a rather historic name and usage from the past.

I welcome our guests. We will go in the order we have on the agenda. We will start with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Mr. Ian Scott (Manager, Northern Canada and Pipelines, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, appreciates the opportunity to appear before you today to provide you with our comments with respect to Bill C-19.

I was hoping that my colleague, David Luff, would also be here. I think he's somewhere in Ottawa but I'm not sure where, so he may join us later.

I think there's one thing that needs to be corrected for the record, and that is that in our submission we said we're an association of 150 members or companies. In fact, as a result of mergers and acquisitions that seem to be ongoing within the oil and gas industry, we now represent 140 companies. We explore for, develop, and produce natural gas, natural gas liquids, crude oil, synthetic crude oil, bitumen, and elemental sulphur throughout Canada. Our members produce more than 95% of the oil and gas in Canada. We also have 125 associate members that provide a wide range of services that support the upstream oil and gas industry. Together, these members and associate members are an important part of a $52-billion-a-year national industry that affects the livelihoods of more than half a million Canadians.

Essentially, today I will present some very brief comments. I think you have before you our submission, but I want to go through a number of points that I think are worthwhile for the committee to know.

One point is that currently for many activities that are undertaken by the oil and gas industry, environmental assessments are often done before any responsible authority becomes known under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Most, if not all, oil and gas activities involve known technology applied over and over in accordance with well-established practices and procedures and regulatory requirements.

CAPP is a strong supporter of environmental assessment as a component of project development. The oil and gas industry has been a pioneer in undertaking environmental assessments. CAPP recognizes that environmental assessment ensures that environmental effects are considered in the planning of a project and that interested members of the public have an opportunity to participate.

CAPP has been an active participant in the regulatory advisory committee, more commonly known as RAC, since its inception. We believe it has been an excellent approach to reach consensus between different stakeholders with different perspectives about environmental assessment.

It is important to remember that CEAA establishes a process that is applied to many different activities, both large and small, across the spectrum from little to great significance and often involving multiple jurisdictions. The process requires, as recent court cases confirm, judgment and discretion as necessary.

Bill C-19 is based on a consensus recommendation by RAC, which we support. CAPP supported the RAC consensus report, Review of the Canadian Environmental Act, Report to the Minister of Environment, dated May 2000. CAPP believes that on the non-consensus issue raised in that report, it should not be interpreted that consensus was unachievable but rather that there was insufficient time in which to explore various options to reach consensus.

CAPP understands that the committee may wish to explore various aspects of CEAA, and to that end CAPP has provided our perspective on CEAA in our submission. Our comments are not intended to detract from the RAC consensus. They will, however, add to the committee's appreciation that the bill reflects a compromise.

CAPP supports coordinated government and public action to protect the environment and CAPP is committed to working with all stakeholders and all levels of government to develop the guidelines for operations that may impact the environment.

Public involvement should occur early. Industry does this now and this is reflected in CEAA. How it is done should be at the discretion of the RAC, however. Industry proponents have an economic incentive to work with the public and often provide some funding, but again this should be up to the proponent.

CAPP has developed a document for its members,Guide for Effective Public Involvement, which was self-developed through a multi-stakeholder process. Any CEAA-created fund should continue to come from the public purse.

CAPP recognizes the unique role the aboriginal peoples can have in environmental assessments, particularly on those projects involving reserve lands and treaty and land claim areas. CAPP supports the proposed amendments that provide for aboriginal involvement and greater recognition of the role of traditional knowledge as well as community knowledge in the environmental assessment process.

¿ (0910)

Finally, a number of triggers have created problems with the implementation of CEAA and thereby reduced its effectiveness and efficiency by creating uncertainty. CAPP recognizes this as outside the ambit of this bill. We believe, however, that unless some action is taken by government to address the triggers on the law list regulations, the proposed amendments will fail to achieve the minister's first goal, to have a “certain, predictable and timely process”. That is referenced from the ministry report to Parliament, Strengthening the Environmental Assessment for Canadians. An example where we see that there are continuing problems is with some of the triggers with respect to the Fisheries Act.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

We'll move on and go through all of the witnesses and then we'll go through the questions following that.

I believe Mr. Sinclair is to speak on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers.

Mr. George Sinclair (Senior Director, Bitumen, Pert-Canada, Athabasca Oil Sands Developers): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning to highlight our submission of February 21, 2002.

Before I proceed, I'd like to introduce the group with me today. First of all, I'm George Sinclair, senior director, bitumen, for Petro-Canada. Joining me at the table is Mr. Allan Cunningham, vice-president, Suncor Energy. Also with me are Mr. John Vanderbeek, director of sustainable development and legal affairs for Suncor, and Ms. Sue Lowell, director of project approvals for Suncor Energy.

Mr. Chairman, we represent a group called the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers, which is a group of companies focusing their efforts on the oil sands of northeastern Alberta in the Fort McMurray area. We're also supported in our submission by the Alberta Chamber of Resources, known as ACR, which represents a cross-section of industries across the province. One of those member companies is Albert Pacific Forest Industries, which also directly supports this submission.

I am a director of the Alberta Chamber of Resources, as well as being involved with the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers. And both Petro-Canada and Suncor are also members of CAPP. They have just made their submission to you this morning.

What we would like to do, with your indulgence, Mr. Chairman and members, is to provide some background on an initiative called the Cumulative Environmental Management Association, known by the acronym CEMA , which had its roots back in 1997, and how this initiative melds with your review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

We would also like to reinforce the effectiveness of the CEMA process as being aligned with one of the stated goals for the five-year review of CEAA--that is, a more predictable, certain, and timely process, and, as we would all like to see, an approach that reduces any uncertainty that may exist today and indeed enhances both the quality of environmental assessment and federal-provincial harmonization.

I'd like to move on to our presentation, which was provided to you, I think, a couple of months ago. I'll go through a few of the slides to highlight some key aspects.

The first slide that I'll deal with is called key messages. The key messages we would like to leave with you today are three. The first is that the Alberta oil sands represents a key strategic resource for Canada. A significant milestone for each oil sands project is that it must receive regulatory approval prior to construction and operation. An environmental impact assessment, or EIA, including a cumulative effects assessment, must be completed prior to approval.

Secondly, cumulative effects can be mitigated using adaptive management tools. The Cumulative Environmental Management Association, or CEMA, is the regional tool of choice.

Thirdly, a more predictable, certain, and timely process is essential. In this regard we will further address a proposal to amend CEAA, so that the definition of mitigation is amended to include adaptive management processes. This would recognize a CEMA-like approach as legitimate mitigation.

We've already identified who we are in our submission as the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers. We've also indicated that the oil sands are an important strategic resource for Canada. It's a major growth industry, and we're involved in a lot of project advancement and project approval processes.

In order to achieve this growth in the oil sands, we as an industry face many ongoing challenges. You have in your package a slide called that--ongoing challenges--and I'd like to address a few of these by referring to the diagram to illustrate the risks and uncertainty we have in advancing projects.

Moving counter-clockwise around the diagram, starting with the circle called investment climate and fiscal terms, there are many risks that we face. Commodity prices, of course, we can't control. We get into areas such as capital costs. But more importantly, at the front end and throughout the project we are involved in dealing with a multitude of stakeholders and an extensive regulatory approval process that thoroughly reviews our EIA and SEIA, or socio-economic impact assessment submissions.

¿ (0915)

One of the key aspects then of our regulatory approval process is to address the issue of uncertainty and the issue of cumulative effects. We are advocating a concept called “adaptive management” as a specific means of mitigation. I will get into this more on the next series of slides related to CEMA, but let me make a few clarifying comments up front.

First of all, adaptive management is essentially a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of operational programs. Second, these processes are key to mitigating potential environmental effects. Third, in order to do this, you require a state-of-the-art regional monitoring program to be in place.

The next series of slides I'll address will be about CEMA and how it reflects that role as an adaptive management process. This process was extensively documented in our submission to you back in February, with a lot of literature, but the highlights are these.

The process has been in place since 1997-98, and an association was formally constituted in the year 2000. CEMA--and this is very important to us--is a multi-stakeholder, consensus-based organization that provides all members an opportunity to voice their concerns and provide input into recommendations.

Who are the stakeholders in CEMA? There is extensive representation from many sectors. First of all, we have federal, provincial, and municipal governments and regulators involved. The federal groups at the table are Environment Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, CEAA, Health Canada, and Natural Resources Canada. We also have the industries operating in the Athabasca oil sands area involved, and we have all aboriginal groups, being the five first nations in the area and Métis, as well as the NGOs, who see this as a very legitimate and practical process.

The CEMA process and representation clearly recognizes that cumulative impact management is about shared responsibility. Recommendations from the CEMA deliberations will be forwarded to Alberta regulators for their consideration and implementation, with the regulators in this instance being the Departments of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development in Alberta, as well as the Energy and Utilities Board, or EUB.

Let me address a few more aspects of CEMA for your consideration. First of all, its mandate is to make recommendations on how to best manage cumulative effects and protect the environment. These recommendations will be based on scientifically founded limits and will use information from existing research and traditional knowledge, as well as undertaking new research.

In our view, CEMA is Canada's leading example of such a collaboration. First of all, it combines innovation with collaboration with a multitude of stakeholders. It has full support from the regional stakeholders. It is a leading model, in our view, in how to do continuous cumulative effects assessment on priority environmental issues.

In order to undertake these activities, significant funding commitments are required. For example, the CEMA budget of over $4 million per year is funded by industry, in addition to many folks being involved who are not included in those dollars. Add to this cooperative spending of about $10 million per year for environmental research, monitoring, capacity-building, etc., and add to this even more specific dollars devoted to each project that is brought forward. This could range from $5 million to $10 million. So this research and information adds to the database in the area, which is an important platform that continues to grow as we gather information.

One of the goals of the five-year review of CEAA has been stated to be--and Mr. Scott referred to this comment as well--a more predictable, certain, and timely process. A number of provisions have been introduced in Bill C-19 to achieve this goal.

A recent decision from the trial division of the Federal Court, known as the Suncor decision, has raised the issue of uncertainty relative to the reliance by the Minister of the Environment on an adaptive management process as mitigation. In our case, of course, this refers to the process I just described to you, known as CEMA.

From our perspective, the importance of federal-provincial cooperation and coordinated action cannot be understated, as we're all looking for harmonization. There is certainly always opportunity to improve these kinds of things, especially at the decision-making level.

¿ (0920)

In our February submission we noted that some of the proposed amendments to CEAA would be helpful in reducing uncertainty, while others would clarify the issue of federal control over mitigation measures. However, there are some other amendments that could be considered to eliminate any uncertainty caused by the Suncor decision and directly confront and resolve the issue of whether mitigation measures, which fall within the powers of provincial regulators, are authorized under CEAA. We would therefore propose some further amendments for your consideration.

We have some revised wording, Mr. Chairman, that we'll leave with the clerk. This has the exact words that we've reportrayed a bit since our original submission, if you will. Generally speaking, we're proposing that the definition of “mitigation” be amended to include a reference to adaptive management processes as a specific means of mitigation, which would make it absolutely clear that Parliament intends to include CEMA-like arrangements as legitimate forms of mitigation. Secondly, we would propose a clearly stated amendment empowering federal authorities to delegate responsibility for implementation of mitigation measures to provincial governments and agencies.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and committee members, modern adaptive management processes such as CEMA present an opportunity to enhance environmental protection and anticipate and manage environmental effects that may be caused by large resource developments. It is our view, therefore, that clear statutory recognition of an adaptive management process as a legitimate mitigation tool would enhance the legislation.

We'd like to leave with you for your consideration some suggested wording changes, as I discussed earlier. I believe I've provided a copy to you, and we have other copies here for distribution as well.

Thanks for your time.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): We'll move on to Mr. Lavoie, please.

Mr. John Lavoie (Individual Presentation): I come from Manitouwadge, which is in northern Ontario. Manitouwadge is located about halfway between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, and about 40 miles north of Pukaskwa National Park.

You have a copy of my written submission. I am not going to read that today. I am going to talk more freely. My written submission will sort of fill in some of the gaps and perhaps provide you a little more detail than what I'm going to explain here today.

I'm here to talk about the proposed amendments to Bill C-19, especially in regard to public participation and access to information. I'm going to make some suggestions on how Bill C-19 can be strengthened. I have some first-hand experience with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. To start out, I will give you a little bit of background about how I came to be involved in environmental assessment.

A few years ago there was a proposal for a hydroelectric development at a site known as Twin Falls on the Kagiano River near my community. The Kagiano River is a tributary of the Pic River, which flows into Lake Superior at Pukaskwa National Park. This is a very unique site. Twin Falls is Ontario's highest waterfall, at nearly 200 vertical feet. It's not an abrupt drop. It cascades down over a distance of several hundred metres in a series of ledges and pools and channels. It gets its name, Twin Falls, because the river actually splits at the top, by a big island, and then comes down mainly in two big channels. There are several other islands in the falls also.

This site was determined to have high archeological potential. It's on an established canoe route, a very popular and well-used canoe route. It receives high recreational use, both the canoe route and the Twin Falls site itself, and it's a very important fishery. It's one of the most important spawning sites for a variety of fishes: salmonid, sturgeon, walleye, and northern pike. It's one of the best spawning sites on the north shore of Lake Superior.

For about six or seven months in 1998, I made numerous requests to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the public registry documents and for an opportunity for public participation in this approvals process. I made more than 20 requests. I made dozens of phone calls, but all I got was the voice mail, so that didn't help me very much. I sent letters and I did occasionally get to speak to someone from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The residents of the area, Manitouwadge and surrounding communities, were concerned about this particular proposal for hydroelectric development. It's a very unique site and there was a lot of valuable local knowledge that was being discredited and ignored in the approvals process.

At no point did the Department of Fisheries and Oceans ever tell me that I couldn't have the documents, but they made a lot of excuses, such as the document list wasn't ready or the documents had been sent for an internal ATIP clearance before they were released, or they were short-staffed and couldn't meet my request in a timely manner. At one point, they actually sent me on a wild goose chase to try to obtain the documents through a formal access to information process. After pursuing that for many weeks, I was finally told that these documents were readily available to me through the provisions of the public registry and I didn't have to apply through ATIP.

¿ (0925)

About five months after my initial request for all the documents, I finally got the document list. It was only the list. I learned there are 80 documents that I had never seen. They were very important documents relevant to this project. I ordered them immediately and still didn't get them.

I guess I should explain why I wanted the documents so badly. I was aware that some of the information the proponent and the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources were presenting was seriously flawed. I and others pointed out the shortcomings, both to the proponent and to the province.

I wanted to see what information the federal government was using for their screening. Also, the province was not following its own guidelines in relation to the project about the gathering of background information.

The flow regime of the Kagiano River put forward by the proponent was all theoretical. The river was never metered. No one actually knew for sure how much water was at the site. Obviously, it's very critical information.

The flow regime the proponent was putting forward did not seem to mesh with the local knowledge of the area. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans never attended any of the public meetings in Manitouwadge. The lead biologist had visited the site only briefly on two occasions for a couple of hours each. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans had done no studies of their own for the project. I was justifiably concerned that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was using flawed and incomplete information.

Finally, in July 1998, six or seven months after my initial and repeated request for the records, DFO actually issued authorization for the destruction of fish habitat. This was the critical authorization that allowed the project to proceed to the construction stage immediately. The authorization was issued at the same time the screening report came out.

I still didn't have the documents, nor had there been any public participation opportunity. I received the documents only after I initiated the lawsuit against the federal government.

A short while later I learned from a newspaper article that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was funding one of the partners in the project. I made inquiries concerning the environmental assessment and learned, after several weeks, there had been no environmental assessment conducted. Eventually there was, but it was after the fact and after the funding announcement was made.

I'm not here today to argue the merits of my lawsuit against the government. I want to tell you my experiences and make some recommendations to avoid similar problems in the future.

It took a lawsuit for me to get the documents. Even though the public registry was established to provide convenient public access, there was no reason to withhold the documents from me.

If I had been provided with the documents in a timely manner, I would have been able to point out the deficiencies. There would have been an opportunity to avoid the many subsequent problems, including several lawsuits that had been initiated by others.

I'd recommend that proposed subclause 55(1), dealing with access to information, must also include three items. It must include specific timelines for posting information to the registry and get the information in there at the earliest possible opportunity. Secondly, because not everyone has access to computers or the Internet, I propose hard copies of the records be provided upon the written request of any person.

The proposed subclause 55(2) actually seems to weaken the existing provision to supply all reports. As a third suggestion, I'd like to see the following provision included in subclause 55(2): they must provide any report relating to the assessment, including the scientific and technical reports.

In my written submission I'm more specific on the rationale and the wording of the amendments.

¿ (0930)

I want to address the importance of public participation in screenings. CEAA seems to contradict itself. In the preamble it speaks to the commitment to facilitate public participation in environmental assessment, while in practice section 18 allows for 99% of all environmental assessments to deny public participation. That's outrageous.

All of the screenings don't need public participation. I am recommending that you add a subsection, 18(5), to allow for public participation in a screening report and related documents where the responsible authority receives a written request from any person 18 years of age or older. In my written submission I've suggested specific wording for that.

The proposed amendments in Bill C-19 don't go far enough to allow convenient and timely access to documents. Those amendments do nothing to improve the almost complete lack of public participation opportunities. These two issues are vital to effective environmental assessment.

Bill C-19 in its present form won't prevent a repeat of my sad experiences. If I had had the documents and an opportunity to participate, I could have brought the following vital information regarding the Twin Falls proposal to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I could have told them that there was no information in the documents that the proponent was intending to pursue a reservoir proposal after the project was built. This project was actually approved as a run-of-the-river project, but there was a clear intent to develop a reservoir subsequent to the initial construction, and that was never assessed.

The due diligence report, which was one of the key documents of the whole process, was not in the public registry, and it appears that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had never seen this report. This report was done for the lending institution to assure them that this was a financially viable project. Yet that information was not made available to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The due diligence report said that the reservoir was necessary to make this a financially viable project. At the last information meeting, which was held in Manitouwadge, the proponent stated that they intended to revisit the reservoir proposal after this project was built. Yet that information never made it into any of the documents. One of the partners in the project confirmed to me after construction was started that their intent was to pursue the reservoir proposal at some point in the future.

There was nothing in the reports to say that this is only the first of four planned hydro projects on this watershed. The proponent volunteered this information at the first open house, and there was a chart on the wall to that effect. During the past year the proponent's major partner was quoted in a magazine article as saying that they have initiated the regulatory and approval process for the other three sites on that watershed. Paragraph 16(1)(a) of CEAA is supposed to consider cumulative environmental effects of the project in combination with other projects that are likely to be carried out. The area residents knew about these other planned projects, but apparently the federal government did not.

¿ (0935)

The authorities dismissed or ignored the large store of local knowledge from several generations of people who have first-hand experience and knowledge of the area, and the Twin Falls site in particular. They were warned about the huge ice dams that formed in the falls during the late fall freeze. In fact, during construction the project was flooded out twice without warning by ice dams that did form, fortunately without loss of life, but it did cause serious delays in the construction and caused considerable environmental damage on the site.

One of the floods caused a failure of the sandbag dike and sent hundreds of full sandbags into the aquatic habitat. These bags were not recovered. Again, section 16(1)(a) is supposed to consider the environmental effects of malfunctions or accidents that may occur. The sandbag dike was not built to the approved plans and specifications. The authorities were warned that it would fail, and they were warned by the people who knew what the river could do. But that local knowledge was ignored.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was intended to give legitimacy and direction to environmental assessment. I have seen the intended provisions of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act butchered and thwarted by those who are entrusted to uphold the law. How can DIAND get away with doing an environmental assessment after they have committed to supply federal funds?

CEAA has to have some teeth to it. Compliance must be mandatory, and non-compliance must be dealt with harshly.

The federal government sought and was awarded costs against me in my lawsuit. That is a very serious disincentive for any concerned citizen to try to improve the shortcomings inherent in CEAA.

In closing, I want to explain why this particular project and the environmental assessment process were so important. This project was supposed to be the test case and was supposed to be the model for hydroelectric projects in Ontario. With impending deregulation of Ontario Hydro, we are going to see dozens of these small-scale hydroelectric projects across the province. It's important to have clear direction and rules to prevent a repeat of all the serious problems that I've outlined here.

That concludes my presentation.

¿ (0940)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you, Mr. Lavoie.

Could we carry on, please, to the next group, the Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee.

Mr. Michael Barrett (Acting President, Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Michael Barrett. I'm here in my capacity as chairman of the Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee.

The committee was created under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement signed in 1975, and has been in existence since 1980. By the provisions of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, we are the official forum for discussions by the Government of Canada, the Government of Quebec, and the Kativik Regional Government on environmental issues in the Kativik region north of the 55th parallel, roughly the northern third of Quebec, comprising the eastern shores of Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, and Ungava Bay.

[Translation]

Of the nine members of the consulting committee, three are appointed by the Government of Quebec, three by the Government of Canada and three by the Kativik Regional Government.

Paule Halley, who is accompanying me today, will make the second part of our presentation.

[English]

The advisory committee and the people in Nunavik, which we now call our region, have had experience now for approximately twenty years with environmental assessment review.

Chapter 23 of the James Bay agreement contains provisions for both federal and provincial environmental assessment. In those provisions there's a strong portion for participation of Inuit. The 14 villages in our region are Inuit villages, and 90% of our population are Inuit. In the federal process, two of the five members of the review panel are named by the Kativik Regional Government, and therefore are Inuit or Inuit representatives. The Quebec process is similar.

In Nunavik, when the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was tabled in the early 1990s we looked at it and came to the general conclusion that the provisions did not apply because in the James Bay agreement, with its constitutional protection, there would be only one federal review. There are provisions for harmonization between the Quebec and federal reviews, but they can both proceed independently. There is a provision by which there is only one review for the projects under federal jurisdiction. Therefore, at that point we made no presentations. The Cree in the James Bay area, by virtue of chapter 22, have similar provisions.

In the late 1990s we embarked on a series of community-based projects for building marine infrastructures. These projects are community-driven. The impact is local. They are being built by the Inuit entity in Quebec. And of course they're subject to environmental assessment review, in this case provincial and federal.

At this point, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency decided the act should also apply. We arrived at a point where we had a third entity reviewing a local project. We had an entity with representatives from departments, in this case three federal departments, plus, I think, two other associate federal departments reviewing a project on which we already had our own commission on the provincial side, and a review panel on the federal side. And now we had persons in federal offices in the south of Quebec.

In the first project, in 1999, Kangiqsualujjuaq, not one of those persons had ever visited our region. These persons were charged with reviewing a process. In the course of this, you can imagine we encountered literally hundreds of questions, starting with “Where are you?” This, in our opinion, has taken away from the environmental assessment process.

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was the first modern land claims agreement. Environmental provisions were strong at the time. We believe they are still strong. They give us Inuit participation in the review process, and we have a set of guidelines, a set of principles.

With the implementation of the CEAA, we now have entirely different guidelines and principles, and when we come to the realization of the projects, we have three different sets of conditions. There has been some effort to harmonize the conditions that the CEAA has made with the federal and provincial process, but in our opinion, we're being lost in the process. Energy is being drained from efforts to improve, to build mitigating measures, to have the projects much more sustainable. Instead, we have to feed the process.

The provisions of the James Bay agreement, in our opinion, should and do supersede these. We have now six of these marine infrastructure projects being built. Our area has now, and certainly will have in the future, a lot more development in terms of roads, hydroelectric potential, and regional infrastructure development. We continue to work with the provisions that are in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

¿ (0945)

At this point, I'll turn the second part of the presentation over to Paule Halley. We would appreciate any questions you have. We have sent our presentation to the minister, because that is who we communicate this with, but we were happy to have this chance to make a presentation of our opinion to the committee.

[Translation]

Mrs. Paule Halley (Member, Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee): Micheal Barrett, the President of the KEAC, presented the current context of the implementation, by the federal government, of the assessment regimes of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

As an Advisory Committee, we have examined how the federal government applies and administers the agreement's regime in Nunavik in order to ensure that this double federal procedure is implemented so as to respect the objectives and the institutions of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. It is in this context that we have examined the provisions of the agreement and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act more closely, as well as the process for revising this Act.

First of all, I would like to draw the attention of the committee members to the fact that the agreement provides, in Section 23, for a complete environmental evaluation regime which has the following in particular: the regime is concerned with environmental impacts and is also concerned with the impact on the Inuit social community.

On this subject, the Federal Appeals Court wrote, in the Eastmain Band judgment in 1993:

The Agreement makes detailed and exhaustive provision for the nature and extent of the environmental studies towhich the parties agreed that development projects undertaken in Agreement Territory would be subject. The regimethat was established represents the expression of the specific consensus reached by the parties...

Thus, Section 23 introduces a complete regime; that is, the agreement provides all the assessment rules and, notably, its own rules governing cases of cumulating environmental assessment procedures.

In subsection 23.7.6, the agreement expressly forbids the implementation of a double federal procedure in the Nunavik territory. I quote the provision:

... a project shall not be submitted to more than one impact assessment and review procedure unless such project falls within thejurisdictions of both Québec and Canada or unless such project is located in part in theRegion and in part elsewhere where an impact review process is required.

So the agreement is clear. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is not applicable on the territory of Nunavik. In this regard, I emphasize that outside of cases of double assessment provided for in the agreement, it is not possible to sign harmonization and delegation agreements, or to institute joint or substitution panels or as provided for by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as these mechanisms do not exist in that agreement. In addition, the organizations which are created by the agreement, such as the Federal Assessment Committee, composed mostly of federal officials, do not have the inherent authority to sign harmonization, delegation and other agreements with the Canadian Agency. The agreement does not give them that power.

The only way to change the terms of the agreement is to do so under its provisions, notably subsection 23.7.1 which stipulates:

The provisions of this Section can only be amended with the consent of Canada and theinterested Native party, in matters of federal jurisdiction...

Now, it turns out that, in cases where a double federal procedure was applied, there was no approval by the Inuit to this double application.

Beyond this examination, the KEAC asked itself if the regimes in the agreement and in the Canadian Act were, in practice, so similar that we could apply one or the other without there really being a difference, except the names of the regimes would change. So, we carried out a comparative review of the two regimes. It turns out that the two regimes are completely different.

¿ (0950)

I would like to draw the attention of the members of this committee to the most significant difference: that is the agreement assigns a special status to the Inuit, their social community, the wildlife they depend on and to their traditional activities of hunting, fishing, trapping, etc. For example, the agreement specifies that the regime must grant the Inuit a larger participation than that given to other members of the Canadian and Quebec public. Nothing like that can be found in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

In addition, a more technical review of the two regimes reveals that the rules of applicability, the objectives of the two regimes, the institutions that they implement and the decision-making processes are quite different from each other. So, ultimately, the differences between the two regimes are so significant that applying the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to Nunavik has the effect of changing the terms of the agreement, which provides for a complete environmental assessment regime.

According to the KEAC, the Canadian Agency or federal administrator cannot change the agreement in this manner without the intervention of the Inuit. If the Canadian Agency or the federal administrator had such a power, the agreement would provide for it explicitly. However, no such powers granted to the federal government can be found in the agreement and no agreement, ad hoc or other, has been entered into with the Inuit.

According to the principles which governing agreements, one party can not change the rights and responsibilities simply by adopting a new law, such as the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

If we were to accept such a system, which would allow the federal administration to change the terms of an agreement unilaterally, this would greatly weaken the role of Aboriginals in Canada and would lessen the effectiveness of agreements as instruments to resolve territorial litigations with Canada's Aboriginal communities.

Thus, in view of the this analysis and the terms of the agreement, it seems to the KEAC that the agreement must have paramountcy and that the Canadian Act must not apply on the territory of Nunavik as long as this application is not the subject of an agreement with the Inuit. In addition, the paramount nature in the agreement is provided by an Act of the Canadian Parliament which was adopted to implement the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and which stipulates in Section 8:

8. Where there is any inconsistency or conflict between this Act and the provisions of any other law applying to the Territory, this Act prevails to the extent of the inconsistency or conflict.

Therefore, the KEAC produced a notice to the federal administrator in which they asked the federal authority to respect the terms of the agreement.They also asked them to change the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which is why we are here, so that the officials charged with its application clearly recognize the paramountcy of the regime in the agreement and that this Act must not be applied in Nunavik without negotiating the terms with the Inuit.

We are of the opinion that some clarifications must appear in this Act and not just as a mere power delegated to the governmental administration, in view of the fact that in the previous Act, the public administration had the power to substitute Section 23 for the Canadian Act and did not use it. Therefore, it is appropriate to state clearly to the federal officials that this Act does not apply in Nunavik.

This recommendation is shared by the Inuit organizations which have already presented memoranda during the review process and by other Aboriginal organizations in Canada, which also presented memoranda during the five-year process. This recommendation is also shared by the Regulatory Advisory Committee, a Federal committee, which recommended to the Minister of the Environment to change the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in order to allow the application of the regimes negotiated with the Aboriginals when such regimes exist.

We therefore recommend that Section 7 of the Act clearly indicate that in such cases, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act does not apply.

I would be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you.

¿ (0955)

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Good. Thank you very much.

I thank our witnesses, and we'll now go to a round of questions. I'd ask the witnesses to keep their answers as precise as they can, so we can get the maximum number of questions.

We'll start with Mr. Bailey, please.

Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris--Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If I came to this meeting this morning hoping to get some clarification, I can see there's a big job to be done here. As you have very capably and ably pointed out, there's a lot of work to be done in Bill C-19 and some very significant changes needed.

I hear from you, as you're talking, that there is no harmonization between the provincial, the federal, and so on, in the process by which you hope to achieve an environmental assessment. That bothers me a great deal. As this gentleman pointed out, we have written assessments going on when the parties never even visited the site. Is that correct?

Mr. John Lavoie: Just about, yes. A couple of very brief visits.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Right. The point I make here is that none of you would hire me as an environmental assessor, because I don't know enough about it. What I am asking here is this. Is there not one standardization between the federal and the provincial criteria for an assessment on any project? Should they not all be singing from the same songsheet?

Apparently they are not. As long as you have this inconsistency, you're going to drag a project on and on. It's going to become very costly, as some of you have mentioned. It seems as if the governments, and also the third level of government, don't seem to be knowing what we're doing with this particular act, particularly with environmental assessment.

That's the feeling I have from listening to you. Was that an incorrect understanding I had?

À (1000)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Who'd like to take that one?

Mr. George Sinclair: I will.

Thanks for the question. I understand where you're coming from with that. From the oil sands perspective--I'll talk about my own experience--I think we've come a long way in terms of harmonization. We've seen a lot of good things going on over the last several years in terms of the groups coming together.

I think it's fairly well understood--and perhaps Mr. Scott can add to it from his own experience across Canada in some CAPP projects--but we see more commonality in Alberta around what is required for an environmental impact assessment and how the various inputs come into play in terms of the federal needs, etc. We're trying to make sure we cover all the waterfronts with that.

As to the folks we get to do those kinds of things, to answer your question about you not wanting to be hired--I thought that was interesting--there are a whole bunch of capable folks out there who do these kinds of things. Some of them are indeed focused on particular areas of the country, so they are indeed experts. I think both government and industry tend to use some of the same people to do this. We have some really good work being done out there, in my view, to bring these things together.

My take would be that we've made a lot of inroads, and we're making more, but there's still an opportunity to improve. And this process we talked about, the adaptive management process known as CEMA, has really brought things together in the region we're working in and in the oil sands area.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Is there a different approach between various departments? You could have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and so on, and in listening to your partner there seems to be some disharmonization between the various departments. Correct me if I'm wrong there, as well.

Mr. George Sinclair: I can add a bit and then Mr. Scott will make a few comments, I think.

In terms of Alberta, there's really good harmonization between the provincial folks, such as the department of the environment and the Energy and Utilities Board. We do have the DFO and Environment Canada engaged in a lot of the conversations as well. There have been some issues over the years, but here again we've seen some improvements, especially with the relationship with DFO. I think Mr. Scott can talk about that just a bit, if you like.

Mr. Ian Scott: Just on the general sense of harmonization, certainly there are provisions under the CCME, and starts were made with the various provinces to harmonize the environmental assessment processes between the federal government and the provinces. Part of the problem still remains, in that not all provinces have signed bilateral agreements with the federal government, so that's still an area where there is deficiency.

Nevertheless, even though those agreements are in place, sometimes the sub-agreements are not in place, so there is still very much the potential...and it is a concern of the oil and gas industry. We think better harmonization could occur. We also believe that in some cases there needs to be greater recognition that provinces do have a role to play, and in many cases they have had environmental assessment processes for many years.

With respect to the various federal departments, we certainly have seen that some departments have embraced the whole issue of the intent of CEAA well. Other departments have been somewhat derelict in their role in CEAA, and that has created problems of uncertainty for companies.

There are also some issues, with respect to various departments not fully understanding the whole CEAA process. One of the things under the regulatory advisory committee that was recognized by all stakeholders was the need to ensure all federal departments understood their requirements under CEAA. I like to remind people that although the act is often directed to industrial proponents, part of the intent of the act was to bring federal departments, on a common basis, to apply environmental assessment throughout Canada.

À (1005)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Mr. Lavoie.

Mr. John Lavoie: There was disagreement among the federal departments when I was trying to access information and get public participation. I spoke to someone from the agency, and they were very blunt. They told me the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was using an interpretation of CEAA that was not consistent with the agency's interpretation of CEAA.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Bigras.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, BQ): Thank you, Mr Chair. Please accept my apologies for being late.

My questions will mostly be addressed to the Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee. Your memorandum is very similar to the content of a presentation that the Grand Council of the Cree made to us last week. In reality, in your two memoranda, you focus on a fact that I find just as deplorable, which is the refusal of the federal government to establish a nation-to-nation relationship and this, within the framework of the issue we are dealing with at present.

First, I note the fact that the Canadian Agency obtained no agreement from the Inuit, whether it has to do with the application of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act or with the federal system of double procedure.

Moreover, you feel, and I am among those who also believe this, that there must be a paramountcy given as much to the agreement as to its institutions or to its mechanisms. However, you spoke very little about the aspects of the Bill and of the Act which give the Minister discretionary authority allowing him to establish a substitution mechanism, to the agreement, for example, in order to apply the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act or any other federal procedure. Thus, there exists a discretionary power, which also applies to the Minister and which seems self-evident, whether it be for the provinces or in the framework of an agreement. I would like to hear your comments on the aspects of the bill or the Act which give this power to the Minister.

Mrs. Paule Halley: These powers also existed in the previous Act. I believe it is the former Section 42 which allows the Minister to substitute a process and thereby apply the agreement instead of the Canadian Act. This is what should be done, in our opinion, regarding the signature of the Federal Government in 1975, when it signed the agreement.

So, this power has existed since 1975 and has not been used. We believe that this clarification must be in the Act and not merely be delegated as a discretionary power to the public administration. Section 8 of the 1976 Parliament Act provides for the fact that the agreement supercedes the other Canadian Acts. Consequently, the other Acts must be clear and give paramountcy to agreements which had been signed 24 years ago, to give them full effect. It is not a matter of changing the terms of an agreement, a regime by adopting new laws.

I think that Parliament must make sure that it maintains coherency and provides for an exclusion for projects that are already subject to an assessment process which, according to the terms signed in 1975, is the only process which applies in the region. Therefore, those projects are excluded from the application of the Canadian Act. Then, we invite the Minister to meet with the Inuit and change the terms of that agreement and, if the Inuit wish it, to fully apply the Canadian law.

It's a question of principle. It is not just up to the Minister to decide what the Inuit's intentions are. Nor is it up to the KEAC to decide; rather, they came here to say, to Parliament, that the rules are already established and that the Canadian Act does not apply on that territory. This has to be explicitly recognized in the Act. Afterwards, if we want to change the rules of the game, we have to go see the party with whom we had committed to apply this regime.

Therefore, I think the situation has not changed. The bill does not change the rules of the game. It just complicates an already-complicated Act even more, with rules that have to be adopted pursuant to the proposed paragraphs 59k.4) and 59k.3), with a series of regulations possibly to come. It is still a question of a discretionary power given to the public administration to develop lists of organizations which might be able to... It is much too vague for anyone to think that this will give precedence to the agreement anytime soon.

So, we believe that this specification must be found in the Act in order to remove this discretion from the public administration.

À (1010)

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Would you go so far as to say that the current act and the bill are not in compliance with the principles stated in the agreement?

Mrs. Paule Halley: Experience tells us that objective will not be achieved. This Act already exists and it created the problem, despite the existence of this power. Therefore, we have to be clearer. We have to circumscribe the administrative discretion to a greater extent.

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Here is one last little question. The Grand Council of the Quebec Cree spoke to us about an agreement between the Government of Quebec and its nations, which recognized the nations and the assessment process described in Section 23. Are you familiar with this agreement?

Mr. Michael Barrett: Yes.

Mr. Bernard Bigras: What do you think of it?

Mr. Michael Barrett: This concerns the Government of Quebec and the Inuit. This is an agreement that should be ratified over the next three weeks. But the Government of Quebec has noted two or three places where the environmental assessment, which can be found in Section 23, applies.

As we said in our presentation, our environmental process applies to all future development in the region of the 55^th parallel.

Mrs. Paule Halley: Allow me to add that, since the end of the 1970's, one can find in Quebec a formal recognition of the regime in the agreement in Section 2 of the Loi sur la qualité de l'environnement du Québec, which completely supports the terms of the agreement. These are regimes separate from those in the South. This is fully recognized and it works very well. We simply confirmed, in recent agreements, that we were going to continue to act in this way.

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Is that what you would like to see in the Canadian assessment?

Mrs. Paule Halley: Yes. The federal government did not apply its regime until the Canadian Act. We would like them to apply the regime before applying the Canadian Act, because priority is given to the Inuit. It is important to recognize their signature.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor--St. Clair, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Translation]

I apologize for not asking this question in French but I wanted to be fairly precise.

[English]

I'm not clear. Has the justice department, the federal government, in some fashion challenged your opinion, or do they accept that the convention has priority over the Environmental Assessment Act?

[Translation]

Mrs. Paule Halley: We recently remitted our official notice but we are in contact with local representatives of the Department of the Environment and the Canadian Agency. They are aware of our initiatives and our opinion. They continue to apply the dual procedure and to harmonize among themselves, while ensuring that the Canadian Act applies.

[English]

Mr. Michael Barrett: You have to remember that many of these projects are community-based. They're projects in the Inuit communities for which Inuit are involved in the environmental impact assessment. Now we have the CEAA applying, with outside people who have never lived here and sometimes have never even visited our region having decision-making power.

To take that to court, to go further, there's a problem with scale. We're working on development, we're trying to improve the living conditions, the standards in the villages, to put our energy into having these things clarified. That will come, but at the present time we're working hard to improve the living conditions in the isolated villages.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron (Fundy--Royal, PC): I'd like to just follow up on a few broad aspects of other presentations that were made. The first is the concept of environmental assessment and the jurisdictional battles we have between the provinces and the federal government. The term we see quite often, although it's not substantiated very often, is that there's too much overlap between what the federal government does and what the provincial government does.

Can you cite some exact, precise examples on the assessment side, which we're reviewing today, where an environmental assessment and the questions that were asked and the procedures that were met were done at the provincial level and then you were forced to do the exact same situation at the federal level? Could you cite some very specific examples where that occurred? Anyone?

À (1015)

Mr. Michael Barrett: I've had many hats over the years, sometimes in the implementation and sometimes as a promoter. In some of the recent ones as a promoter--I'll go back to the marine infrastructure projects because they're a classic example--we have our provincial process under the James Bay agreement apply.

We have nine members of a commission, four of whom are named by Inuit representatives or Inuit entities, plus our secretary and our analyst. We have the federal process, which is five members plus a secretary and analysts. Now we're up to 15 or 16, and on top of that we have the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, with at least two departments present, though there's a third one involved, and two other departments that act as observers. So now we're up to about 20 people reviewing a project, six of whom may come from our region or live in our region.

You can take it from there. In the first case, 600 people live in the community.

Mr. John Herron: I'm sort of searching for specific examples where one aspect of a project had been reviewed by one entity and then the same procedure had to be done by another entity. Do you have some examples of that?

Mr. George Sinclair: Mr. Scott might have an example for you.

Mr. Ian Scott: I think this fits the bill. Certainly in Alberta, on an annual basis we have about 1,200 pipeline stream crossings a year. The Alberta government has set up a code of practice, which is a very prescriptive code of practice. In fact, the code is actually more prescriptive than the old permitting system that required certain things to be done by companies prior to constructing any facilities.

The potential is there and it is there now. It's more than a potential. The code of practice is being reviewed by the federal fisheries department right now. I wouldn't go so far as to say the code is not in compliance with the fisheries department, but right now companies are faced with the issue that not only do they need to meet the code of practice in Alberta, but they're trying to determine what the requirements are under the federal Fisheries Act for screening.

So essentially, every stream crossing in Alberta is a potential screening under the federal Fisheries Act.

Mr. John Herron: So it's CEAA plus Fisheries?

Mr. Ian Scott: Yes, because under CEAA it potentially can trigger subsection 30(2) of the Fisheries Act.

[Translation]

Mrs. Paule Halley: To complete what the President, Mr. Barrett was saying. I would say that in the case of maritime wharves in Nunavik, the construction season is very short because of the climatic conditions. In some cases, the project had followed the whole provincial process and had received the provincial authorizations but the federal authorizations had not always been received and the season was going to end without the work having been completed. In some cases, the work had already started before the necessary federal authorizations had been received. Since slowness seemed to be the norm, there was even, at the federal level, requests for preauthorizations which had been approved, because winter was going to start and the work would have to be postponed to the following year, given the fact that the season is very short. So, the process had yet to be completed, but the work had been approved.

Thus, duplication did take place in the case of the maritime wharves in the North. In Quebec, there are also cases of duplication. I am thinking, for example, of the restoration of the Lachine Canal. In cases like that, there were joint ad hoc panels. I documented at least eight cases, in southern Quebec, where there was a duplication of the federal and provincial processes.

À (1020)

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Merci beaucoup. Thank you.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you very much.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. It's good to hear such a good comprehensive discussion on the different issues affecting Bill C-19.

I wanted to direct my questions to Mr. Lavoie. If we turn to the purpose of the Environmental Assessment Act, paragraph 4(d), it says “to ensure that there be an opportunity for public participation in the environmental assessment process”. It's quite clear, as Mr. Lavoie has pointed out, that it's rather impossible to participate when you don't have access to documents.

Mr. Lavoie, you had said in your presentation that you were awarded costs, and I'm wondering if you feel comfortable in telling us how much that has cost you and what that has meant to you on a personal level.

Mr. John Lavoie: I've virtually used my life savings to help pay--

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: So it was the reverse. You had to pay the costs.

Mr. John Lavoie: Yes, I'm sorry. I may not have made that clear.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: No, that's my mistake. I'm not a lawyer, Mr. Lavoie. So you had to pay the costs.

Mr. John Lavoie: That's right.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: The government was awarded costs.

Mr. John Lavoie: Yes, the government did seek costs and they were awarded costs against me. I spent my entire life savings on this legal action that I initiated, and I don't think this should happen.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I think in many respects you've been very modest about the kind of work you've been doing here. You are a trapper, I understand, in northern Ontario.

Mr. John Lavoie: Yes.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And quite clearly, you've worked very hard over your life to accrue certain kinds of assets for yourself and your family. And because you were seeking something as simple as getting information on a screening that had been conducted on a particular environmental assessment, you've had to sacrifice all of those assets that you have built up, all of your life savings.

If we take a look at what happened in this situation, you also raised the issue of DIAND making an announcement about funding a project and then after the announcement came forward they did the environmental assessment. Is that correct?

Mr. John Lavoie: Yes, that is correct.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: If we take a look at section 10 of the act, it says “Before a person or body receives financial assistance provided by federal authority”--and I'll let members read the rest of it. But it also says “and before irrevocable decisions are made”. I would suggest that the federal government doesn't go about making announcements about funding projects without making some irrevocable decisions.

So now we have a government department that is not in compliance with its own act. How are they punished? What kind of fine did they have to pay?

Mr. John Lavoie: There were no consequences for that department. And CEAA is very clear on this, that the environmental assessment should precede any decision-making. What I forgot to mention there is that the environmental assessments for a project between different departments of the federal government are also supposed to be synchronized, and that did not occur in this case either.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: So we have a situation, Mr. Chair, where an individual citizen has had to sacrifice his life savings because he was only doing what he thought he should do as a citizen; that is, to be informed about something that affected his community. Yet a government department was not in compliance with its own act, and nothing happened.

I would like to ask Mr. Lavoie if under Bill C-19 the situation with regard to access to information has been resolved, and secondly, whether the situation where a government department is not in compliance with the act has been resolved under this new bill.

Mr. John Lavoie: No, these problems have definitely not been resolved. The loopholes are still there to deny public participation. The loophole is still there to withhold documents. Providing documents is completely at the discretion of the federal government.

There have to be consequences for a department not following the provisions of CEAA.

Your second question was...?

À (1025)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Well, you answered both my questions, actually. Thank you.

Mr. John Lavoie: There have to be consequences for not following the law.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Exactly.

Mr. Chair, do I have an opportunity for another question?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Go ahead.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: It's my understanding that you had suggested that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had determined that in the area of the falls it was not a fish habitat, despite the fact that it was part of a provincial fish sanctuary. I'm wondering if you have any ideas on how they came to that conclusion.

Mr. John Lavoie: I have no idea how they came to that conclusion. It is clearly a fish habitat. It is a wetted area. A fisheries expert whom I retained calculated that it could be up to 20,000 square metres of fish habitat that were dried up, yet only 136 square metres were compensated for in the fisheries rehabilitation plan.

It is a fish sanctuary. There are fish in that area. There is a great deal of food coming out of that area. That's one of the reasons those falls are such a productive site. The falls themselves generate a great amount of food for the fish in the various pools.

If you go to the site today, you will see open bedrock. There's just a tiny trickle of water going down each of the two main channels--that is, when they are in compliance. They're required to put a minimum base flow over the falls during the six-month summer period of one cubic metre per second.

Last summer they were caught taking all of the water and putting it through the turbines. This is a very serious offence. DFO was notified. The province was notified. And yet it still took over a month for them to issue an order to shut the plant down. There is basically no monitoring or compliance with the conditions of the federal authorization for the project.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And was the company fined?

Mr. John Lavoie: DFO told me that they didn't intend to pursue this. They had some discussions with the local Ministry of Natural Resources and I guess the provincial Ministry of the Environment. The Ministry of the Environment did a fairly extensive investigation. They were at the site many times. The last thing they told me very recently is that they had sent all of their paperwork down to their legal people, and they were recommending that charges be laid against the developer of this site. Yet DFO appeared not to be doing anything on this.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And yet they were not too hesitant to go after your life savings?

Mr. John Lavoie: Correct.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Reed.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately, I'm going to be spirited away to another meeting in a very few minutes.

The history of federal-provincial involvement in these situations is very discombobulated, if you like, beginning in 1990, when the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources dispersed the decision-making process to the regions and did not concentrate it in the minister's office. That's one of the problems.

The Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario also administered the Fisheries Act for the federal government up until the mid-nineties, so I don't know when this came about. But since about 1990, the government in Ontario has had no policy on site release. Only now has it put together a statement--and it's going out to hearings--on water management policy. There was a policy in place in 1986, but it was abandoned in 1990.

Finally, I should say for the record that the decision-making process is provincial, in terms of approving projects such as this. So I'm curious about why your lawsuit didn't involve the provincial government. It is the major player in this situation and had not renewed until this time a site release policy for hydro projects.

À (1030)

Mr. John Lavoie: I did want to name the province in my lawsuit, but the process the province follows for this type of project is not defined in the legislation; there are guidelines that are not legally binding. There's a large manual called the “Waterpower Program Guidelines”, which outlines the process the province was supposed to follow leading up its approval of the project. We could not convince the province to follow those guidelines, and it was not compelled to because they were not legally binding.

The Department of Fisheries authorization was the key one for this project, because there was going to be destruction of fish habitat. Without that authorization there would have been no project.

Mr. Julian Reed: You're quite right, the usefulness of the so-called guidelines disappeared in 1990 because the decision-making process was taken out of the minister's office and delivered to the regions, which was a huge mistake, in my view, and probably is the basis for a lot of the confusion that has gone on between DFO and the Ontario ministry. I thank you for raising this and exposing it. I don't know why you were not given access to documents immediately.

For my part, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to do some investigating to try to get some answers.

Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Ms. Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have several questions. The first I'd like to direct to Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Sinclair. I'm looking at the submission that just came around the table.

Subsection 38(5) of Bill C-19 recognizes that adaptive management may have a role in environmental assessment. The bill says that through the course of conducting a follow-up program, if unintended effects have occurred that need to be addressed, the results of that follow-up can be used for implementing adaptive management measurements. What is your view of that provision within the bill?

Mr. Allan Cunningham (Vice-President of Human Resources, Community Affairs, and Sustainable Development, Suncor Energy; Athabasca Oil Sands Developers): We acknowledge proposed subsection 38(5).... The adaptive management in there is basically a definition. What we're suggesting through the proposed amendment that we circulated is that we find inclusion of adaptive management in the definition of mitigation, so that we can take the definition and actually utilize it in the legislation.

Secondly, there's recognition of mitigation measures in terms of the ability of the federal government to delegate to other authorities through appropriate process. That then links into the CEMA discussion we had earlier. We believe that CEMA, from an industry perspective, is a world-class model.

One of the aspects of CEMA that we haven't talked much about this morning is that it has a cumulative effects focus as well, in terms of the air, atmosphere, water, and all these things. We feel we have a wonderful vehicle in northeastern Alberta that addresses the needs that are being questioned here today.

We just want to assure that through CEAA we'll have the ability to exercise this wonderful model in a way that minimizes potential litigation between the provincial and federal authorities. For the most part, we're pretty pleased with the way the process works. Our goal here today is to enhance that process and make sure it continues to do so.

So one of the outcomes we're looking for here today through these recommendations and amendments we're suggesting is that we achieve better decision-making at all regulatory levels, including federal, provincial, and other. Obviously, our commitment as an industry is to follow that to the letter.

Last and not least, we think that through CEMA we will create and we are in fact at this point in time creating a vehicle whereby we can do much better environmental impact assessments holistically, from a regional perspective. And that's the avenue we're all pursuing as individual developers in northeastern Alberta.

À (1035)

Mrs. Karen Redman: Adaptive management is seen as somewhat controversial by the ENGOs, and clearly your view is that this would strengthen rather than water down any kind of rigour in the environmental assessment processing.

Mr. Allan Cunningham: The reason for that is through CEMA right now we have participation from all levels of stakeholders, including ENGOs. We have aboriginal participation, ENGO participation, and all levels of government are represented, including the federal government. All the key industry players and oil sands industry are present.

So we have a collaboration that is quite unique and quite effective.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, I actually have other questions, but I know my colleague, Mr. Tonks, needs to go, and I believe his question is related to this. So could I yield my time and come back?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Certainly.

Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is actually to follow up and try to bridge, Mr. Sinclair, what CEMA represents, in terms of a process, with the problem that Mr. Lavoie, to some extent, had encountered. I'm impressed with the support you have received through the Alberta government with respect to that process on mitigation.

Mitigation to me suggests to follow up. It suggests implementation, and a very close relationship during the implementation. You'd indicated that the cumulative impacts through CEMA are researched and are upfront at the beginning, and I would think in particular in the screening process.

Do you see--and I would be interested in a response to this from Mr. Lavoie, but particularly from your perspective--that process would have, to a large extent, mitigated the issue right at the beginning, notwithstanding the issue related to information and how it was or was not made available? In terms of absolute process, do you see an application with respect to that?

Mr. George Sinclair: I'll comment, Mr. Tonks.

I think the process we've described to you is excellent, but it didn't come without growing pains. I would also say that the most important thing when you're doing any kind of development activity anywhere in this country is to get the right people in the room to talk about things right upfront. We think that process allows us and has allowed us to do that. I've been in the industry for a long time, and I've been in projects where we didn't do that, to our own detriment and to the detriment of our stakeholders.

Over time we've learned a lot across this country about how we should collaborate, and this process takes the best of that, I think, and brings it together. I don't see any reason the concepts we've applied here to bring the various stakeholders together upfront to work together on these kinds of things couldn't happen elsewhere.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Mr. Lavoie, perhaps you'd like to make a comment.

Mr. John Lavoie: From my experience in Ontario, if there is a loophole in there somewhere it will be exploited. Certainly there's room for some type of adaptive management specific to the site, but I guess that's a negotiating process. I don't know how well that would fit in with CEAA.

There have to be repercussions when the legislation itself is ignored, and there must be a strong incentive to follow that legislation. Right now there isn't. There are no consequences for those who don't follow the legislation, so you have to put some teeth into that.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): I guess I find what Mr. Lavoie is saying rather shocking. I come from an environment where stakeholders like yourself are brought in from day one and are there to get the information. I find it rather shocking that you are not there at the table from the very beginning. I think Mr. Sinclair pointed that out rather clearly.

DFO, in our minds, are the ones who come in with guns out and bullet-proof vests on, breaking down department of environment doors in our provincial government offices. That actually happened. So we see DFO as being a force because they use force when they come in on a project. If you even had one little minnow in that river, they would be there with their force to investigate. So it's very strange to me that what you just said could happen.

As Mr. Tonks and Ms. Redman were sort of asking, if CEMA had actually addressed that, would that have happened? I think the answer we got, Mr. Lavoie, was it would have, because you would have been at the table, and that's really what you're talking about. I think there is hope, if we can get this bill to read the right way, that all stakeholders will be there from the beginning.

None of you mentioned the environmental assessment coordinator. When I first read the bill I thought that was a really good idea, because then we would have a person responsible for that project who would transcend provincial, federal, and industry individuals. None of you mentioned that. I wonder if you could comment on whether that is a good idea. Is that going to be a positive feature of this bill?

À (1040)

Mr. John Lavoie: The loopholes are still there. The coordinator still has discretion to provide documents or allow public participation. Certainly my experience in Ontario has been if the loopholes are there, they will be exploited.

The commissioner may be a good concept, but it has to be very clear what that role is, and you have to tighten up those loopholes.

Mr. George Sinclair: I think we always have to be careful about not creating too much bureaucracy in these processes. We have to find processes that are not too complex. They must be simple and not bogged down by bureaucracy, so the Canadian public can connect to them in an easy fashion.

In Alberta, when we make an application to develop an oil sands process, for example, we file applications to the Energy and Utilities Board and the Department of the Environment. They each appoint a team leader to bring together the input from other provincial departments and connect to the federal groups. So there is some coordination that takes place there, but it didn't happen overnight, as I've said before. We've learned from things that have gone on. You just have to find a way to make things simple and not create too much bureaucracy. That's my feedback to you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Scott.

Mr. Ian Scott: CAPP certainly supports the concept of a federal environmental assessment coordinator. We see it as an opportunity to ensure that all the parties are at the table at the outset. But we would also say there are occasions, once the process has started, when it's best for the responsible authority to actually become the lead RA, as opposed to the agency.

If you can't get departments at the table at the outset, it only creates a lot of uncertainty, so we support the proposals in the bill.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

We'll now go to the second round.

We missed you, Mr. Laliberte. I jumped over you in the queue. I apologize for that. You're still on the first round.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.): My question is for the representatives of the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers. With regard to the cumulative environmental management you talk about, to put it simply, you may have forgotten further up at Clearwater, but Saskatchewan has not been consulted in this area. It may have happened with the provincial government and we may not have been aware of it from the community level.

In the northern communities of Saskatchewan, when we turn on our TV and watch Bill Matheson, we know that the weather arrives in Saskatchewan a day later. So we in the west live with this weather phenomenon. In reality, along with the weather we also get the particulates that may arise from the oil sands, and nobody has told us whether it's safe or whether there is an ecological and economic impact. Then we talk about the socio-economic impacts of these projects.

There's a huge water basin there, which Saskatchewan has designated a provincial park. So your water source is pretty clean going into Alberta. We keep our waters clean. We designate them a park.

On the other side there's a huge development, and we're wondering when somebody is going to knock on our door and ask, “Have we been impacting the environment on your side?” I remember that when it was announced in 1998 I was very excited. I thought, they're going to come over and ask, but I haven't heard anything. Is it coming up? Is there a plan to broaden the cumulative impact? Is it just an oversight, or is it that you just don't impact our region?

À (1045)

Mr. George Sinclair: There are several good questions. I'll give you my feedback, and I'll ask Mr. Cunningham if he would like to comment further.

I failed to mention that the Saskatchewan government is represented in CEMA. I don't know who the individual is who sits at the table. We would expect that person to have some relationship with the people in the province, obviously, and to talk about some of the things that are going on there.

I can offer no other comment than that. Perhaps Mr. Cunningham can expand on that.

Mr. Allan Cunningham: All I would add is that all the federal ministries are involved in CEMA. We go to great lengths to get everybody at the table for that consensus process.

CEMA is a recommending body. They take all the data, including scientific data from scientists--we have some of the best scientists in the world working on this as well--and through that they formulate recommendations. It's those recommendations that ultimately go to the regulator for them to base their decisions on. So the goal here is to create the most comprehensive set of data we can, based on both current and new information, so that the regulating bodies can make well-informed decisions.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Maybe, Mr. Sinclair, you could provide the committee with the name of the person from Saskatchewan, and we can pass that on to all members and in particular Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. George Sinclair: I'll undertake to do that, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: To exemplify how connected we are, last summer there was a sighting of an albino moose in Fort McMurray, and that story spread like wildfire in our neck of the woods. There's that much integration ecologically, culturally, and even with the language. The Dene people have travelled that Clearwater River for centuries. There was a major trading route between the two river systems, the Churchill and the Mackenzie. I don't think you can overlook that.

I would reconsider the relationship you have with Saskatchewan in this cumulative assessment management model. I would look at the communities. There are huge regions of people who are representing the traplines. I think that in essence it would be in comparison to the county boundaries or the RMs to the south. There are people who represent all of that, and the traditional knowledge of the impacts can be assessed through all of that.

My suggestion to you is to broaden your cumulative effects. Don't work just with the province, because in our eyes that's dealing with Regina, which is way down in the prairies. There used to be a pile of bones down there. We're in the bush. We're in the Precambrian Shield. We're in the freshwater country. Deal with us, because your project is in our region. I think it would work well.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you.

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: We're living in an age when you don't even build a major road, or a highway leading to another highway, without environmental and natural changes taking place.

I remember when rural electricity first came to Saskatchewan. Everyone wanted power, but they wanted the pole to go on the other person's land. I see this being repeated now, 60 years later. I imagine in northern Saskatchewan, where SPC is going to build a power line, they will say not through this forest, but through that forest.

I have some sympathy, more today after this brief meeting, with developers, because you are not going to stop development. You can put a peg through the wheel of progress, but you'll only slow it down. You are not going to stop progress.

We're crying out for different forms of power, so we're going to build a dam. Then you have to go through all the processes on which way you would bring the power out, and so on and so forth. When you sit down, do you take in all the aspects? If it's a pipeline, what road do you cross? What rivers do you cross? Is it all surveyed out? Are all of the landowners notified?

It is all done in advance, is that correct?

À (1050)

Mr. George Sinclair: Yes, it's a complex process.

Mr. Roy Bailey: It's huge.

Mr. George Sinclair: There are a lot of stakeholders and you have to deal with them all. In any project, you have a large amount of infrastructure.

If you have a central location for your facility, you're going to have power coming in, or a natural gas supply, for example. You're going to have a pipeline take your products away. There are all kinds of things like that.

Mr. Roy Bailey: In doing so, in dealing with all the people, you're obviously going to run into people who were born in a negative tense and a “kickative” mood. There have always been those people. In dealing with those kinds of people, is it done by a special group or the total project management, and so on? Do you assign any of this out?

Mr. George Sinclair: At Petro-Canada, as an example, we use our own people to deal with all the stakeholders directly. We have a community affairs adviser, for example, involved in the particular oil sands projects we're doing. I get involved personally in a lot of the dialogue with the first nations chiefs or the citizens in Fort McMurray, for example, on particular concerns.

It's not simple. We have a society where everyone wants to have input. We also have to be careful about how we approach things. We have to get people engaged up front. Sometimes your plans are not that clear at the beginning, but as your project evolves, the clarity becomes better. You'll be bringing more people into the process.

For example, for a pipeline to take your product out, the exact route may not be known for some time, until you actually discuss with a whole bunch of folks the impact of building it a certain way. You may choose alternative C, as compared to A and B, after having all the dialogue. It can have an impact on the success of your project, and whether you would move ahead, if you didn't get all of the approvals.

Mr. Roy Bailey: It would also have an impact on the cost, big time.

Mr. George Sinclair: Absolutely.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Thank you.

Mr. Ian Scott: I think the other thing that is important is often people see the final result of a product or the actual decision. They don't often see that in the oil and gas industry, under most circumstances, companies need to talk to landowners and the public prior to even submitting an application. In many cases, there are negotiations up front to decide on a well, gas plant, compressor station, or even the routing of a pipeline. The discussions are important.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can't come to some agreement and the situations often end up in hearings. I think when you're dealing with environmental assessment, in many cases hearings are not the best venue for dealing with environmental assessment issues.

Mr. Roy Bailey: No, it can't be.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Joe Comartin: I can't let Mr. Bailey's comments equating progress with growth and development go by; that is to say, I can think of all sorts of experiences where that has not been the case.

Let me ask a question and maybe express a concern about the adaptive management methodology. I have to at least think that in some situations that model would simply be a way of avoiding the environmental assessment process and not necessarily for the good of the environment. I can see too many potential situations where that model is applied, and issues that need to be taken into consideration and then in fact would be taken into consideration in a full environmental assessment process are shuffled off to the side. I'd like some comments, Mr. Sinclair or Mr. Scott, as to whether you can see that as at least a valid concern.

À (1055)

Mr. George Sinclair: I understand what you're saying, but my own experience is that with the projects we advance, particularly within Alberta, which is largely where my experience is--I have some cross-Canada experience as well, but I'll relate to this one--it's fundamental that we do environmental impact assessments. We need that as part of what we submit to the regulators to get a project approved. It's an important platform for most projects that I can recall I've been involved with in the province. I can't see that we would be trying to find a way to get around that, in my own experience.

Mr. Joe Comartin: You would see an environmental assessment being done first, as you said, as a platform for the....

Mr. George Sinclair: Right. When we make applications, Mr. Comartin, we file applications with the EUB and with Alberta Environmental Protection. Part of the AEP's requirement is an environmental impact assessment. It's there.

Mr. Joe Comartin: You're not suggesting changing that process in terms of those steps.

Mr. George Sinclair: No.

Mr. Allan Cunningham: I'd like to add a comment.

As Mr. Sinclair said, the EIA's an integral part of any application. We're required to do them. The goal here with CEMA is to enhance them and do them better, clearly. The whole reference to adaptive management today for us is to ensure through CEAA, the legislation, that we have access to that tool, CEMA, so that in fact we can do EIAs much better and do them on a cumulative effects basis as well. Our goal here today is to add value, not detract value, from a Canadian perspective on this very important issue.

Mr. Ian Scott: I also think that adaptive management, as I understand it, is not to replace environmental assessment. It is the process that almost makes environmental assessment--the follow-up programs--as dynamic as possible. I can give examples where in the past a company has proposed a specific technique--either they have proposed it or in some cases have been forced to go as a result of regulators--and through follow-up they've been able to demonstrate that the proposed procedure either was very effective or was a waste of time. So I think adaptive management can be a very useful tool in saying this worked, we should do it more often, or it didn't work. I think it's not to replace environmental assessment, but rather to enhance environmental assessment--to see whether what was being proposed actually did work. I don't see it as an alternative to environmental assessment.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you very much.

Ms. Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You touched on this a little bit in your initial presentation, but what constitutes convenient public access, in your mind?

Mr. John Lavoie: In my particular situation it would have been access to the documents when I requested them. I had to go to court to get the documents. That's the only way I got them, and the project was already approved and was under construction. That's not right. Convenient public access means getting the registry up and running immediately and getting all of the documents in there as they become available.

I know that Bill C-19 talks about establishing now an electronic registry. In addition to the electronic registry, you also have to provide hard copies. A lot of people are not computer literate. They do not have access to the Internet. On request, concerned parties should be supplied with hard copies of the registry documents.

Also, in relation to that, first of all the public has to be aware of the process, and the best way they can be made aware of that is publication in local newspapers. Certainly if there's a federal assessment going on, the public should be given notice of that. The best way to do that is in the local media.

Mrs. Karen Redman: So you would support the electronic registry, but would you still see a hard copy paper registry being valuable or having those documents...?

Mr. John Lavoie: That's correct.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you.

Á (1100)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Ms. Scherrer.

[Translation]

Ms. Hélène Scherrer (Louis-Hébert, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I especially want to address myself to the Kativik Committee, to whom I would like to ask a few questions. First, if I understood correctly, you already have an agreement which meets all the important requirements in terms of environmental assessment and that you consider the latter to be more thorough, to the extent that it takes into consideration the socio-economic factors and other factors which are unique to your culture. Because, in your opinion, these elements cannot be found in the current Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, you would want your agreement to be used in its entirety and that Bill C-19 have no application whatsoever on your territories. Up to this point, this is correct?

Is there, in the current act, one or some elements which could complete your agreement? Given that the latter was signed some thirty years ago already, might some elements of the current act improve your agreement, to produce a happy blend of the two parts, or the judicial aspect of your agreement might be more complete? On the other hand, would you prefer that we use only the agreement and that we consider none of the elements of Bill C-19?

Mrs. Paule Halley: Our agreement is also that of the Parliament of Canada since it was signed by the Federal Government. We are an advisory committee; we are making sure that the agreement is applied and respected. We can not represent the Inuit's point of view. As a matter of fact, if they were consulted by the federal authorities, the latter might say that the Canadian Act improves the process, since it is 25 years old. So it is with the Inuit that discussions will have to be held and we should not presume what their position will be on the subject. The committee is not judging whether the Act is good or bad, but is highlighting the fact that the federal government is already applying a process in this region and that this process arose from a negotiation concluded with another party. Consulting the other party before changing the rules of the game is elementary. This is what the Advisory Committee is telling the federal government and we would want the Act to be clear on this subject because experience shows that this is unfortunately not the case.

It is an Act of the Parliament of Canada that brought this agreement into force. Parliament should therefore be consistent with itself and preserve the value of the agreements signed with Canada's Aboriginals. Parliament cannot change the rules of the game by adopting new laws without consulting the parties with whom they had reached an agreement. They agree on particular regimes.

As you said, it is true that the regime is revolutionary compared to many other environmental assessment regimes. We evaluate the impact of economic development projects on the social community and we try to preserve the traditions, the customs and the traditional activities of the northern peoples such as hunting, fishing, etc. The Canadian Act gives the Inuit no guarantee about that. But the Advisory Committee must not substitute itself for the Inuit.

Ms. Hélène Scherrer: If I understand correctly, you are recommending that there be consultation to ensure that in this Bill, we take into consideration those things that we are not taking into consideration now, that is, social assessment. The agreement, even if it was completely relevant 30 years ago, when it was signed, is perhaps in need of improvement today. We must ensure that we will be well served by an act which could improve an agreement which is missing some elements. Therefore, you are mostly recommending that there should be a consultation with the Inuit peoples to ensure... No?

Á (1105)

Mrs. Paule Halley: No. We want it recognized that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act does not apply to projects on territories where other regimes already-recognized by the Government of Canada apply and that this be recorded in the Act itself. If the agreement is changed so as to provide for the application of the Canadian Act, at that point, the agreement will continue to apply because it will state that the Canadian Act applies.

We don't want to just consult the Inuit. We want to change an agreement which was concluded with the Inuit 25 years ago. An Act of Parliament cannot change what the Inuit want to do or not do in matters of environmental assessment.

You are being asked to provide for the agreement to supercede the Canadian Act and we invite the federal authorities, if they want to change the rules of the game, to go negotiate with the people with whom they established the rules of the game. It will always be these rules which will apply and, if these people choose the Canadian Act, they will choose it.

Ms. Hélène Scherrer: I have a bit of a problem determining if the egg or the chicken comes first. Do you want the agreement to apply, even if useful things from the Act are added, or do you want the Act itself to take into consideration the elements of the agreement and apply them?

Mrs. Paule Halley: We want the precedence of this type of treaty to be accepted and that the Inuit be allowed to recognize that the Canadian Act deserves to be applied, if they so wish. It will be up to the Inuit to negotiate that with the federal government.

Mr. Michael Barrett: There are ways of changing the process in the agreement. However, it is an agreement for which the Inuit gave up some rights and we cannot make changes unless the Inuit are in agreement with these changes.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bob Mills): Thank you. Those are all the questions we have.

I would like to thank our witnesses. I think we've had a wide range here. We've had the public interest from Mr. Lavoie. Thank you very much, Mr. Lavoie, for presenting your side of it. I'm sure there are hundreds of others out there you speak for who we probably don't know. We've had the aboriginal issue, and we had industry here. I think it's a well-rounded group we've heard today.

For your information, the committee will continue on with hearings on Bill C-19 and ultimately of course get to the clause-by-clause with amendments. Bill C-5 has been interfering somewhat with our hearings, but we will get there.

Thank you very much for coming.

The meeting is adjourned.