Aboriginal People Looking for Balance
Northern projects must include roles for local residents

(Edmonton Journal, June 4, 2001)

This morning in Yellowknife, more than 100 Aboriginal leaders, government officials and business people will gather to determine how to benefit from billions in expected resource development investment and still sustain traditional culture and the environment.

That’s a tall order for the three-day forum, but a new report released today by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy entitled “Aboriginal Communities and Non-renewable Resource Development”, may help show the way.

The report concludes that the most significant risks from non-renewable resource development are likely to arise from the cumulative environmental, social and cultural impacts of multiple exploration programs, mines, oil and gas facilities, and pipelines, along with the roads and other infrastructure required to support these projects.

The questions the Round Table has been pondering – and that the forum’s participants will be wrestling with this week are these: How can Northerners seize the opportunities to construct a natural gas pipeline, open diamond mines and develop gas reserves while protecting Aboriginal culture and the environment? How can we maximize the economic benefits of non-renewable resource development while minimizing the risks to the environment and Aboriginal culture?

Not long ago, I was discussing Aboriginal aspirations in the midst of an incipient resource rush with Joe Rabesca, Grand Chief of the Dogrib Treaty 11 Council.

“Of course we want the diamonds” he paused “but we want our caribou too.” And to me, that encapsulates the challenge we face in the arctic. The balance that Chief Rabesca so succinctly described is what all Canadians want – but that doesn’t make it easy to achieve.

It is clear that diamond mining, natural gas and pipeline construction are exciting prospects that offer aboriginal people and opportunity for prosperity. The Round Table is recommending a two-track approach to realize this potential by making a series of strategic investments.

First, we must make every effort to see that aboriginal people are able to compete for the economic benefits that flow from resource investment. If aboriginal people are to get a fair share of the good jobs generated by resource and associated infrastructure developments, the Government of Canada must invest in educational and apprenticeship programs.

Second, we must provide investors with a more certain, stable and efficient regulatory regime. Industry is frustrated by a continually evolving regulatory regime that makes each new project a voyage into uncharted water, and by delays caused by understaffing. The federal government needs to reinvest in the regulatory regime to handle the magnitude of investment and development.

To build the capacity of aboriginal people to benefit, the round table report recommends that the Canada invest $65 million over 10 years to promote the value of education and to provide the aboriginal peoples of the Northwest Territories with skills and employment training. This should include a $60 million state-of –the-art, 10 year adult education program.

To ensure rapid action, an “Independent Champion” should be appointed to drive capacity-building in First Nations communities. The Champion would investigate and report on the current state of the capacity of aboriginal people to take advantage of economic opportunities generated by resource development, propose improvements, establish targets, monitor progress, and advise governments.

To make the environmental regulatory system work better, the report recommends the the government allocate $25.8 million over six years to set up a cumulative effects assessment process and begin using it to evaluate proposed developments. An established cumulative effects management process would provide investors with a more certain regulatory system.

As part of this approach, the government should allocate at least $500,000 a year for intervenor funding for environmental impacts review and assessments. This would secure meaningful aboriginal community participation in resource development decision making.

To further stimulate economic activity, the government should allocate $10 million a year for 10 years to complete mapping and create a modern, integrated and accessible geo-science database for the NWT.

“The potential payback from this activity is huge,” a round table panel concluded. Less than one per cent of the N.W.T. and Nunavut is mapped at 1:50,000, the scale commonly used by industry to investigate particular mineral locations.

Finally, there is an important ingredient that goes beyond good jobs: aboriginal equity participation.

A share of project ownership can help ensure that northern resource developments such as the proposed arctic natural gas pipeline will produce a fair distribution of the economic and social benefits.

The Round Table report recommends that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development provide adequate funding to ensure that aboriginal communities can secure equity stakes in major projects.

Obtaining the benefits and powers of business ownership will also support development of sustainable aboriginal communities.

In the end, it’s a question of balance. The influx of non-renewable resource investment must be balanced by more investment in an environmental regulatory system – and in people.

“Of course we want the diamonds, but we want our caribou too.” Joe Rabesca, Grand Chief of the Dogrib Treaty 11 Council

David J. McGuinty is President and CEO of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

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