Madam Chair, I'm going to speak to this quickly. We have at least three pieces of legislation -- maybe two I guess, that where financial security requirements can be placed on an operator or mine owner, oil and gas operation I guess if we include oil and gas, maybe three or four different pieces of legislation. So the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has the Waters Act and they can ask for -- or through that process, financial security for water-related use and an infrastructure site can be requested. And there's the Lands Act, Northwest Territories Lands Act for lands-related stuff. And then for oil and gas, you can have other provisions for financial security. And this is not set in stone. You know, what's land? What's water related? Is a tailings dam a land feature; is it a water-related feature? And how is that covered and coordinated between these two types of financial securities that could be requested? There's no arrangement for this to happen other than the land and water boards by practice have said give us one closure plan, we'll figure out what the liability is and we'll recommend a global figure. But even some of the figures that they've submitted with their draft licenses haven't been acceptable to our government because they can't figure it out or they don't know -- they don't want to hold security under one act when it should be for another act. This has got to be sorted out because what it does is it puts the public at risk that we're going to assume more liability in the future. So that's what this recommendation is aimed at. Maybe having a combined department as of April 1st will help resolve a bit of this, but it's also a legislative problem. But it could be solved through a memorandum of understanding or some way of dealing with this better. But what we have in place is causing confusion, double bonding possibly, even -- or you know, for operators or mine owners that's not fair to them. This stuff has got to get sorted out, and I'll look forward to how Cabinet's going to respond to this one as well. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Kevin O'Reilly on Committee Motion 356-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Departmental Coordination of Securities, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on February 9th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 356-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Departmental Coordination of Securities, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 9th, 2023
Page 5166
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