Environmental groups and bureaucrats from Parks Canada have launched a frontal assault on aboriginal Canadians lobbying for a minor adjustment to the boundaries of a proposed national park in order to exclude a region with high mineral potential.
The Northwest Territories government, the Inuvialuit and nearby community of Paulatuk have asked the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources to back their efforts to amend the proposed park boundaries in order to exclude ground believed to have potential for nickel deposits. The area in question represents 2.5% of the proposed park’s total land mass.
The proposed park is adjacent to a land package held jointly by the Inuvialuit and
Parks Canada and various environmental groups insist that changing the boundaries would put caribou at risk and create a negative precedent with respect to park boundaries. The Inuvialuit argue that 29% of their territory has already been set aside as parks or protected areas where resource development is not allowed. They point to the high unemployment rates in their impoverished communities, particularly for young people, and to their desire to be more economically self-sufficient.
At a meeting in mid-November, environmental groups were grilled by senators seeking more information on which to base their decision. They stuck to their position that changing the boundaries would put the Bluenose caribou at risk. The senators were told that “Canadians hold national parks to be even more important as a symbol of Canadian identity than hockey.”
Juri Pupree of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society told the committee that if calving grounds are disturbed, “the risk of herd failure is high, with long-term economic, cultural and environmental costs.” However, Pupree was unable to answer questions about whether local herds were increasing or decreasing. Nor was he able to answer questions about their gestation period and how many calves are born each year.
Liberal Senator Willie Adams reminded his colleagues that Northern communities have been hurt by the campaigns of environmental groups. “Years ago, Greenpeace campaigned all over the states and in the North. How many people in the community have been hurt as a result of that campaign? The people cannot hunt seals and foxes any more. They cannot trap anymore. What is next from you guys?”
As a Northerner, Adams told his fellow Senators he was ashamed to see “people from Toronto” telling the people of Palutauk to pass the park bill because it might create “two jobs.” He pointed out that caribou herds do not always calve in the same place and that measures can be taken to protect them during this sensitive time. He also refuted the notion that human activity and wildlife are incompatible. “You see caribou right on airstrips. You see muskox feeding right outside the mining camps. We are the ones who live up here, yet people in Ottawa are telling us that we cannot do this [alter the boundaries] because the caribou will be killed off. We will not kill off the caribou.”
Senator Adams also asked: “What is the big deal about 2% of the land when the final boundaries have not even been approved yet?”
Tony Andrews, executive director of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), and David Comba, PDAC director of Issues Management, also appeared in front of the Senate Committee. Andrews told the committee that if a decision were made to make a small adjustment, “a high level of protection will still exist” because industry activities are highly regulated.
Comba showed slides of northern mines with caribou and muskox wandering freely about mine sites. He also told the senators that it would not be unreasonable to ask mining companies not to drill during the calving period (something most companies already do).
“As a Canadian, I am personally grateful for the 29% of Inuvialuit land that has been given to the people of Canada as parks,” Comba told the committee. “I am embarrassed that we cannot give them back the small areas they are asking for, especially if this deal was sold to them on the basis of co-management. These people have been very generous with their land.”
The Senate will resume discussions on Dec. 1. The Inuvialuit, Dene and Sahtu native groups will be in attendance to share their views on co-management agreements and make their final submissions. A decision is expected shortly thereafter.
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