Indigenous affairs committee votes to scrap Harper-era reforms to northern development regulator

Thestar.com
May 31, 2019
Marco Vigliotti

The Liberal-majority House Indigenous affairs committee has voted to approve without amendments legislation scrapping Harper-era reforms to a northern development regulator and giving new powers to cabinet to halt oil and gas work in some offshore areas in the Arctic.

Committee members made no changes to Bill C-88 after conducting clause-by-clause reading of the legislation during a Thursday morning meeting. It will now be sent back to the House.

NDP MP Wayne Steski moved the sole amendment to the bill at the meeting, seeking to set up an approval and consultation process for use of new cabinet powers detailed in the legislation to prohibit certain oil and gas work in Arctic offshore areas if deemed to be in the national interest.

Steski’s amendment would require the relevant minister to publish a prospective notice of an order to bar oil and gas work in the Canada Gazette at least six months prior to its implementation, hold consultations in affected communities and permit interested parties to submit comments on the proposal.

In the case the proposed order affected an Aboriginal community, Steski’s amendment would require the minister receive consent from representatives for the community, under the terms of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The amendment, however, was deemed inadmissible because it went beyond the scope of the legislation by subjecting the cabinet order to an approval process beyond “what was envisioned by the bill,” according to committee chair and Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk.

The amendment it would have changed was approved by the committee, though all the opposition members voted in opposition.

Conservative MP Cathy MacLeod echoed complaints from her party that the bill would “enshrine in law” the Liberal government’s ability to act unilaterally in regards to northern development, citing the ongoing moratorium on oil and gas activity in the Beaufort Sea, located off the northern coast of the Northwest Territories. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the moratorium in 2016, in conjunction with then-U.S. President Barack Obama.

Liberal MP Will Amos countered that it was a “bit rich” to hear the Conservatives call for greater consultation when Bill C-88 was prompted by opposition to reforms under the former Tory government in 2014 to the regional panels of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (MVLWB).

The board is responsible for ruling on projects that cross the boundaries of the three regional water and land boards in the Northwest Territories. The legislation passed by the Conservatives would have eliminated the regional regulatory bodies in hopes of making the approval process less complex and unpredictable. But this never occurred as it was halted by an injunction from the Northwest Territories Supreme Court before any changes went into force.

The new bill from the Liberals would repeal the dissolution of the regional panels, while also reinstating administrative reforms to the MVLWB brought in by the Harper-era legislation that were halted when the injunction went into force.

Amos added that all the constitutional rights afforded to Indigenous communities remain unaffected by the new powers granted to cabinet over Arctic offshore oil and gas work.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett told iPolitics earlier this month that she’s confident C-88 will become law before Parliament rises next month.

She said it would be tough for the Upper Chamber to oppose the legislation because it was crafted in consultation with northerners and affected Indigenous communities.

“It’s very difficult for people to object when this is something that was taken as a collective decision,” Bennett said.