[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 9, 1995
.1509 
[English]
The Chairman (Interpretation): Good afternoon. Welcome to this meeting.
[Technical Difficulty]
The Chairman: Malachi Arreak is the chief of the Baffin Region Inuit Association. Jose A. Kusugak is the president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
You will see the name of each one of us around the table. We are all elected members of Parliament from various parts of Canada.
We will listen to you. After you speak, we will ask you some questions. As I said, we are very glad to have this opportunity to hear from you on the subject of environmental protection and the law we are examining on behalf of Parliament, which is commonly called CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
.1510
We will report our findings to Parliament next month. In that report, we will include a chapter on the Arctic. What we will hear today, tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday between here and Cambridge Bay will be the substance of that chapter. It will be based on what we hear from you and our findings.
Perhaps Mr. Kovic would like to start his presentation.
Mr. Ben Kovic (Chairman, Nunavut Wildlife Management Board): My presentation is going to be very brief and to the point, I hope.
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, hon. members, and guests.
My name is Benny Kovic. I'm the chairman of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which came into existence under the land claim. Most of you have probably heard...[Technical Difficulty]...and we are responsible for management...[Technical Difficulty]...and we've been in operation for a little over a year.
CEPA is an important act. The question is: how does it affect and protect us in the north? There is only one environmental protection office in the north. That is in Yellowknife. There's no presence in Nunavut. At one time they had an office here, but it was closed. We don't know why. Perhaps it was because of funding.
The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board supports your efforts at provincial and federal harmonization. Currently, there are too many layers of legislation pertaining to environmental protection.
[Technical Difficulty]...government officials, it becomes very confusing to the general public, to people such as me, and especially to those who are directly affected by various pieces of legislation.
For example, I am aware of five agencies that are responsible for enforcing environmental protection laws: the Environmental Protection Service, Northern Affairs, Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian Coast Guard, and the Department of Renewable Resources of the Government of the Northwest Territories. There are five agencies working with this legislation.
In some cases, it seems as if these agencies overlap one another. This becomes evident whenever an oil spill occurs in the north. It's just like when you drop a bunch of lemmings from a box: they run all over the place looking for an answer. Different organizations are doing the same thing.
I suspect that very few have seen and read this act cover to cover. Perhaps the government ought to consider producing a small booklet that simplifies the act and makes it understandable for the general public. This booklet would then be translated into other languages. In order for an act or legislation to be effective, it should be understood by the general public.
.1515
We don't understand it the way it is. The legislation is a very thick document. The general public, people such as me, cannot read it from cover to cover. I think you can understand why.
In the last two years, a great deal of effort has been expended in addressing the problem of abandoned land sites and airborne contaminants from other parts of the world. We believe this is a noble effort, and we support these activities.
Nevertheless, the government should not overlook the local sources of contamination.
In nearly every community in Nunavut, the standard means of dealing with municipal and solid waste is to burn it in an open dump fire. Surely the slop from the open dump fire cannot be very good for our environment. To the best of my knowledge, dump fires have been outlawed in most parts of Canada.
There is also a concern in the area of sewage disposal in all communities. In summary, more effort needs to be expended in addressing this ongoing pollution problem within our own land.
As you are aware, our northern environment and the wildlife are very fragile. The people of Nunavut depend on country food as their main diet, which is our daily bread. Contamination of these valuable sources by airborne contaminants and other pollutants is of major concern to the people of Nunavut. We must work together to protect our valuable resources.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a very powerful tool for environmental protection and the prevention of pollution. The Government of Canada and Canadians should work together to come up with a strong policy and procedure on the prevention of cruelty to our Mother Earth, her environment, and her wildlife and habitats.
As we are northern residents and the owners and users of this beautiful and fragile land, we need to do our own housekeeping too. For example, when we as the users of this beautiful and fragile land go camping or fishing in the spring, what we take out is what we should bring back. That's what I mean by doing housekeeping in our own backyard.
I, as is the next person, am worried about ozone in the north and how this will affect our traditional lifestyle and the use of our wildlife as our daily bread. I'm also worried about how to tell my kids not to eat their country food but rather to go to a coffee shop or the store to buy steaks and hamburgers because our food is no longer safe to eat as our daily diet.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone and remind them that everything we put on earth and whatever falls from the sky are pollutants. They also find their way into our country food.
In closing, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me a very brief moment with you. I would probably have had additional topics if I had been able to understand the act, but I don't.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Kovic, for your candid remarks. I certainly sympathize with your predicament. We also have difficulties in understanding it. Your remarks are timely and to the point.
.1520
We will hear next from Mr. Arreak.
[Technical Difficulty]
Mr. Malachi Arreak (Baffin Region Inuit Association):
[Witness speaks in his native language]
Just as a correction, there's no ``chief'' in Nunavut. Only staff in Nunavut have that distinction of being chief of a department. Unlike the older generation, I'm not so forgiving of government or their policies and procedures.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Malachi Arreak. I am the chief land and resources officer of the Baffin Region Inuit Association. I'm here on behalf of our president, Pauloosie Keyootak, who regrets that he cannot be here today to make this presentation.
The Baffin Region Inuit Association previously voiced its concerns over the environment through its national body, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, ITC, on issues of concern in the Baffin region. Therefore, some issues and concerns may be reiterated during this presentation.
On contaminants and animals, it has now been proven that there are industrial contaminants in the tissues of the marine, terrestrial, and avian animal populations of the Nunavut region, and more particularly in the Baffin region. With the amount of hunted food consumed by Inuit in the Baffin region, this is an issue that has been in the forefront within the last few years, with numerous contaminant workshops and symposiums.
The Baffin Region Inuit Association is concerned about the lack of studies done to date. It has, in the past, accused the government of withholding data from the few studies done to date.
A prime example is a Baffin Island study of polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs. These also include organochlorides, heavy metals, radionuclides, and industrial chemicals, which are serious contaminants in our ecosystem and which may indeed pose health hazards for Inuit, who are dependent on country food.
The issue here is that there have been more interim studies on the effects of these contaminants on the human system. Again, we have really pushed that, with the wildlife issue, and will try for it over the next two years.
One of our main concerns is with DEW Line sites not just in Baffin, but all over the region that constitutes the Baffin region here. The DEW Line sites in the Baffin region range from the...[Inaudible]. The ones that are in need of clean-up were identified via the land selection negotiations as part of the Nunavut land claim agreement talks. These include sites from...[Technical Difficulty]...an example of a DEW Line site that you may have already viewed and visited.
For your information, Resolution Island, which is to the south of us here, exceeds acceptable levels of pollution under CEPA. According to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, these pollutants - PCBs and others - have to be shipped out.
A goodly proportion of the contaminants in Baffin have originated from these sites. The most toxic are the PCBs, organochlorides, and other pollutants that were carelessly stored in trust by the government or the workers of the day.
This was expressed during a round of talks as being a major reason for Inuit concerns. There were examples of animals that had been around these areas that provided concrete evidence of the dangers associated with these contaminants.
Inuit, when selecting lands, insisted on caveats to ensure that the government would live up to its obligations with regard to the clean-up. The caveats negotiated for some of these sites were worded so that they would have to be restored by government before they would be turned over to the Inuit. The Inuit selected the general area of these sites.
One of the other issues that concerns us the most is ocean dumping. This issue, more than others, causes concern to the Inuit of the Baffin region, as our main source of country foods originates from the marine ecosystem.
The history of ocean dumping in the Arctic starts from the period of World War II and the Cold War establishment of the DEW Line. It continues to this day.
.1525
With the previous dumping of metals, hazardous wastes, and other refuse, these non-northerners indiscriminately tainted the environment, which has, is, and will continue to be one of the main sources of food for Inuit for generations to come.
It has caused concern for the Inuit in the last few years in the revelation of possible toxic contaminants in the Arctic ecosystem, both terrestrial and marine. A further concern is that government has refused to elaborate on events that happened in the north, which were observed by Inuit and which the government has deliberately kept silent on. The question is whether Americans conducted experiments during World War II.
However, the most insidious example in recent years has been the dumping of tonnes of radionuclides by the Russians, Japanese, and Americans in the vicinity of the Arctic Ocean. If you look at the cancer rates among Inuit in the north, you could be tempted to link these pollutants to the careless ocean dumping since the inception of the atomic age. Incidentally, the 1960s is roughly the time Inuit started to develop cancer among their population.
The Inuit maintain their position that our people have been constantly poisoned by the carelessness of other countries in their desire to gain riches at the expense of the environment, in dumping their wastes into the ocean with the knowledge that these contaminants were hazardous to human health. This is the NIMBY syndrome at work - NIMBY being ``not in my backyard''.
The issue here is that CEPA has no real provisions for penalizing the real polluters outside the jurisdiction of Canada and that Inuit interests are not being met, as most of the polluters are from outside Canada.
Pollutants continue to filter into the Arctic, which is generally called the pristine wilderness. But if you realistically look at the amount of contaminants entering the cesspool of the Arctic, it's far from pristine, and these pollutants cannot for the most part be seen by the naked eye.
None of these contaminants have been produced in the Canadian north, but continue to accumulate from southern Canada, the U.S., Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. The last few years have seen an increase primarily in radionuclides, as the Russian stockpiles on Novaya Zemlya Island deteriorate, and the stockpiles of radioactive materials that were dumped in the deep areas of the Arctic Ocean are believed to be leaking.
The issue I wish to elaborate on is this: the Arctic is being poisoned, both literally and figuratively. The people who have been and will continue to be the victims are the Inuit. We did not create this mess, but we will bear the consequences perhaps more than other Canadians.
One of the final areas is in land claims and the effect on legislation. Things changed in the Arctic with the signing of the land claims negotiated by the Inuit, to ensure they were no longer pawns in the development, administration, and management of their Arctic homeland.
The James Bay and Northern Quebec land claim in 1975, the Inuvialuit land claim in 1984, and the Nunavut land claim in 1993 changed the whole system of managing the north's resources and the environment. Within the Inuit homeland, Labrador, and the Quebec offshore is still under negotiation today.
These land claims are modern treaties under section 35 of the Charter of Rights, and the one provision that is contained in all three is the inconsistency clause, which in the Nunavut land claim agreement is section 2.12.2:
- Where there is any inconsistency or conflict between any federal, territorial and local
government laws, and the Agreement, the Agreement shall prevail to the extent of the
inconsistency or conflict.
.1530
The spirit and intent of the Nunavut land claim agreement was to ensure, among other things, the full participation of Inuit in all matters affecting the Inuit of the Nunavut settlement area. I would take this to mean that the Nunavut land claim agreement is paramount, and therefore the screening and reviewing provisions along with the establishment of NIRB would be ideal to protect the environment, at least in Nunavut.
Mr. Chairman, we regard the Canadian Environmental Protection Act as an important legislative tool for the protection of our environment. However, it is but a start, and that's why we believe it has to be strengthened and improved to reflect the reality of the Canadian Arctic environmental degradation. CEPA has to have the capacity to take action on toxic substances, even without absolute scientific proof of their harm to the environment or, more importantly, to human health. It should provide for preventing the use, generation, and release of pollutants, along with enforceable measures that will have teeth, and here we're looking at some type of international enforcement measures for pollutants.
The Inuit must have the opportunity to be fully involved in the decision-making process in a timely and accessible manner before any activity is approved where that activity may affect their lives and livelihoods, as per the land claim provisions in respect to environmental protection and management.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Baffin Region Inuit Association will continue to represent Inuit in the Baffin by voicing their concerns on the environment and the effects on it of pollutants that are manufactured elsewhere in this global community. We will continue to lobby government in implementing our land claim agreement, as well as lobbying to ensure that Canada represents our interests to other circumpolar countries, to ensure that the Arctic Ocean is protected.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to express our concerns and comments on the review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Arreak. We certainly agree with you that the legislation needs to be revised and improved, and in that sense you have made a very valuable contribution.
Mr. Jose A. Kusugak (President, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this introduction, I realize that we don't know each other very well, but this is a beginning. I do hope for future presentations and that you would take a little more....
I don't think we have that many differences to present here. We didn't huddle before the meeting and say, you say this. We're all from different organizations, although we work for the same cause, Nunavut environmental protection. But at the same time, I think it never hurts to hear discussion of important issues like this over and over again. I will read my presentation, and I hope you won't fall asleep because you've heard it many times before.
Before I start, I want to say, as the chairman said, that I am Jose Kusugak. I'm the president of Nunavut Tunngavik. We are an organization to implement the Nunavut final agreement, which represents about 19,000 Inuit across Nunavut, in three time zones, one-fifth of Canada.
The organization started under the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada. Around 1970 it broke off from the Federation of Natives of Canada, when we realized that there were very big differences between Indians and Inuit in culture, language, and the way we do politics. When it separated from that organization, the idea of land claims happened, about the same time as Alaska was working on its land claims.
.1535
That was when I was 20 years old. We were pretty well kids; at least I can say that now that I'm 45 about the kind of work we were doing in those days. We were saying we would have the negotiations out of the way and the land claim settled in a matter of four years, tops. It wasn't until 1993 that the agreement was actually signed. It took a little more time than we thought it would when we were kids.
Many of the environmental issues had come up, and at least one of them forced one of the Inuit groups to settle. That was the Mackenzie Delta pipeline issue. There was another pipeline proposed from the high Arctic through the Keewatin and down, the Polar Gas Pipeline. Every time we have these proposals, I think you can understand from the number of pages that are dedicated towards environmental protection in the land claims agreements that the Inuit are very concerned about environmental protection.
After having interrupted like that, I will read my presentation.
I wish to point out that our first vice-president, James Etoolook, who is the Nunavut Tunngavik's executive member responsible for environment, will be presenting to some of you in Cambridge Bay on Friday. So when you get there, he can show you some of the scenery.
Concerning the Department of National Defence's proposal to clean up the DEW Line sites in Nunavut, I would like nothing more than to speak to you about the Nunavut environment and relate to you how important the lands and oceans are to the Inuit - in short, to relate to you how proud the Inuit are to have always lived in this part of Canada. Unfortunately, I will instead speak to you about the politics of environment.
I wish to focus my attention upon the Nunavut land claims agreement implementation and what we at NTI are learning about environmental regulations as they relate to the agreement and Nunavut.
When you consider that the Inuit of Nunavut had the opportunity at the land claims table to bring forward a host of important issues to negotiate into the agreement, what did they bring forward? We estimate that approximately 70% of the agreement is concerned with environmental protection, conservation, and the wise management of lands and resources.
The Inuit of Nunavut have put the protection and management of their land and offshore above the land and cash deal. We put the Inuit right to meaningful participation in the decision-making process concerning the management of our land and marine environment above all else. Why? Because the land and marine environments are the Inuit culture, and anything that affects them affects us. We will be involved in any decision affecting this environment. That, in a sentence, is what the agreement guarantees.
I wish to start by emphasizing a fact I would like you to take away concerning the Nunavut land claims agreement and the other comprehensive land claims agreements in Canada. Quoting the Nunavut agreement:
- Where there is any inconsistency or conflict between any federal, territorial and local
government laws, and the Agreement, the Agreement shall prevail to the extent of the
inconsistency or conflict.
Why am I drawing your attention to this provision? At the same time that the agreement has paramountcy over conflicting legislation, the laws of the general application do apply to Inuit, Inuit-owned lands, and also to Nunavut.
.1540
Allow me to take one example from the agreement to make my point. Article 12 guarantees the establishment of the Nunavut Impact Review Board, or NIRB, with a mandate to screen and potentially to review all projects proposed anywhere in Nunavut. This article states in part that NIRB, when reviewing any projects or proposals, shall take into account whether the project reflects the priorities and values of the residents of the Nunavut settlement area. I can assure you that when we interpret a section of the agreement such as this one, we expect NIRB to give full weight to the values of the residents and therefore, of course, to the values of the Inuit of Nunavut.
I can further assure you that we will be set upon a collision course if legislation such as the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, and the ocean dumping regulations are not strict enough when applied to the Nunavut marine environment.
We are concerned that CEPA currently applies the same standards to northern Canada as it does in the south. Recent studies are clearly illustrating that the north is relatively more susceptible to contamination. Inuit concern focuses on the fact that high concentrations of contaminants are appearing in the fat of the animals they are so dependent upon. This reflects the need for high standards of pollution prevention in Nunavut.
I think Mr. Arreak and Mr. Kovic also emphasized that point.
As I believe you know, of the four applications for dumping materials into the ocean rejected by Environment Canada last year, one was rejected because the residents of four high Arctic communities of Nunavut refused to agree to allow 400 tonnes of scrap metal to be released into the environment upon which they depend. If NIRB does its job as we see it and determines that the proposed project cannot be approved because of the likelihood that upon project completion, materials will be left behind or dumped, we will not expect existing legislation to prevail if it conflicts with this decision.
As one more example to further emphasize my point, NTI has recently reviewed Panarctic's intention to bury approximately 7,000 tonnes of material at Rea Point, Melville Island, near the community of Resolute Bay. We have submitted our position on this proposal to DIAND.
Without going into too much detail, we are told by DIAND that Panarctic will be allowed to proceed with this disposal because they are protected under an existing lease issued to them in the 1960s. We feel it is one thing to keep environmental standards in context at this time; however, we understand that in the late 1980s this lease was reviewed and renewed. Since the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has refused to give anyone a copy of this lease, we are left to speculate that there were no revisions to improve the environmental terms and conditions during the renewal process. It is further compounded by the fact that there has been no environmental review of Panarctic's proposal to bury and burn this material. Our conclusion is that this is a result of a very inadequate and unacceptable regulation on the part of DIAND, and it is in no way acceptable to us.
James Etoolook of our organization wrote a letter dated May 4 to Warren Johnson, and I would like to present this to you for the record.
.1545
We expect that the new CEPA standards will not conflict with the NIRB decision that allows, for example, a project to proceed without the condition that the proponent take out what they bring in. We endorse the precautionary approach, and we oppose the solution of attempting to contain waste after it has been generated and released. We interpret the agreement to mean that the sound and reasonable decisions by NIRB will prevail over legislation that is interpreted to conflict with those decisions.
CEPA should consider recommending that Arctic standards for contaminants be set that would be consistent with the fact that Arctic ecosystems are relatively intolerant to pollution. NIRB decisions will reflect this by taking the precautionary approach, and therefore it is vital that government ensure that the comprehensive land claims agreement be incorporated into legislation in that order so that it will reflect and not conflict with these modern-day constitutionally protected treaties.
As part of the CEPA review process, you have released an issue paper entitled Negotiated Settlements: An Enforcement Option. I think it was one of the 23 or so papers you had put out. We concluded that this review process is considering negotiated settlements as an enforcement option and may recommend an amendment to CEPA to allow for it.
I would like to make a point of caution to you concerning regulatory efficiency options before discussing the broader issue of harmonization. For now, NTI will assume that a review of this option will not be undertaken with the intention of allowing any party that commits an environmental violation the right to negotiate with government a private solution instead of facing the penalty of law. We are concerned that negotiated solutions may not be satisfactory to NIRB or the residents of Nunavut. I think we have underlined a number of times that if anybody violates the environmental protection laws, laws should prevail, that there not be negotiations behind closed doors where the public is screened out of the process. We say that a number of times during the presentation.
Even assuming that this option would apply only when an environmental law has been violated, we are still concerned that if adopted under CEPA it would compete with article 6 of the Nunavut land claims agreement on wildlife compensation. It is established in this article, and I quote:
- A developer is liable absolutely, without proof of fault or negligence, for loss or damage
suffered by a claimant as a result of its development activity within the Nunavut Settlement
Area....
If CEPA legislation is to include a negotiated settlement mechanism that allows for financial compensation for damage, it should take into account that Inuit will have a right to compensation under the agreement when a developer causes wildlife harvesting loss or damage. Such a mechanism under CEPA cannot undermine the ability of Inuit to collect compensation as their right under the agreement.
To continue my presentation theme of claims agreements and the politics of the environment, we are continually hearing more and more about the government initiatives to harmonize, amalgamate, and make efficient the environmental review processes in Canada. I speak specifically of the recently proposed Regulatory Efficiencies Act and the federal and provincial harmonization process.
.1550
The Nunavut land claims agreement provides for the establishment of what we consider to be a complete co-management regime for Nunavut, a management regime to effectively produce land-use plans, regulate access to wildlife, regulate water use, review the potential impact of development, and meaningfully advise government on the management of the Nunavut marine environment.
The key concept to this is the co-management of all lands and resources in Nunavut with government and the Inuit managing together. These particular public government institutions took approximately 12 years to negotiate and have decision-making mandates and primary responsibilities in regulating access to and the use of Nunavut lands and resources.
As well, their jurisdiction applies to the offshore, to the Nunavut marine environment. In short, they have been carefully thought out and negotiated and are therefore to a large extent already harmonized.
Let me answer the question I think is forming in your minds right now: How does this relate to CEPA? I would like to do so in the context of CEPA, marine management, and the management institutions of Nunavut. No fewer than 13 articles of the 42, or approximately 45% of the agreement, apply directly to the offshore - for example, article 5 on wildlife management. In other words, the Nunavut settlement area and the agreement includes the offshore.
A fact that is not well recognized south of the 60th parallel is that the Inuit are predominantly a marine people. Recognizing this gives sway to the position that Inuit have interests and concerns as to government's management of fish, birds, and mammals, and their marine habitat. NTI wishes to make these concerns known to this present process to ensure that Inuit interests and rights are presented and therefore represented in policy and legislation.
The main point I wish to make is that although the two lead departments responsible - Fisheries and Oceans for marine, fish, and mammals, and Environment Canada for the preservation of the natural environment - have many large areas of responsibility, there remains a gap in that. No coordinated jurisdiction exists for the preservation and enhancement of the natural marine or ocean environment. Therefore, I think Canada Oceans Act is very necessary to develop the department of oceans.
That point is reinforced by Minister Brian Tobin's recognition of the need to establish a clearly identifiable lead federal agency accountable for ocean management. NTI agrees completely with the government's perceived need for a lead agency, and therefore a coordinated marine management regime.
Article 15 of the agreement, marine areas, allows for the establishment of the Nunavut Marine Council, made up of four management institutions of Nunavut. These bodies may jointly or individually advise and make recommendations to other government agencies regarding the marine areas of Nunavut, and government shall consider such advice and recommendations in making decisions that affect these marine areas. A clearly mandated lead agency for government on ocean management would greatly improve the facilitation of these obligations. We expect the Nunavut Marine Council to become a powerful body with the capability to affect government marine policy and legislation in order to ensure that the Nunavut marine environment, so vital to the Inuit, is protected.
NTI believes that you, as the federal standing committee reviewing CEPA, have the opportunity to significantly advance the initiative for new legislation under the jurisdiction of a lead federal agency to satisfy the objective of establishing a unified marine management regime for Canada. You must look beyond amending CEPA in an attempt to simplify and improve the regulations on ocean dumping. Ocean dumping regulations more appropriately belong under the proposed Canada Oceans Act.
.1555
NTI assumes that the Inuit rights and interests in marine areas under agreement will be reflected and presented in the proposed Canada Oceans Act. NTI recommends that you, as the federal standing committee, use your influence to promote the establishment of the overdue Canada Oceans Act and to promote the integration and harmonization of existing federal legislation and jurisdiction to ensure that a unified approach to marine management in Canada is the result.
To conclude, we in Nunavut are harmonized concerning environmental management, and we wait on government to unify their approach in order that co-management will be as effective in Nunavut as it has proven to be in other parts of Canada.
This concludes my remarks. Once again, I wish to thank you for providing me with the opportunity to represent Nunavut Tunngavik and the Inuit of Nunavut.
Thank you for coming to Nunavut, our future Inuit homeland.
The Chairman: Mr. Kusugak, we thank you for your comprehensive brief and for what you have outlined in a rather complex, bureaucratic web, if you like.
We'll hear now from Jack Hicks, the director of research for the Nunavut Implementation Commission.
Mr. Jack Hicks (Director or Research, Nunavut Implementation Commission): Thank you for this opportunity to address the House of Commons standing committee on the subjects of Nunavut and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA.
My name is Jack Hicks; I'm director of research with the Nunavut Implementation Commission, NIC. I'd like to welcome you to Nunavut and express the commissioner's pleasure that your committee was able to include two Nunavut communities in your public hearings.
The NIC is a statutory body created by Parliament through the Nunavut Act. It was originally made up of nine commissioners and a chief commissioner, John Amagoalik, named by the three signatories to the Nunavut Political Accord: the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut, now called Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, NTI. One of the original commissioners, Mary Simon, had to resign after being appointed Canada's Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs.
The work of the NIC is to provide policy advice to the federal and territorial governments and NTI regarding the establishment of the new Nunavut government over a five-year period, ending April 1, 1999. I would like to begin my presentation today by reviewing the story of Nunavut and the work of NIC before offering some comments on CEPA.
The story of Nunavut is truly a remarkable one. It involves the will of a people and their determination to establish a territory and a government for themselves. The story is also an unusual one. While Nunavut will be the product of twenty years of land claim negotiations, the government that will be established will be a public government. Although Nunavut was finally agreed to through an Inuit land claims settlement, the process by which it will be created will occur outside the land claim process.
In Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit of the eastern and central Arctic, ``Nunavut'' means ``our land''. The land has provided Inuit with the means of survival for over 4,000 years. The land is an inextricable part of Inuit culture, language and spirituality. Because of this, it was natural that Nunavut was chosen as the name of the new territory and the new government.
But Nunavut means more than simply a new territory and government. It means an opportunity for people to re-acquire control over their lives. As recently as the 1960s, Inuit were still living a relatively independent and self-reliant lifestyle on the land. All that changed as they were moved by government into settlements. So when an opportunity arose to regain control through the negotiation of an Inuit land claim, Inuit made the most of that opportunity.
In the early 1970s the federal government announced its willingness to negotiate land claim agreements. Shortly thereafter, Inuit undertook a study to document their use and occupation of Nunavut. The Inuit area of use covered approximately 2.4 million square kilometres of land, water, ice and sea, stretching from the high Arctic islands in the north to the Belcher Islands in southern Hudson Bay, and from Baffin Island in the east into the Yukon Territory in the west.
.1600
The results of the study were accepted by the federal government as evidence of the Inuit claim to an aboriginal title. The study defined the area of the claim and also provided the geographic basis for the territory of Nunavut.
In 1976 the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, ITC, tabled a proposal for the settlement of the Inuit land claim on behalf of all the Inuit living in the Northwest Territories. The proposal, entitled ``Nunavut'', included a demand for division of the Northwest Territories and the creation of a Nunavut Territory that would roughly conform to the area of Inuit land and sea use.
Due to Inuit cultural distinctiveness, their linguistic homogeneity and their geographic remoteness from the seat of government in Yellowknife, Inuit believed their interests would be better served through the creation of Nunavut. The new government was to be a public government and the new territory it would govern was to be carved out of the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Carving new jurisdictions out of the Northwest Territories is nothing new. In fact, Nunavut is simply following a long-established Canadian tradition. This practice began almost immediately after the British Parliament made the first of two northern land transfers to the Dominion of Canada. Rupert's Land, originally governed by the Hudson's Bay Company, was transferred to Canada in 1870, followed by the transfer of the Arctic islands in 1880.
Out of these two areas, lands were taken over time to create or enlarge the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, as well as the Yukon Territory. The remainder of the Rupert's Land and Arctic islands transfers - the leftovers, as it were - make up what we know today as the Northwest Territories.
The NWT has experienced considerable internal change since becoming part of Canada, particularly since the 1960s. A great deal of change has resulted from the growing political consciousness of the residents of the north. Residents of the eastern Arctic were disenfranchised until 1962. Unlike first nations in the south, there was no law saying Inuit couldn't vote. Until 1962, there was simply no mechanism for Inuit or anyone else who lived in the north to be able to vote.
In 1966 the Arctic Islands Game Preserve was brought under the legislative jurisdiction of the GNWT. In 1967 the capital of the NWT was established in Yellowknife. In 1975, for the first time, fifteen fully elected members of the Territorial Council took office, the majority of whom were aboriginal people. This pattern of electing a majority of aboriginal peoples to the assembly has prevailed in subsequent elections and has resulted in assemblies that have been largely supportive of land claims and division.
The idea of dividing the NWT had been around for some time before the Inuit advocated it in 1976. The original proposal for division actually came from people in the west. This is something that isn't well known in the north or in southern Canada.
In the early 1950s some of the non-aboriginal residents of the Mackenzie Valley proposed division of the Northwest Territories in the belief that advancement towards responsible government in the west was being held up by the less developed east. In 1963 the Liberal government, following endorsements of two earlier territorial councils, introduced legislation to divide the NWT into two territories. This legislation died on the parliamentary order paper.
The concept of division was then subjected to review by two federal commissions, the Carrothers Commission in 1966 and the Drury Commission from 1978 to 1979. The Carrothers Commission recognized the inevitability of division, but recommended it be put on hold for ten years. The Drury Commission came out in support of a united territory, but also recommended that the council of the GNWT involve itself in formal discussions regarding division.
The federal government, reflecting the political need of a growing territorial population and perhaps to muffle the voices calling for division, decided in 1979 to divide the NWT into two federal electoral districts, Nunatsiaq and the west. This move split the NWT along east-west lines, with Nunatsiaq encompassing all the Inuit communities that at that time were to be included in Nunavut. That's why Jack Anawak, the MP from Nunatsiaq, is responsible for the Inuvialuit communities in the western Arctic.
In the mid- to late 1970s, paralleling federal deliberations on division, the aboriginal people in both the east and the west began advancing their own ideas. A year after the Inuit proposal on Nunavut was tabled, the Métis Association proposed dividing the NWT by simply extending the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border north.
.1605
The Inuit Land Claims Commission took over responsibility for negotiating the claims and Nunavut from ITC in 1977, and it proposed the creation of a government in the Nunavut area along the lines of Inuit political institutions. In 1978 the Inuvialuit, who had split off from ITC in 1976, signed a land claim agreement in principle, which included a statement expressing their interest in establishing WARM, the Western Arctic Regional Municipality.
In 1979 ITC took over responsibility for land claims and Nunavut and released a political document entitled ``Political Development in Nunavut''. It called for division within ten years and provincehood within an additional five years. The government was to be a public government, similar to the existing Government of the Northwest Territories. By public government, we simply mean a government that represents everyone living in the territory, just as the Government of British Columbia is a public government. It's not a form of ethnic self-government.
In the same year the executive of the Dene Nation released a discussion paper suggesting that one, two, or even more territories be discussed. In 1981 the Dene Nation and the Métis Association jointly proposed the creation of a new jurisdiction in the west to be called Denendeh, which would have province-like powers and an elected senate.
In 1980 the Legislative Assembly established a special committee on unity to investigate northern constitutional issues. It failed to find a consensus favouring the continued existence of the NWT as a single jurisdiction. As a result it proceeded to voice almost unanimous support in favour of division.
This was followed in 1982 by a territory-wide plebiscite that asked people if they favoured division. Fully 56% of the NWT voted yes and 80% of Nunavut voters said yes. This caused the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs to announce the federal government's support in principle for division, subject to four conditions being met: the settlement of land claims, continuing support for division, the development of government structures, and systems of administration and agreement on a boundary for division. Of the four conditions, agreement on the boundary was to prove the most problematic.
In 1982 the Constitutional Alliance was formed to pursue the matters of division and constitutional development.
I'll skip through a little bit of this history. Northerners thrive on this stuff. We're the last Canadians who really eat this up.
In 1987 the Nunavut Constitutional Forum and the Western Constitutional Forum, meeting as the Constitutional Alliance, signed what became known as the Iqaluit agreement. Among other matters it provided for a five-year constitutional building process and another plebiscite on the boundary.
After conclusion of the Iqaluit agreement, the Dene and Métis leadership changed. The new leaders found the boundary unacceptable and demanded changes. These changes in turn were unacceptable to the Inuit leadership and resulted in the cancellation of the plebiscite, the collapse of the agreement, and the end of the Constitutional Alliance.
Pursuit of Nunavut once again fell under the wing of Inuit land claim negotiations. In 1990 Inuit signed a land claim agreement in principle in which the federal and territorial governments agreed in principle to create Nunavut. The territorial government agreed to begin, within six months of the signing, a process that would give effect to the Iqaluit agreement.
Although the Dene, at their assembly in 1990, failed to ratify their final land claim agreement, work towards the Inuit final agreement was moving forward steadily. In order for the Inuit claim to be settled, a settlement area boundary was still required. In the interests of settling the Inuit land claim, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs in 1991 appointed a former commissioner of the NWT to review the situation and recommend a boundary. That was John Parker, and the boundary he recommended is called the Parker Line.
The boundary he recommended was accepted by both the Inuit negotiators and the governments, but not by the Dene and Métis. In 1991 the federal government agreed to include a statement in the Inuit land claim on its commitment to create Nunavut. Its commitment was to be elaborated on in a separate political accord. The mechanism for creating Nunavut, then, was a federal statute enacted in a parallel process to federal legislation ratifying the Inuit land claim. They're separate documents, but they're organically linked.
Creation of Nunavut was still not guaranteed. Still required were territory-wide support for a boundary and Inuit ratification of their land claim agreement.
In the boundary plebiscite held in May 1992, 54% of the voters supported the boundary, with overwhelming support in the east. The land claim was ratified in November 1992 by 80% of the eligible Inuit voters.
.1610
As a consequence, the Parliament of Canada passed two pieces of legislation in 1993, one ratifying the land claim and the other dividing the NWT and creating the Nunavut Territory and government effective April 1, 1999. The legislation creating Nunavut followed the provisions of the Nunavut Political Accord.
This accord, which had been signed in 1992, provided for the establishment of a Nunavut Implementation Commission, known fondly as NIC. The NIC is to provide advice to the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated on specified matters pertaining to the transition in building up to Nunavut.
These include the development of principles and criteria for the division of territorial assets and liabilities; a timetable for the assumption of the delivery of services by a Nunavut government; training and funding needs; advice on the administrative design of the new government, including personnel requirements; a process for the identification of the capital - that's the particularly interesting one; identification of the capital's infrastructure requirements; and a process for the first election of a Nunavut legislative assembly in 1999 and the determination of electoral districts for the first assembly.
So what will the new government and territory look like? NIC's recommendations are contained in this 400-page report, which was tabled on March 31 of this year with the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the government leader of the Northwest Territories, and Mr. Kusugak of NTI. While the contents of NIC's first report have not yet been made public - the public release is expected at the very end of May - I can offer you a brief summary.
NIC's report is built on a solid foundation of extensive public consultation in each and every community in Nunavut, including phone-in shows and things of that nature, and on a confident sense of the preferences of the Nunavut public. It proceeds from full respect for the letter and spirit of the Nunavut agreement, the land claim agreement within the meaning of the Canadian Constitution, while institutionalizing the public government qualities of Nunavut.
Nunavut will be a public government with a democratically elected legislative assembly. It will respect individual and collective rights as defined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Nunavut government will respect and reflect Canada's political traditions and institutions. Nunavut will be a territory that remains firmly entrenched within the bonds of Confederation.
It will be a decentralized government with its executive functions housed in a single capital location linked to three regional centres and to offices in each community through the use of modern communications technology. It will employ local residents as much as possible and it will be leaner, more effective, and more affordable than the government that currently exists.
The following chart, which we've also made available in French, shows the general organizational design of the new government. In it you will see that the NIC is proposing the creation of a department of sustainable development, which will combine the responsibilities and resources of the GNWT's Departments of Economic Development and Tourism; Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources; and Renewable Resources. What are currently three departments in the GNWT we're trying to streamline, for reasons of efficiency but also of commonality of interest, into one department.
The Chairman: Could I please ask you to move into CEPA, perhaps?
Mr. Hicks: Okay.
I should mention that we've also given you two hand-outs. One is a discussion paper on the make-up of the Legislative Assembly, which deals with gender equality in the legislative assembly, and the other looks at demographic and socio-economic situations.
The people of Nunavut are very concerned about the environment, with which they have a close relationship. Country food remains a critical component of Inuit diets, and the harvesting and consumption of country food is as important culturally as it is nutritionally. The livelihood and way of life of the residents of Nunavut depends to a very considerable degree on the health and productivity of the lands and waters of Nunavut.
I therefore offer the following thoughts on CEPA from the perspective of the Nunavut Implementation Commission. As I do so, I ask you to keep in mind the limited nature of NIC's mandate. The NIC is a public body, not an Inuit organization. The NIC advises governments and NTI on the design of the Nunavut government, but the NIC is not itself a government, and the NIC's research agenda is necessarily limited to items of immediate relevance to its work.
.1615
Your committee has already received a comprehensive brief on CEPA from the ITC. This brief is indicative of the high quality of work ITC carries out on environmental issues, and in principle the NIC supports the comments contained in that brief.
The Arctic is a global sink for the deposition of industrial pollutants from around the world, which originate primarily in Europe, Asia, and the United States, but also to a lesser degree in Canada. These airborne pollutants do not emanate from the Arctic, but traces of heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and radionuclides are being found in the food chain at a significantly higher level than in southern Canada. These pollutants are a source of deep concern and great anxiety to all residents of Nunavut.
Other issues of concern to the people of Nunavut include the possible impacts of oil and gas development, mining development, ocean dumping of waste metal, transportation of dangerous goods, and the clean-up of abandoned and contaminated military sites, the toxic legacy of the Cold War.
The Nunavut government will therefore come into existence with a number of serious environmental concerns on its plate, and CEPA will be a critical piece of federal legislation for dealing with those issues. The NIC therefore welcomes the committee's efforts to solicit comments on how to improve and strengthen CEPA.
If CEPA is going to make the Arctic a better place, then the act, its associated regulations, and the manner in which they are interpreted must give specific recognition to the unique Arctic environment and its environmental problems, be implemented in the spirit and with the intent of land claims agreements, and be as inclusive as possible.
As specific examples of how this can be accomplished, the NIC recommends that sections 26.3, 34.3, and 54.1, which provide for major exclusions from CEPA, be amended to make CEPA the paramount federal legislation respecting the toxics that are among the chief sources of persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic. The same standards of process, consultation, and practice of co-management should apply to CEPA as to impact assessment, and radionuclides should be regulated under CEPA through incorporation into the domestic substances list and the priority substances list.
Your committee should also urge the federal government to provide sufficient funding for the accelerated clean-up of all Distant Early Warning and North Warning System sites and to ensure that the mandates and core capacities of federal government departments that deal with environmental issues in Nunavut should at the very least be maintained at current levels.
In closing, I would note that the prevailing wisdom in Nunavut is that Canada approaches pollution in a backward fashion, reactive rather than proactive. The residents of Nunavut wish to see meaningful progress towards the control and elimination of toxic pollutants in the Arctic environment, and this can only begin with reversing the burden of proof.
Rather than allowing the release into the environment of chemicals which have not been proven in limited scientific tests to be dangerous, chemicals which cannot be shown to be safe to some reasonable degree of certainty simply should not be permitted to be released into the environment. The use, generation, and release of persistent bioaccumulative and toxic substances should be phased out. We do not yet know enough about the cumulative and synergistic effects of chemicals - especially as they bioaccumulate and magnify in the Arctic food chain - to permit any other approach.
Nowhere in the world is the long-range, transboundary atmospheric transport of contaminants having effects as dramatic as those in the Arctic. On several occasions public health authorities have warned against the consumption of the organs of caribou and seals, animals on which we have depended for thousands of years, because of dangerous levels of toxic contamination. It is no exaggeration to suggest that the ecological basis of an entire way of life is at serious risk.
Nowhere in Canada is the need for pollution prevention rather than pollution control more apparent than in Nunavut. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Hicks. We will now have a round of questions, five minutes each, and a second round, if required.
.1620
On the list I had Madame Guay, who is absent for the moment, so we'll start with Mr. Adams, followed by Mr. DeVillers, Mrs. Kraft Sloan, Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. O'Brien.
Mr. Adams, you have five minutes.
Mr. Adams (Peterborough): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, thank you very much and thanks for the letter from James Etoolook. I also received a letter from Tabitha Kallut, the mayor of Resolute, on the Rea Point matters. We appreciate receiving that.
There are a couple of things I want to ask. One has to do with the international dimension and the long-distance transport of contaminants and that kind of thing. The federal government clearly has special responsibility in the international area, but there are also clear limitations to our powers with respect to the radionuclides you mention in the Russian sector, for example.
With respect to the ITC, your organizations, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and the fact that Mary Simon, one of your commissioners, is now the ambassador to circumpolar affairs, I wonder if you have any thoughts about international mechanisms and ways in which we in the federal government and you in Nunavut can cope with the very particular international problems of pollution in the north.
Mr. Kusugak: I think you know about the development of the Arctic council under Mary Simon. We did talk just the other day, when we were trying to develop some joint effort between different aboriginal organizations in Canada. We focused quite a bit on the environmental pollution issues at that meeting, just last week.
I understand there's a meeting of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference coming up at the end of July in Nome, Alaska. At these meetings we've underlined a few times that we are concerned about the environment in all of the circumpolar region. There is quite a bit of discussion about environment at these Inuit circumpolar conferences.
Just now we're starting to learn about our friends from Russia and some of their problems with their government. We have been trying to involve them since 1973, when we developed the idea of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and only when the Cold War ended were they able to join our circle.
In short, yes, there is quite a bit of discussion around it.
Mr. Adams: Joe, I think you mentioned that 70% of your interest in agreements is environmental. I think the ITC internationally has been similar.
I have two other things in my five minutes. One is to ask you to comment on the Arctic Environment Strategy. The ITC mentioned it and my understanding is that it lapses next year, and it's been a useful device for offshore and onshore pollution control and environmental improvement. That's one.
Before the chair cuts me off, the second thing is whether there are genuinely inspection and penalty provisions in the Nunavut agreement. Are there actually powers to inspect and enforce environmental standards?
So I have two things: the comment on the future of the Arctic Environment Strategy, whether it's useful and what it might be, and this question of enforcement within the Nunavut agreement.
Mr. Kusugak: I'll pass this on to Mr. Arreak, because he was one of our negotiators.
Mr. Arreak: Basically for the comment on the Arctic Environment Strategy, it has been useful in trying to clean up small spots. If you look at large DEW Line sites, for example, they have been fairly hard.
.1625
The way that agreement is set up is that there are two main bodies that look after impact and review as well as the monitoring and inspection of project activities. The impact review board just wants to put a screening and review proposal. Their proposed Nunavut Planning Commission would be the organization that monitors and inspects as well as ensures that all activity is consistent with or at least viable as a land use plan.
They would be working on land use plans both with Inuit organizations like ourselves and DIAND and other departments of the government where they would be monitoring and evaluating the actual cumulative impacts of the development. So there are certain provisions that are linked to penalizing any developer or any project that does not meet environmental standards and/or has changed the project significantly to allow for another review.
Further, basically the penalties are if they do not meet certain socio-economic terms and conditions as well as environmental terms and conditions, the project or the proponent can be cut off and could be, to the extent possible, cut off from ever operating in Nunavut again. So there are those provisions. If I had it in front of me I could actually quote you those provisions.
Mr. Kusugak: I might add, Mr. Adams, that sometimes it's very hard to separate one article from another. When we were putting the presentation together, I was wondering whether to note the Surface Rights tribunal or leave it out. I left it out of the presentation.
We're now talking with your government about their suggestion of possibly limiting penalties to $1 million, for example. Our idea was that some of these incredible pollutants or accidents that do happen are way more than that. We need to have at least one department we can go to, a kind of one-stop shop on these kinds of penalties to environmental ruins that affect our land.
If we had a bit more time to prepare those kinds of things, we would have probably gone into the Surface Rights tribunal as well.
Mr. Adams: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Adams.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay, you have the floor.
Mrs. Guay (Laurentides): You have mentioned some very interesting points. This afternoon, among other things, we saw a site where you would need an incinerator in order to run things properly here in Igaluit. Are there any agreements between the Environment Department of the North-West Territories and the Inuit? How do things work in the case of the environment with the provincial and federal governments?
[English]
Mr. Hicks: [Technical Difficulty].... Some departments are moving to establish a presence in Nunavut before 1999 - to establish offices in Nunavut befitting a new government - to facilitate the negotiation of working relationships that are specifically appropriate for the eastern Arctic.
Between the territorial government and the federal government there are working relationships, but they're oriented between Ottawa and Yellowknife. In the future we would be looking to see what kind of presence the Government of Canada would have here.
.1630
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay: If I understand you correctly, you do not negotiate directly with the Environment Department of the Northwest Territories; you deal rather with the federal government.
[English]
Mr. Hicks: What I meant to communicate was that until 1999 the Government of the Northwest Territories is responsible for certain areas of environmental work and the federal government is responsible for the rest. There are relationships between those two governments.
What we'll be working on now, in cooperation with other players, including the Wildlife Management Board and other groups, is the new relationship between the federal government and the new government that's being set up. We're trying to see how we can have a more effective and cost-effective relationship than what's currently in place.
Mr. Arreak: Jack elaborated on the government-to-government aspect of whether or not we would negotiate, but in terms of our final agreement, any new legislation or proposed legislation that would affect a Nunavut settlement or any of the provisions contained in the Nunavut land claims agreement would have to include Inuit participation as well as recommendations and advice by Inuit, primarily NTI and other Inuit organizations, where they may alter or change the provisions of the land claim.
At least our cultural input is guaranteed under the land claims, but our own public input into that is under Canadian control.
I just thought I'd elaborate a little bit more on what is guaranteed under the land claim agreement with respect to our cultural heritage.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay: If I understand correctly, until 1999, you will be working with the two levels of government since there are federal and provincial regulations. After that, you will be dealing with only one level.
I would like to know what changes could be made in CEPA. I know it has been discussed a bit, but I would like to see what can be done. Earlier on, you indicated that this act was very difficult to understand. In our review of the act, we have come to this same conclusion. Its terms are extremely complex and it is difficult to understand all the implications and everything the legislator had in mind.
I agree with you that what is needed is a document that would make the act more easy to understand, but as far as you are concerned, what should be changed on an urgent basis in the CEPA?
[English]
Mr. Kusugak: In my organization I'm responsible for the areas of economic development and education. Our first vice-president, James Etoolook, who will be addressing some of you in Cambridge Bay, probably could better answer this. I do want you to know - and I think you do know - that when you're the president of an organization, you more or less oversee what's going on, but it's the staff who are doing the grassroots work.
I just want to assure you that some of your concerns and questions are being addressed by our staff who are working on environmental areas. Again, when you're writing out the harmonization and efficiency aspects of laws, I want to caution you that laws are visible to everybody. If you break a law, the penalties are there. People can see those kinds of things.
.1635
But when companies are allowed to negotiate with the federal government behind closed doors about what kind of penalty they're going to get or what compensation they're going to pay, it's hidden from the public. I would caution you that anything in that area should be able to be viewed by the public, rather than just having a straight federal government-to-company negotiation.
Mr. Gilmour (Comox - Alberni): I thank you particularly for your comments on the Arctic Ocean and the pollution in it. It goes beyond CEPA because we're talking about pollution that originates in other countries. I'm sure you're aware there's a conference coming up on the Arctic Ocean. I believe it's this year. I would hope you will get heavily involved in that.
Are you aware of the conference and are you represented?
Mr. Kusugak: I personally am not, but I think I can assure you that our environmental staff are. I will certainly call them, say this was mentioned and ask if they are aware of it. I'm sure they'll give a positive response.
Mr. Gilmour: I think you should be aware of it and would hope you will participate fully in the process.
A number of you commented on the Nunavut legislation being paramount. I was wondering where you see the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Do you see it applying to the Inuit people or not?
The Chairman: In answer to that question, perhaps it might be said that when the legislation was passed by Parliament in 1993, that very point was part of the legislation. The answer to your question is yes, definitely.
Mr. Gilmour: Yes, but I was asking the panel.
Mr. Kusugak: It's interesting you should ask that. Maybe Jack would know more about this, but I understand it is not in the Nunavut act as such.
Do you want to address that on behalf of NIC?
Mr. Hicks: The answer to your question is definitely yes. The charter will apply in Nunavut the same as it will anywhere else in the country. The Inuit have always advocated that.
Mr. Arreak: To elaborate, the Nunavut land claim agreement is meant only to address aboriginal rights in regard to the land and the environment. It does not affect any other rights we have as Canadian citizens. I just wish to reiterate that fact.
The main focus of the land claim agreement is to ensure that we, as a distinct people, have our rights above and beyond what we have as Canadian citizens. It's meant more to address culturally important aspects of decision-making powers in the Nunavut region.
Mr. Gilmour: Yes, and I appreciate your comments on the elected legislative assemblies.
I think that will do for now, Mr. Chairman, considering that we're a little tight for time.
Mr. DeVillers (Simcoe North): My question is for Jose, regarding his comments and concerns about negotiated settlements.
The committee has heard a lot of witnesses discussing negotiated settlements. The argument being presented in their favour is that in lieu of a prosecution and a fine, they're an opportunity to try to repair some of the environmental damage that might have been done by an offender.
You've indicated that part of your concern is that negotiations might be out of the public spectrum and behind closed doors. If the committee were to implement something that would involve public input in those negotiated settlements, would that look after your concerns?
.1640
Mr. Kusugak: What I was referring to is if there were some kind of environmental disaster, they would negotiate one-on-one with the offender.
Mr. DeVillers: If there were a way of involving public consultation in those negotiations, would that address your concerns?
Mr. Kusugak: Yes. It certainly would help to remedy things if the public were aware this was happening and if nothing against the offender were hidden from the public.
That's one area of concern, but at the Surface Rights Board, for example, we were hoping there would be one department that would have all those kinds of responsibilities.
Mr. Arreak: This conflicts with article 6, which is on wildlife compensation. Each and every Inuk has the right to charge a developer with being negligent or to claim, without burden of proof, that they've lost their equipment or even their animals.
Basically this deals with examples like the M.V. Arctic going up to Nanisivik and then cutting off hunters, whereby they lose the meat and tusks of the narwhals they harvest as well as losing their boats and Ski-Doos.
Therefore the compensation arrangement was to ensure the Inuk would always have that option. When you're going to negotiate arrangements with developers, you may come into conflict over that particular article, which says each and every Inuk has the right to apply for compensation.
So in some ways it can fit with it, but in some ways it might conflict with it.
Mr. DeVillers: I noticed that at least two members of the panel mentioned the precautionary principle as something the committee should be taking into consideration.
We've heard a lot of evidence for and against the implementation of a precautionary principle. The evidence against usually comes from people we could categorize as industry witnesses. Their concern is it's too restrictive and it's too harsh.
Mr. Arreak: One of our longest-standing outcries to everything has been that whatever you apply in the south does not necessarily apply north of 60. It's totally different from what can work down in the south.
The reason we've always pushed for this or that is when something is fixed in the south and they try to apply that same principle north of 60, it usually fails. One of our long-standing principles and objectives is that every time there's legislation, it has to be recognized that north of 60 those things....
For example, the proposed firearms regulations just won't work up here. When you look at engineering and other aspects, they've had to develop new and special ways of doing things in the Arctic.
Mr. Kusugak: I don't know how serious Minister Tobin is about pursuing the Canada Oceans Act, but we want to keep the process going. It's something we've been asking for.
Sometimes the government's intentions are very short-lived. When the issue seems to be over they kind of put it aside. We think it's important to have this, and we just want to make sure we keep going with the process.
.1645
Mr. Hicks: Perhaps I could just speak to that. I think the vast majority of the time it doesn't require a whole lot more scientific work to go the extra step. Sure it adds a little extra cost, but there are also times when the principle is really important.
I remember an environmental assessment of a proposed uranium mine west of Baker Lake. The company wanted to bury all the tailings in the permafrost. They argued that the permafrost would freeze everything forever and that everything would be fine.
In the environmental assessment process as it took place, it was essentially up to small community groups to find people who could poke holes in these huge, technical documents to say this is dangerous. It seemed to people in the community that the onus should be on the company to prove with absolute certainty that it's safe.
There are times when there will be conflict. Ultimately, what is more important? That's the kind of question that debate raises. So I'm not surprised to see who's lining up on which side of the question.
The Chairman: It could be added to what you just said, Mr. Hicks, that it's simply placing the onus where it belongs. It has nothing to do with reverse onus. You could put it in those terms. Therefore, you stay out of that tricky terminology.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan (York - Simcoe): I'll have to tell you that the people in Mount Albert are very excited about the new territory you're proposing. There's a lot of interest in the south about this, so I'm very pleased to be here today. Mount Albert is a very small village. People like to make fun of it. We may share something there.
You had mentioned that in the 1960s you had seen an increase in cancer. Perhaps you could just clarify that for me. What was the cancer rate in your community previous to that? How much was the increase, or was this just the beginning of detecting cancer?
Mr. Arreak: I'm the one who mentioned that. Previous to that there had not been any cases of cancer. The first cases occurred in the late 1960s. Healthy people who had been eating country food all their lives all of a sudden developed cancer. Some were in their 30s, and some were in their 40s. Previously, the only real form of cancer was self-imposed, such as from smoking cigarettes. These were not cases of lung cancer but rather of cancer of the liver and other body parts that previously had not been considered as a danger for Inuit.
The cases I cited happened in our town. Starting in 1968 there were four or five cases of cancer whereas in the preceding 20 years there had been one or two. Those were primarily cases of lung cancer as a result of smoking.
That's my theory, but it has yet to be proven. Throughout history there weren't any cases of cancer other than those caused by smoking cigarettes.
A witness: There was a study done by Dr. Otto Schaefer and Dr. Jack Hildes of the University of Manitoba. It is ironic that right after that study was done, Jack Hildes died of a brain tumour. The study was called, The Changing Picture of Neoplastic Disease in the Western and Central Canadian Arctic.
.1650
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I think it might be useful for the committee's records.
Have you noticed an increase in cancer from the late 1960s in your communities as well?
Mr. Kusugak: I can only go by the report they had done, and they said yes. Other than when they were living in...[Inaudible]...from the smoke in a little confined area. They were also saying that since the military bases were put up there, they did find a lot of difference in numbers of different kinds of cancer.
You would read that in there. This is an old report now. But I think you would probably get more information if you read that report.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Thank you.
Mr. Hicks: Historically the Inuit have had a very different epidemiological profile from non-Inuit, and that profile is changing quite quickly. You would think you would be able to draw conclusions from that, but they tend to be largely theoretical conclusions, for example, if Inuit in the Keewatin had levels of body radioactivity as the result of fallout from weapons testing. The highest levels ever recorded on the planet were recorded in the Keewatin region.
Theoretically we know what that means, but you're dealing with such a small number of people that if there is a really contentious mine or something like that, you have to have extremely good baseline data or you don't have the basis for a study. It's hard to get that quality of baseline data because the health records that exist now are understandably weak; they don't go back very far.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Are there other quality of health changes that people have noticed in the communities?
Mr. Arreak: Maybe not so much observable in humans, but yes, in animals. You start seeing more animals that are sick, that seem to have tumours in their livers, and things of that nature where you're seeing the actual effects of contaminants in the animals you hunt and harvest. When you see that, it's not unusual to find a seal where the whole outside or something seems to be cancerous or malignant where you don't want to touch or even eat the seal. Nowadays you're starting to find fish, cariboo, seals and other animals that are exhibiting kinds of sickness that don't seem part of the environment.
So I suppose in the long run, it's more the observations of hunters and harvesters who are actually out on the land who are now starting to see these types of occurrences in the wildlife they harvest.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Is it more prevalent in marine life as opposed to terrestrial-based animals?
Mr. Arreak: Maybe more so in some areas where the water flows in and out of certain areas, but it was proven also in Keewatin that cariboo had high rates of cesium-137 in their livers and kidneys. It was also shown that in some it occurred naturally, but in most cases it didn't.
So it's not just confined to marine mammals. It's different chemicals for marine animals and different chemicals falling on the land are affecting the caribou.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: When I looked at your outline here of your proposal for your legislative assembly and how you are organizing the different departments, I noticed that the Department of Sustainable Development was under a program function as opposed to a core function.
It seems to me that in everything you've said, the environment is very important. You have a fragile environment here, particularly, that's under attack from a lot of places outside of your control, but it's a fragile environment that needs to be kept healthy in order for you to remain healthy and maintain traditional styles of life.
I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the Department of Sustainable Development and why it's different under a program function as opposed to a core function.
Mr. Hicks: The core functions are the departments that don't provide services to people so much as services to the other parts of government and finance administration.
We're quite excited about the sustainable development department. We're trying to wrap together the productive stuff, the renewable resource harvesting efforts and mining efforts - because people aren't opposed to mining; they just want to see it done properly - as well as income support activities and environmental control. Some people have questioned that approach, but by and large people are quite supportive of trying to take a holistic approach to the whole productive process and its impact on the environment at the same time. That's where environmental protection would be.
.1655
Mr. Lincoln: First of all, I really appreciate the briefs you've submitted, and also the brief of ITC, which was really first class. It's one of the very best we've had. I hope when you start Nunavut and you're a new department that you set the highest environmental standards and shame us into following you. It would be really refreshing.
I wanted to ask you a few questions about CEPA relating to the various briefs and recommendations you made. I'm just going to mention them all at once and then maybe you could react to them.
Do you know for the record - because we're now writing the report on CEPA - whether I've read your thoughts properly in regard to a few issues that are very important for CEPA? The way I read your briefs is that you've suggested that CEPA become the primary toxic act and legal instrument. Do I understand you correctly, if that were the case, that you would want CEPA to be paramount even in regard to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, which as you know rules in the Arctic now? DIAND has the jurisdiction for it. I wanted to clear up that point.
As well, you recommended that there should be no further waste dumping in the arctic. I wanted to know if you wanted us to list that as one of your key recommendations.
The third one regards the Arctic Environment Strategy, which is going to expire next year. You have suggested that, in one form or another, it should carry on, regardless of green plan funding and so forth. You want it to carry on. I want to make sure I read you right.
Another recommendation regarding CEPA was that instead of using a risk assessment procedure where you have to prove there's an exposure, you have recommended - or ITC did, anyway - a hazard assessment that really looks at the inherent dangers of toxics themselves. I wanted to check on that.
Finally, you made a recommendation that I think is really novel and interesting, and I want to know whether you want us to put this on record. You want the Arctic to become a contamination-elimination zone. Maybe you could define that for us. Do you want us to understand that in the future there should be no more toxics introduced into the Arctic unless you specially okay them?
We have been talking about including, in part IV of CEPA, a new part of CEPA. Part IV relates to international air pollution, which has never been used under CEPA but could be used for transport of organic pollutants. Perhaps another subsection under part IV of CEPA regarding international waters pollution could coordinate all the treaty work and so forth that Canada commits itself to. I would like to get your reaction to this point as well.
It's a long list, but it's my only chance.
Mr. Kusugak: I am certainly not going to try to answer them all, but yes; yes; yes; no; yes.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Lincoln: Tell me which is one is no so that I'll know which ones are yes.
Mr. Kusugak: The second-last point, looking at the north as a contamination and elimination zone, was a yes. I think that's a very honourable goal.
.1700
I watch television and see some countries in Europe, such as Denmark and Norway - and they're not large countries - developing refrigerators without Freon or these types of things. They put a lot of money into this. When you go over there you see their efficiency and how they use energy and space, those types of things.
This is something that we are at the moment.... As a matter of fact, I'm supposed to be at a different meeting, reviewing the Nunavut Implementation Commission's report with our board of directors. When we talk about the infrastructure of the new Nunavut government, we have to focus on contamination, elimination, and where the garbage goes. Is it burned or not? Do we have energy efficiency, not using too much water and so on? So I think that's a very good goal to go toward.
I see at meetings and such that we use plastic cups that have a life expectancy of two minutes if it you drink it that fast and throw it away. I think it's a very good example here that we're using glasses and other things that we're just not going to throw out.
I am glad to be commenting on those kinds of things.
I think from your question -
Mr. Lincoln: Can you tell me which one you disagreed with so that I know? You said one was no.
Mr. Kusugak: I just wanted to put a no in -
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Kusugak: - since the gentleman on my right said he was the radical. So that was a no for him.
Mr. Hicks: I was wondering what the no was, too, because I had a yes for all of them.
I think the basic thrust of what all four of us have said can be summarized in two things. One, the legislation and people looking at the legislation have to come to terms with the Arctic environment the way it really is. It might look nice - well, today is not the greatest of days, but on a good day it looks really nice - but we know what's going on out there, and it's really scary.
So when we talk about having problems with the sections that provide for major exclusions from CEPA, it's because there's a history of that kind of exclusion having a negative impact on the north, especially when the CEPA exclusions could be - I'm not saying anybody would plan this in advance - used to exempt from some kind of review the very things that are of most concern to us. So it's not that anybody has a religion of CEPA uber alles; it's just that this is a very useful piece of legislation with a couple of holes in it. If we could plug those holes, people would feel a lot better about our specific problems.
Mr. O'Brien (London - Middlesex): I want to second the thanks to the presenters. I found the presentations very interesting. My colleagues have asked several of the things I'm interested in, but I'd just like to pursue a couple.
Speaking about contaminants in animals, some of the animals that are harvested and the signs of cancer or malformations and so on, have there been any official warnings from any Canadian or Northwest Territories officials to your people about not eating a particular type of animal for a certain period of time? Have you had those kinds of warnings, and if so, what was the nature of them?
Mr. Arreak: I will elaborate on that. Cases dealing with certain fatty tissues of the animals, the blubber, the liver and certain other organs of the animals have been said to pose a health hazard, and if you eat a certain amount, you may be posing a health hazard to your body, causing cancer or whatever to appear. This mainly pertains to blubber, the liver, the fatty tissue of the fish, and certain other body parts that tend to accumulate the contaminants.
.1705
If you look at the northern ecosystem, it's actually simpler than the ones further south. There's less complexity in the ecosystem. However, whereas there are not as many diverse organisms, there are a lot more of them. For example, the limpets receive the contaminants, then the cod eat them, and it accumulates up the food chain. Polar bears have always been known not to eat the liver. However, you have to be careful about the amount of blubber you eat from all the animals you harvest, because it has been proven that the majority of the contaminants accumulate in the fatty tissue.
Mr. Kusugak: I think Ben Kovic would be able to talk a little bit about your question, if he may.
I want to also note for everybody that one of the problems we've had - it has been a real yo-yo - is about whether women should breast-feed. One day a study shows that breast-feeding is bad, the next day it's good, and the next day it's bad. Meanwhile, the Inuit ignore all these reports because they know that on the following day they're going to say that breast-feeding is all right after all.
Mr. O'Brien: Do the women breast-feed?
Mr. Kusugak: Yes, they breast-feed.
It depends on who does the study, whether it's a tobacco group or whatever. You have to be aware of those kinds of things.
I did want Ben Kovic, who's chairman of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, to address your question.
Mr. Kovic: When you asked that question, I kind of giggled inside. It's just like tire manufacturers where you have a tire that is better than theirs, and it runs on water, that sort of thing.
The Inuit and non-Inuit who use country food as their main diet had all kinds of warnings that they should cook their meat before they ate it because one doctor or scientist saw some sort of a disease or contaminant in that particular piece he was studying. Then another scientist takes over the same kind of species two years down the road and says, don't worry about it; it's not that dangerous.
It's so confusing for people like us. As I mentioned in my presentation, it's our daily diet. As Jose said, we forget all these warnings because it's different from one year to another. Nobody really wants to sit down and tell the truth.
Some of you are probably scientists or doctors by trade. You have your own opinion and how you see is your opinion; it could be better than the next person's.
Mr. O'Brien: Have the warnings been primarily about fish, seal, and caribou or about all types of animals?
Mr. Kovic: Probably all species that migrate to the north or stationary species. We've been warned about all species.
Mr. O'Brien: I think we've heard a clear message about the concerns this far north. Would you advocate that in CEPA we build in a tougher set of standards for this part of Canada? I don't know whether that's practical. What's your view of that? Do you think we need a tougher set of standards this far north?
Mr. Kovic: My question is, in what area?
Mr. O'Brien: Standards about ocean dumping. The arctic's probably frailer in some ways in that regard. One of my colleagues referred to a precautionary principle. Should we have a more stringent precautionary principle this far north than we do in the south? I don't know. I'm just reacting to what I heard you say.
.1710
Mr. Kovic: I think it was quite clear when Mr. Kusugak mentioned that when something happens, you only have two people behind that door: the person who created the problem and the person who is trying to investigate. If you do have a disaster, you should also have public opinion on that disaster and on the findings or conclusions.
Mr. Kusugak: I think we should request a stricter form of rules for this region. As much as we like to see the north as a tough, frozen wasteland, it's not. It's one of the more fragile environments. Even the Arctic hare eat their feces two times in order to try to get more nutrients. The lichen the caribou eat is so slow growing it eats absolutely anything that's in the air to try to get some kind of nutrient. There are many slow-growing plants and things that animals eat because of the cold, I imagine. The north is very fragile.
I think if we can draft the Inuit into this, we could sell Canada to the world for our people. When you go overseas, people ask about the Eskimos. They really like the Inuit carvings. When we have the Olympics, they give carvings to the top Olympians. I think we need to preserve the north and their right to live without fear of losing their normal diet but also because we are part of this incredible country.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan asked about the ecosystem. The Inuit consider themselves to be part of it. When we are not allowed to hunt fur-bearing animals, it really affects the ecosystem and creates an imbalance. The Inuit have been part of the ecosystem for thousands of years. When the animal rights activists and so on stop that process, it creates an imbalance.
So, yes, it is a very fragile environment. I thank you for asking that question, because I think it is true.
Mr. O'Brien: Mr. Chairman, I'll just finish with this comment. I think my colleagues will agree that we've heard time and again from whatever group of aboriginal people we've spoken with about the imbalance and the fact that the people are inextricably related to the environment. That's something we just haven't learned well enough in my part of the country.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I have one very brief question. It has been talked about - and I like what I hear certainly with regard to Canada and the fragility of the Arctic - but are other Arctic countries, such as Alaska, Finland, the Nordic countries, Russia, Spitsbergen, Iceland and Greenland, experiencing the same problems you are with the persistent accumulation of toxic materials not only in the environment but also in the animals and human beings? The study on breast milk was engineered to find a very pure population and instead they found contamination beyond their wildest dreams. Do we have any studies on whether other countries are experiencing the same degradation and accumulation?
.1715
Mr. Kusugak: Personally, I don't have studies to say that, but I think I can assure you from discussions with our friends in Russia - they have people come over here and visit us and share with us some of their problems - that if their environmental laws, which are pretty well non-existent, are as real as they talk about, I think I can assure you that, yes, they must have an awful lot of problems. It doesn't take anything away from our work here. No matter how much work we have done on environment together, we still need to continue, but I think some countries have it much worse.
I was in Norway last week with the minister. When they talk about some of the contamination to the reindeer from Chernobyl and the kind of compensation they have to give the reindeer herders, I think you can see they are affected in other parts of the world just as badly as we are.
Mr. Arreak: I think to the extent of having not so much studied it personally but having studied with a personal interest, some of the other countries do have the same problems. But the problem with Canada is the air and sea currents conspire against Canada. Both the air and sea currents tend to stick around the Canadian arctic longer and more persistently than they do in other parts of the arctic. That is a major reason why it affects the Canadian north more so than other areas.
When looking at the way the air currents move, they have found pollen and dust in the Keewatin that originally got blown off the coast of the desert in China. So you are talking about 2,000 miles away. The problems with the sea currents is that all the pollution is coming up the side of Greenland, or through the Bering Strait, and then slowly circling around the Arctic Ocean.
No matter what types of standards we've set, whatever was done 10 years ago or whatever toxic chemicals they had dumped in 10 years ago, they will eventually reach us anyway.
I thought I would bring that out.
Mr. Hicks: There is a really rich literature of case studies and comparative studies around the circumpolar world. There's the International Union for Circumpolar Health. They have a journal called Arctic Medical Research, and some of the best researchers in the world work on this for the federal government. I'm sure ITC could give you a really good bibliography, if you would like.
The Chairman: We should conclude now, because we are supposed to resume at 7 p.m., but we could have one quick question each for those who really want to ask a question on a second round.
Madam Kraft Sloan, you have a question.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Mining has been mentioned a few times. I'm wondering if you could let me know how mining activities are changing in the arctic. What do you think we could do in CEPA to address some of the environmental concerns you might have around mining?
Mr. Kusugak: They are definitely changed from when I was a kid. We went to Rankin Inlet from Repulse Bay when I was 10 years old and there was absolutely no briefing at all as to what mining was doing in Rankin. It was years after the mine closed that we finally started to realize there were contaminants in Rankin Inlet, where the plants wouldn't grow and these kinds of things. We were allowed to bicycle on these things, because nothing grew on there; it was like concrete. We were playing as kids in this dust and everything else. Now they are finally cleaning it up and burying all this area.
.1720
Today, though our Nunavut Impact Review Board and these kinds of initiatives and our agreements in terms of land use and so on, we are starting to have quite a good relationship with mining companies. We know they're there, and they want to make money. We want them to be there for the jobs and that. As far as the environment is concerned, if we're happy with what they're doing and they're happy in what they're doing and making sure things are cleaned up, things are getting a lot easier that way.
Of course, our people are still quite doubtful that they're telling the truth, because of the history, but I think we are doing our part in our organizations to make sure the agreement is between the two. So it's starting to work out.
Mr. Hicks: I would like to add a sentence to that, specific to mining. Now that the Cold War is over, perhaps we can all start looking at the health impacts of the nuclear fuel site on aboriginal people in the Arctic and everywhere else for what it is. Let us take off the cloak of secrecy and deal with it seriously in a scientific way, the way we look at other pollutants.
Mr. Lincoln: I wanted to mention to Mr. Kusugak, first, that maybe you could write to the minister, Mr. Irwin, the letter that you wrote to Mr. Johnson. If you start with the top, maybe it's have some effect.
I think it was mentioned in the ITC brief that radionuclides - and I think you referred to it - you would want to see it regulated in CEPA. Right now they regulate radionuclides under the Atomic Energy Control Act, and the levels are actually lower than those standards asked for under CEPA for non-nuclear materials.
Could you tell us briefly what type of recommendations you would like to see under CEPA in regard to radionuclides and nuclear materials? One of you referred to it, but I don't know which one.
Mr. Arreak: From going to some of these workshops on contaminants we have received videos and things like that. The specific island I mentioned was Novaya Zemlya Island in Russia. They have about 13 radioactive subs just sitting there. It's been proven they've been dumping tonnes of concrete-encased radioactive materials in the deep part of their ocean. The Americans made a report that they believed those are leaking long term. So no matter how you slice the apple, it is going to reach the southern arctic, because unfortunately, that's the way the current goes.
Jack Hicks and I would both prefer that radionuclides also be listed, because it is something that is coming up and it is something we unfortunately will have to look at in the long term.
Mr. Hicks: I'm in danger of suggesting that NIC has a position on radionuclides, which it doesn't, but I thought the ITC brief dealt with the question quite well. It is a question with a long history in the Arctic and possibly in the future, as well. Rather than suggesting that NIC has a position on this, I would just refer you to the way ITC approached the question. It is representative of the approach the Inuit organizations have taken from the community, regional and national levels. ICC's is a consistent position.
Mr. O'Brien: Mr. Kovic, you mentioned the complexity of CEPA. It's a big document, all right. Do you see a place for a pocket CEPA, some little thing to be widely distributed to people with the highlights of CEPA and what it's about? I don't think 99% of Canadians know what CEPA is. Do you think there's any place for a simplified version, mass distribution, if there's interest in that?
.1725
Mr. Kovic: Simplify it by taking out the things that affect the territories.
Mr. O'Brien: A targeted CEPA.
Mr. Kovic: Yes.
That act reminds me, I guess, of the the gun control act, which really is hard to understand.
For that to be effective, we need to be trained and to be educated to that particular act. On the procedures, if something happened right here in Iqaluit right now, as I said earlier in my comments, if we dropped a box of lemmings on the floor, everybody would be running all over the place. Who'd take control of a disaster? That is number one.
If you go DIAND's office right now, they'd probably wouldn't give you an answer. If you go to DFO's office right now, they probably wouldn't give you an answer. As I said earlier, everybody's overlapping one another.
Mr. O'Brien: You're talking about an emergency response plan, which I'm familiar with.
Mr. Kovic: Yes. Simplify the act so that an ordinary guy on the street could pick up a pamphlet anywhere, probably in a post office, that tells him that this is part of the act, and if there's a problem what should be done, where he can call, what he can you do.
Mr. O'Brien: I follow you. Thank you.
The Chairman: In your opinion, are the existing regulations under the Mining Act adequate to protect the arctic environment?
Mr. Kusugak: I'm not that up on the actual Mining Act. We have a department that is actually dealing with this. You will see on Friday in Cambridge Bay the gentleman from that department. I'm more or less a politician who is aware of a little bit on everything, but I couldn't get into commenting on whether it's effective enough.
Mr. Arreak: I was one of the negotiators and worked with the mining industry and Inuit mining industry working group. We looked at certain aspects of the legislation. Some were a little bit inadequate in that they addressed southern mines, but a lot of it has been met through the innovative creation of new engineering techniques to ensure that the mining industry is still up to par in ensuring that the environment is not degraded to the point where it could get penalized.
Certain sections in the Mining Act could be fixed, but again that's something that could be done according to due process. In relation to actual mines that are operating in the north, they are by far some of the safest and most environmentally sensitive mines you can see anywhere.
In the first year of...unfortunately they used some of their waste rock to create the road, which has now proven to have lead in it, which could be harmful to the kids. There have been problems that have been met by the mining industry. So I think it's more to do with co-existing and co-managing the resources in the Nunavut settlement area that we could meet those deficiencies in the Mining Act.
.1730
Mr. Kovic: I have just one last comment here. It's not so much to do with the Mining Act.
My question is, when you receive an application for mining exploration, as the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board organization, do I have any say...into this application to habitat, environment, sanctuaries? Do I have any say?
Right now, I don't know the process. If DIAND approves it, if the mining goes ahead or exploration goes ahead, right now I don't have any say until such time as we have the flow charts. Where do I have time to say this thing?
That is just my concern. Even with the Nunavut Impact Review Board, they probably have a say in that part of the process. Does my board have any say? I need to know.
The Chairman: We want to thank you very much indeed, Mr. Kovic, Mr. Arreak, Mr. Kusugak and Mr. Hicks for your input, for your advice, for your experience. We look forward to talking to each other this week as we travel through the Arctic. On behalf of all of the members, a heartfelt thank you.
Mr. Kusugak: Mr. Chairman, also on behalf of our group we want to thank you. I also want to make sure that when you do order your meals, don't be afraid to order the caribou and fish. I assure you, they don't glow.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Chairman: Thank you.