Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because the scope of the JRP is so broad and detailed and because this Cabinet has failed in its duty to provide the Members with adequate opportunity to provide input into this response, I will confine my comments to specific remarks on the most major recommendations and general comments on broad subject areas in the report.
I would first like to quote from the JRP report’s observation in the section Public Confidence and Government Preparedness. “Many participants in the panel’s review expressed a major concern about the readiness of governments to respond to and adequately manage the impacts of the MGP. As a result, many of the panel’s recommendations are directed to governments. The panel is generally satisfied that if these recommendations are adopted and implemented, governments would be effective in addressing the concerns to which the recommendations are directed.” The panel report went on to say, “The panel was provided with documentary evidence of criticism from independent sources of government shortcomings and delivering on its legislative obligations and its existing commitments and meeting the spirit of those commitments.” However, the panel did express its confidence in the potential for
government to act by saying, “The panel is also satisfied that if governments accept and act on the recommendations that are directed to them, governments would be ready and prepared in the sense of being able to respond to the challenges that the project would present. The panel is satisfied that implementation of its recommendations would address the issue of public confidence.”
Regarding government’s intention to step up to the plate on the JRP, I am extremely disappointed, as is Ms. Bisaro, by the statements in the two governments’ overview of the draft interim response stating that a mere 10 of the 115 recommendations -- that is less than 10 percent directed at government -- will be honoured. The overview emphasizes the intention to respond in a modified way to many recommendations. I will be looking for details to ensure the spirit and effect of the JRP recommendations are not diluted to meaninglessness through equivocation.
Again, however, Cabinet’s refusal to fully involve Regular Members in the review and in the development of responses is unacceptable. Without input into the acceptance, rejection or modification responses, Members have been locked out of one of the most important pieces of business ever considered by this Assembly.
Then there is the issue of the government’s NEB response. There are numerous recommendations in the JRP report dealing with the general issue that the proposal under review is for the development and shipping of 0.83 to 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The JRP recommendations repeatedly make the point that this is the extent of the review and no authority should be issued beyond these production levels without a later comprehensive review. The presentation of the GNWT legal counsel of the Inuvik NEB hearings contradicted this approach. I want to emphasize that this position is completely unacceptable. In all areas where the JRP recommends a limitation of authorities and approvals to a project for 0.83 to 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day, this government should heed that direction.
As I stated in my earlier general remarks, I also reject the government’s position regarding what is described as fettering of future discretion. The JRP is simply serving the requirements of the MVRMA and claims agreements that provide for Northerners to have their say in controlling the pace and scale of development and the necessity for addressing cumulative effects.
My next major comment deals with the issues covered in chapter 16 of the JRP report, Social and Cultural Impacts. This chapter, while the longest in the report with 26 recommendations, is a catalogue of the mostly negative social and cultural impacts anticipated to result from the project without
mitigation. These include the needs for closed work camps; measures to minimize negative interactions and spillovers of effects into communities; alcohol and drug abuse prevention; policy addiction and treatment measures; increased resources for policing including drug and alcohol enforcement; increased and coordinated health care services; the availability and expansion of homelessness, family and women’s shelters and seasonal weekend and day child care spaces; mental health and suicide prevention programs; elders’ care availability and service expansion.
Sections of other chapters also point out the need for financial arrangements with communities to offset the upsurge and demand for community infrastructure and resources. Clearly the JRP report anticipates a vast increase in the demand for critical social, family and human need services. What the JRP report is saying is that without a huge ramping up of both regular public services and the critical issues services and measures required to mitigate negative social impacts, the project will have disastrous social consequences for many citizens and our communities. In this area, government will not meet its responsibilities without taking on the full weight of these recommendations which means huge increases in costs. Unless the sources and amounts of these funds are assured and programs underway well in advance of project start-up, it will be irresponsible to allow these impacts to begin.
Environmental impacts are a huge area of concern dealt with largely in the recommendations of the report, chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 18. The scope of these recommendations is too vast to be dealt with meaningfully in the short time available to us here. They are the product of detailed, expert and analytical consideration by the JRP and stretch across the interdependent web of our ecosystems.
In speaking to these recommendations, I want to again emphasize a single main message of the JRP in delivering its report; the project should only proceed if all these recommendations are met. This counsel is critically meaningful in matters affecting the project’s basin-opening impact upon fragile northern ecosystems, much of it in a precious, pristine state. This is our birthright held in trust by our governments for our citizens and, indeed, the world. This project must not proceed without thorough implementation of all the environmental protection measures outlined in the report. We have the opportunity and the JRP report has given us the detailed direction to try to write a new page in sustainable, environmentally responsible resource development. We have the opportunity to do it right.
I am calling on this government to meet its responsibilities and insist that all other parties meet their responsibilities by implementing the recommendations of the report dealing with the protection and management of such matters as
environmentally safe construction standards, air, water and soil quality, spill prevention and management, and environmental emergency plans, wildlife protection including management plans, critical habitats, endangered species and species at risk, fish and marine mammals, land use planning, habitat offsets and protected areas, and cumulative impacts monitoring and assessment.
Greenhouse gas issues are another major concern. I point specifically to the report recommendations 8.2, 3, 6 and 7. Recommendation 8.6 is critical, saying, “If federal regulations under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act are not in place by the time the proponents make the decision to construct the MGP, the National Energy Board, as a condition of any certificate or approvals it might issue in relation to the MGP, require the proponents to establish, in collaboration with Environment Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories prior to the commencement of construction and in sufficient time to perform the final decision a greenhouse gas emissions target or series of targets basic program.” The report states the details of this program. Does the government’s response give notice that new NWT reduction targets are to be established this coming April? I point to the critical recommendation, 8.7, that before issuing any approval or certificate, the NEB, “require the proponents to include greenhouse gas emissions from their facilities in the Mackenzie Gas Project’s ongoing monitoring program and to report annually following the commencement of construction on the project’s achievements with respect to greenhouse gas emission targets.”
As a general counsel to government, I could not agree more to recommendation 8.8 that, “the Government of Canada develop and implement as soon as possible legislation and regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada to meet or exceed existing national targets in the Climate Change Plan for Canada.” The recommendation involving transition to and increased reliance upon lower greenhouse gas producing natural gas directed to replace other fossil fuel sources is also essential. In all these cases I urge this government to fight for these measures as mandatory steps in its development of a joint response.
Mr. Speaker, I note the clock is running down. If there are others, I’m happy to give way. If not, I would ask permission to finish my statement.