Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue No. 51 - Evidence - April 16, 2019 (morning meeting)
PRINCE RUPERT, Tuesday, April 16, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, to which was referred Bill C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast, met this day at 8:46 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator David Tkachuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators and guests, I call this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to order. Today, we are continuing our study of Bill C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast (Oil Tanker Moratorium Act).
I can’t tell you how happy we are to be here. I think I speak on behalf of all the senators. What a great crowd we have here today.
I want to thank the Prince Rupert Environmental Society for the salmon recipes, and — oh, I’m sorry. If I speak this way — it’s almost swallowing the thing — can you hear me now? No? Okay. We’ll try to get headsets to you, but I think we’re going to go on with the meeting.
As a sign of respect, the first group wants to start their meeting with a prayer. I call on Lawrence Sankey to give the prayer, and then we’ll continue with the meeting.
Mr. Sankey.
Lawrence Sankey, Minister of the Lax Kw’alaams Church: Let’s all stand, bow our heads and pray as one.
Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you today. We ask your blessing upon the proceeding. We ask for your leadership and your guidance, Dear Lord. Speak through each and every one today. Lead us in a positive manner. I ask your blessing upon the elders, watch over them. Keep each and every one of them safe from all harm. If any of them are sick in hospital, I ask that with your healing hand you reach out and heal them right now, in the name of Jesus. And everybody said, “Amen.”
Thank you.
The Chair: That was very nice, Lawrence. I’m a Christian, so I much appreciated that. It doesn’t happen in Ottawa that often.
This morning, we are pleased to welcome from the Coastal First Nation, Guujaaw, Special Advisor; and from the Allied Tribes of the Lax Kw’alaams, Garry Reece, Hereditary Chief.
From the Gitxaala Nation, we welcome Clifford White, Elected Chief Councillor and Hereditary Leader. Mr. White is joined by three additional hereditary leaders from the Gitxaala Nation, Matthew Hill, Doug Brown and Janet Moody. Thank you for attending this morning.
We will now hear from our witnesses. Please start.
Guujaaw, Special Advisor, Coastal First Nations: Good morning to the committee and to the chiefs and good people gathered.
I’ve seen the testimony of the leaders of the Coastal First Nations and the Haida Nation. I feel that adequately covers a lot of ground, so I’ll take a different approach this morning, Mr. Chairman. The people gathered here and the people on this coast share a lot in common. We all have similar lives in that we live in a similar environment and our cultures are similar.
In fact, we are the Potlatch people, associated with the totem pole and the great sea-going canoes. We all have similar customs, and yet there are four distinct languages and several dialects in this room right now.
Over our history, we have had a lot of marriages and interrelationships amongst our people, and differences. We all think we’re the ones who started the canoes or the headpieces you see. All of our people wear similar regalia, but each is distinct to our different nations.
On the coast, here, was the highest concentration of hunter and gatherers. We didn’t rely on agriculture. We didn’t need to; everything was already here. Most of our stories go back right to the time of the great floods and the times when the land was quite a bit different than it is now. We’ve all seen the Ice Age and the great cataclysms that ended it.
So that is who we are. Through contact and the disruptions that happened over the last 200 years, all of our populations had collapsed from smallpox and other things, and there were a lot of devices employed to remove our language and our culture, those sorts of things. We all know the sad story there, but we maintained all of those things and are rebuilding where we need to.
I want to say that over the last 100 years and particularly, 50 years, our people started realizing that they had to fight back against this system in order to protect the salmon, to protect all of our resources. It is quite obvious that people from afar could not manage our resources. We’ve seen the logging increase over the last hundred years, and the destruction of salmon streams. We’ve seen the depletion of one species after another by overfishing, overprescribing fishing, mismanagement.
We began fighting, basically from a time when none of us had no influence, a generation ago, even, had no influence over anything that was happening. It was all collapsing; we were all witnessing this.
We managed to fight back and, over the years, protect a lot of land. We protected a lot of ocean, stopped a lot of overharvesting, with a lot of sacrifice to ourselves. Over the years, we established in Canadian law that Aboriginal title does still exist.
Mr. Chairman, our people are not fools who say money is useless. We’ve all been tempted by money, but we all love our land very much, and are here to tell you that we don’t want to put it at risk.
In Canadian law, or any law, it is not a right of ours to put our land at risk. We don’t consider it an Aboriginal right, nor do we consider it anybody else’s right to put this at risk. All of us have taken the position that we prefer the path of reconciliation, working to figure out our place in Canada, how we work together, how we resolve our things with the people we live amongst, and all of us have already embarked on that trail to try to make things right.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We’re going to have three five-minute presentations, and then we’ll go to questions. Mr. White?
Clifford White, Elected Chief Councillor and Hereditary Leader, Gitxaala First Nation: Good morning. Many thanks to our hereditary leaders and elders who have joined me today to let each and every one of you know how important Bill C-48, to implement the oil tanker moratorium act, is to our nation
All of our people that you see here today actually are land holders. They care for our water, air, minerals, and we are seen to be the stewards of the lands, which is passed down from our Ayaawx, which is our laws, our Adwaax, which is our stories, and our Guugwilyanks, which is our inheritance. So there is a definite process that we follow.
Thanks for allowing us to speak, and we welcome each and every one of you to our collective unceded territories. Gitxaala is the oldest community on the coast, for well over 10,000 years. We have seven communities that make up the Tsimshian Nation, put together linguistically, and they are as follows: Gitga’at, Hartley Bay; Kitselas; Kitsumkalum; Lax Kw’Alaams; Metlakatla; Kitasoo Xai Xais; and Gitxaala. That makes up the seven communities for Tsimshian, as you know it as the Tsimshian Nation.
Before I go any further, I will turn it over to one of our hereditary leaders, Matthew Hill.
Matthew Hill, Hereditary Chief, Gitxaala Nation:
[Editor’s Note: Mr. Hill spoke in his Indigenous language.]
Doug Brown, Hereditary Leader, Gitxaala Nation: Ladies and gentlemen —
The Chair: Just to make sure that we will be able to have time for discussion, you have a couple of minutes each.
Mr. White: He wants to let you know what he said.
The Chair: A translation would be nice. Go right ahead.
Mr. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, the Village of Lax Kw’alaams, Gitxaala, has been inhabited by the Gitxaala people for millennia; not centuries, millennia. So in the true span of historical time, first contact was merely yesterday, as opposed to the length of time we have lived on our island.
We are totally surrounded by water; the ocean, by salt water. So it only makes sense that 90 per cent of our diet comes from the ocean, which is being threatened today.
We are commonly called the Git lax m’oon, the People of the Saltwater. Other times, we are called the Gitkxaala, People from Out to Sea. We are intricately connected to the ocean. Our food, our social structure, and our culture are linked with the ocean. We strongly believe in the theory of symbiosis and the link, the chain link, where each species depends on the other. We don’t see ourselves as the superior species. We are only one of the many species that lives here, and we respect one another. Each species depends on the next, in the theory of symbiosis.
Accidents in our territory can cause ruin to our way of life, limiting our area to exist and freely gather and harvest our food as we need it. We take what we need and use all we take, and leave the rest for tomorrow.
Any accidents would put this in great danger. Our very existence would be threatened. Prince William Sound proves that point. After 30 years, that mess is still there. It will never go away, and that’s what we’re threatened with today.
We cannot just up and move if anything happens. This is our home. That’s our home, that island. We can’t just up and move somewhere else if it happens to be covered with oil someday.
The threat comes from the people on the other side of the mountain. They will reap all the benefits, leaving us all the risks. They are voting on that today; Notley and Kenney are in a serious battle right now, today, and voting today. Our fate will hang on the results of that election.
Gitxaala is not opposed to energy development, but we have zero tolerance for any oil risk on our coast. There are many other options to develop energy. Wind, for instance, is one very popular option that is becoming prominent all over the world. We see it on the TV every day, hundreds of windmills.
We were consulted on the development of the bill, and we strongly support its adoption, community members who live, work, and carry on Gitxaala’s traditions and culture. We participated in the Enbridge Northern Gateway hearing and through its long and costly process, we very clearly identified that there exists no tolerance whatsoever for any oil shipping through our territory. None whatsoever. Our lives would be put in serious danger.
Just as we did with the Enbridge process, we will continue to fight and make sure that tankers do not run through our territories. Although it’s been said that the Americans are doing it from Alaska to Washington, they’re doing it in international waters, making it out of our reach.
There has been a voluntary exclusion zone along the B.C. north coast since 1985. This zone did not include shipping to and from Canadian ports, so this bill is a better recognition of the fact that there is no appetite for oil on the north coast.
Because of the interconnected nature of those in the ecosystem, any harm in one area can have permanent or long-lasting consequences for the entire ecosystem, meaning our very existence, which is why a blanket ban on the north coast is necessary.
Today, we strengthen our opposition to transporting bulk oil anywhere near our land or water. We hope this has been made very clear to those who will make the final decision. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. White: I’m going to conclude.
We live in a very delicate ecosystem. Any harm in one area can have permanent and long-lasting consequences for the entire ecosystem, which is why Bill C-48 is absolutely necessary. We want to be very clear: Gitxaala Nation is in full support of Bill C-48, the enactment of the oil moratorium legislation into law.
Gitxaala is not opposed to energy development, but we, the Gitxaala Nation, have a zero tolerance for oil shipping on the coast. We are interconnected spiritually. That’s our opening prayer: May our ancestors and the spirit of Mother Earth and all good spirits be with us here today.
Everything surrounding us, Gitxaala strongly believes in spirituality connected, that many Nox Nox are associated with each of these species — animals, trees, water, land, minerals, air, and human beings. You have heard a lot about how an oil spill will harm our food security and destroy our pristine waterways, and we totally agree with that. Our ancestors speak of honouring those things that we can see and those that we cannot see.
I don’t know how many scientists are at this table of the Senate; hopefully there are some. I ask a question: What are those micro-organisms that produce oxygen? So rhetorically, then, that would be phytoplankton. Do you know how much oxygen is produced by phytoplankton? A minimum of 50 per cent to 85 per cent. So when we’re talking about oil shipping up and down the coast, that could potentially jeopardize our ecosystem, in particular the phytoplankton. It’s fairly important that we understand that.
Phytoplankton also provides the foundational food source for the ecosystem, such as the krill, shrimp, jellyfish, and the circle of life continues with regard to the salmon, seals, whales, and other species. So phytoplankton is very important.
According to a new study published by Science Advances, phytoplankton largely contributes to cloud formations and, in turn, to how much sunlight Earth absorbs, thus supporting Mother Earth with solar radiation, with the solar radiation bouncing off the clouds into the stratosphere, which highly supports the prevention of Mother Earth from overheating.
As we know, we’re pretty much in the midst of climate change.
The Chair: I don’t mean to —
Mr. White: I’m almost done.
The Chair: But I’ve got —
Mr. White: I recognize that.
The Chair: We’re going to run out of time, and there’s no point to it if we can’t ask questions.
Mr. White: Just for you to note how important phytoplankton is, and the need for more research with regard to where we’re at on that.
In conclusion, Gitxaala maintains a zero tolerance on any oil shipping on the coast. We strongly support the passing of Bill C-48. Our community members have invested quite a bit in fighting Enbridge, and we ask that, if you want to find out more about where Gitxaala stands on oil tankers, pull up the Gitxaala Enbridge file. You’ll find a lot more information in there.
So the last thing that we need is basically for us to be able to continue to work together, the province and the federal government and the First Nations, to address climate change. We all have a responsibility to ensure that, at least to the seventh generation, our children’s children get to enjoy the pristine waterways that we have here.
Thank you for coming from such a far distance, for allowing us the time to be here, and for taking time out of your busy schedules to listen to us. God bless each and every one of you.
That’s the end of our presentation. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Mr. Reece?
Garry Reece, Hereditary Chief, Gitxaala: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Garry Reece, and I’m one of the hereditary chiefs for the Nine Allied Tribes, which is the Ginaxangiiks tribe. A number of years back, my chief of the day, my late uncle Fred Dudoward, who has passed on, called me to his home and gave me a name that stands right beside him, and gave me full authority to represent my tribe and to make decisions.
As I mentioned during dinner yesterday, we have house chiefs also in our tribe, who hold title to a lot of the lands. Every one of our tribes holds title and has a house chief, the ones who should be making decisions. It’s not me as hereditary chief who is going to be making decisions over my house chiefs’ territories. They have to agree to that. I don’t have that authority; neither do any of the other tribes’ hereditary chiefs have the authority to make decisions when that happens.
The Chair: So what’s the difference, just so I understand, between a hereditary chief and an elected chief? Are you an elected chief?
Mr. Reece: I’m not an elected chief.
The Chair: Is an elected chief here?
Mr. Reece: I’m hereditary chief. I follow a line from the house of my tribe. My uncle, the late Fred Dudoward, was the hereditary chief of our tribe, and when he passed the name was put on me. So it’s hereditary; it’s not elected.
The Chair: Okay. So the elected chief isn’t here?
Mr. Reece: No.
The Chair: Does he feel the same way you do?
Mr. Reece: No. He is not in support of that bill. They want ban taken out.
The Chair: Yes, I understand. I just wanted to clear that up.
Mr. Reece: I know there have been statements made from my community that our community is starving. Well, that’s not the case. I would invite the senators to come and look at my community, where they are proposing to build a facility to ship oil out of, at Grassy Point. We have a fish plant right across the harbour there. We pumped probably over $13 million into that fish plant to change it over to groundfish, so we could do groundfish there.
That plant operates about eight months out of the year, and I know for a fact now that 60 of our members qualify for EI. When the plant shuts down, after the eight months, they go on EI. That is the highest number we have ever had in the fish plant. We still do salmon there.
In total, about 100 of our people altogether work in the fish plant. I mentioned when we were in Ottawa, we have a port agreement. In our agreement, it states that the port has to give our people 250 jobs. I checked the numbers before I came here as to how many of our people are working with the port now. Right now, we have 60 in total working in the port, but there are also spinoffs such as truck drivers. They’ve probably got about 15 truck drivers who are working. So it’s getting pretty close to 80 people from my community.
Our band owns a forest licence. We’ve run that forest licence for a number of years now. It creates employment. There are other agreements that we’ve made. I invite you to come and look at my community. You’ll see a leisure centre with a swimming pool, a 150-foot water slide. Our community is not suffering. We’ve made a lot of agreements over the years. Formerly I was a chief councillor and mayor, when we changed from chief to mayor. We made a lot of agreements then. We took a lot of our people off social development then and we have a lot of jobs there.
The Chair: We do have to get to questions. We have 25 minutes and, if we don’t get to them, I mean —
Mr. Reece: Okay. I just want to bring out one thing here.
The Chair: One more point. You’ve pushed me about as far as I can go.
Mr. Reece: Western Canada Marine Response has a fellow who works for them, Robert Stromdahl. He was over in the Gulf of Mexico to do a cleanup there. I think you guys should question him on how that cleanup went. Only 5 per cent of that oil is cleaned up. They bombed the oil at night. I can’t remember exactly what they used, but it broke all that oil into smaller pieces, which sunk to the bottom.
I recommend strongly that you guys take a look at that. The Exxon Valdez oil spill is still not cleaned up. If you go lift rocks up there you’ll see the oil underneath. How many years is that?
So our group strongly recommends the passage of Bill C-48.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Right now I’ve got Senators Miville-Dechêne, Patterson, Cormier, Gagné, Simons and Smith. Each of you has one question.
Witnesses, please make your answers short and precise.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you Mr. Chair.
This is a question for Mr. Garry Reece, and it’s a continuation of the question of the chair. I want you to explain to us the difference between an hereditary chief and an elected chief in one particular area. It’s the area of your competency in terms of territory.
I heard and I want you to confirm or affirm that the elected chief had more to say on the reserve as such, in the community, and that the hereditary chief had more to say about the whole territory in terms of land titles. Can you explain that in a nutshell?
Mr. Reece: Yes. As a former chief and elected chief councillor then changed to mayor, the band has authority on reserves. They do not have authority in our traditional territories.
As I mentioned, house chiefs and hereditary chiefs in each tribe hold that authority. So the band council, the elected band council, does not have the authority to make decisions.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So in this particular case, you have a division in your community. You have an elected chief who is against the bill; you are for the bill. What is the resolution of that? How does it work?
Mr. Reece: Well, there are a lot of decisions that have been made, and I mentioned that there is a huge conflict with the elected chief councillor and deputy supporting Eagle Spirit. The deputy works for Eagle Spirit. Our mayor is still the vice-president of Eagle Spirit. There’s a huge conflict. Our people know that and see what’s going on. And there’s an election coming up.
The Chair: We’ll see how that goes.
Senator Patterson: You just mentioned, Mr. Reece, a conflict within your community. I’m wondering about this. We have heard in Ottawa, and expect to hear during our time here on the north coast, other viewpoints from other Aboriginal leaders, other rights holders, who have a different view on the bill and who are willing to allow their lands and waters to be used for creating jobs and business opportunities in their communities.
Would you advise us as to how we are to deal with conflicting views from Aboriginal leaders on the West Coast? Who are we to listen to?
Mr. Reece: Well, there are other tribal leaders who are in support with the Eagle Spirit. As I mentioned, we have house leaders. One of the house leaders who holds that territory at Grassy Bay, there, is sitting here. He hasn’t been consulted. He hasn’t given any agreement for anything to happen there.
And there’s another house leader who is in the community who does not support anything happening there, or doesn’t support the oil.
The Chair: Mr. White, did you want to add to that?
Mr. White: Yes. [Indigenous language spoken]. I want to show you the difference between elected chief and council and hereditary. All of the people you see here standing up, Gitxaala, they’re our government. They’re the ones who we get direction from. They’re the land holders, the title holders. They’re the stewards of the land.
We as chief and council take the direction from hereditary, and we implement where they want to go.
Hopefully that answers a bit your question about the distinction between elected chief and council. Chief and council is a product of your federal government, not ours. These are our government people, here; our hereditary leaders. The only responsibility that the elected chief and council have is over those reserve spots that the federal government provided to our nations, and that’s not much in terms of our territory.
All of the people that you see here for Gitxaala, they hold the responsibility for our territory. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Mr. White, on the Gitxaala Nation, how many people are there?
Mr. White: Two thousand.
The Chair: Of those 2,000, do they all feel the same way you do, or are they split like any other community?
Mr. White: On Bill C-48, yes, we had a unanimous agreement.
The Chair: Amongst all 2,000?
Mr. White: That’s right, yes.
The Chair: Okay.
Senator Cormier.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: I’ll ask my question in French. First, I want to thank you for your presentations. I want to tell you that, as a francophone living in a minority community where fishing is important for our survival, I fully understand your concerns. I wholeheartedly support you.
That said, I want to have a better understanding of the matter. This area already has a great deal of economic activity tied to the sea, and there are many boats on the water. These boats aren’t without risk, so I know that you’ve been consulted by the federal government. However, I want to know how the oil companies have approached you and spoken with you about their upcoming projects or the issues that you must address for the survival of your community.
What is your relationship with the oil companies, or do they meet with you to discuss major environmental issues?
[English]
Guujaaw: Mr. Chairman, Aboriginal rights are clearly defined in Canadian law now, and it gives the extent of the right, and also the limits on that right, and the right is really clear. It says that the inherent limit is when you pass this line, where it’s irreconcilable with the very purposes for which you claim a right, which is our life and the sea. That’s where we get our culture, and all that. So to claim that it’s a right to be a part of a pipeline or get benefits from a tanker is false. That’s infringement of the right.
So our own people who have embarked on that, have embarked on it because oil companies have come amongst us and started giving money to people, buying people off. Really, really divisive in our communities.
Amongst the Haida people, there have been very few, who have got minimum dollars and sacrificed their positions. We see this in Third World countries; we didn’t think we’d see it here, but yet we’ve seen it amongst our own people.
We’re not perfect people, either. We certainly could fall under the spell of money like anybody else, but our people are resolute in our opposition to it, as well, elected or hereditary leaders.
All of us, every one of our communities, could use the money. We all want a better life for our people. All of us have been offered that, and we won’t sacrifice what we have, what we know gives us our culture.
The Chair: I have a couple of questions.
Do your groups belong to the Great Bear Rainforest group? Does your council or do your people belong to that group?
Guujaaw: Yes, I could answer that. We have alliances with Kitkatla and Lax Kw’Alaams in some instances, but every other community on the coast north of Vancouver Island is associated with that group.
The Chair: They get money from foreign organizations, from American organizations, don’t they?
Guujaaw: Very little.
The Chair: Well, do they?
Guujaaw: Well, listen —
The Chair: I’m just asking. Yes or no?
Guujaaw: There is money from philanthropy, none of which instructs anybody how to use it. If anybody wants some philanthropic money, you apply to them and you say what you would do. There is nobody, in America or anywhere else in this world who is telling us how to behave, what to do, or instructing us in any way.
Consider what that oil is. It’s mostly Chinese money. It’s American money. What’s the difference?
The Chair: I’m going to ask a question of all of you. You’ve all talked about rights, and of course I understand that and believe in it. There are also other rights — you live in Canada, you have responsibilities. There are a lot of First Nations who don’t want this bill, on the Prairies especially and parts of northern B.C. A lot of them have this resource that lights our buildings, powers your boats and all that stuff. A lot of them have it right on their land.
How do you expect them to sell that resource outside of Canada? That’s a question of responsibility.
Guujaaw: Yes. There’s a question of responsibility, and our people on the coast have probably used gas as long as anybody else in Canada. But there’s a difference between Aboriginal rights and treaty rights. A treaty right is defined, it’s taken care of. We haven’t signed treaties; we hold title to our lands. We in this room are not treaty people. We still maintain title.
Canada doesn’t have clear title over these lands until they’ve reconciled with us. So there’s quite a difference. And responsibilities are not responsibilities to keep the land. We know that the way we’ve been living for the last hundred years has compromised this planet, and we can’t just keep doing that. We can’t keep going to work and pretending that nothing is happening. We can’t let these economies keep ruining the Earth.
Canada is a good country, but almost everything, every economic driver as it is right now, is something that’s causing the ruin of the Earth.
The Chair: I will have a debate with you on that at a separate time.
Senator Gagné.
Senator Gagné: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I had a question pertaining to your relationship with environmental groups. How do you participate with other groups in making sure that your lands and the water are protected in your area?
Guujaaw: In our area, we have elected chiefs. We have an elected nation government, and the hereditary chiefs all work together. We have, I think, four municipalities that we also work with; you’ll be hearing from at least one of them today. Is the question how do we work together? How do we figure things out?
Senator Gagné: The question is always, are you associated with foundations and where are the foundations getting their money? I am thinking of another perspective. How do you, in all the communities and also with different groups that think that we have to be stewards of our lands and planet, work together to make sure that we advance in an environmental perspective?
Guujaaw: If I could, we work with the environmentalists for sure. As to the philanthropy, most of our money is our own money, our own source money that we get from carbon credits and other things. We also work with the federal and provincial governments. We did a lot of planning and a lot of protection of land and protection of marine areas. The Harper government also took philanthropic money from the Moore Foundation in marine planning. Which is fine; it doesn’t change anything that the federal government has to do, or we did, but it helps us to get the job done.
The Chair: Did you have anything to add to that?
Mr. White: Yes. [Indigenous language spoken]. I support totally what Guujaaw actually said. I’ll give you an example in terms of the foundational money that you’re talking about. Gitxaala spent over $6 million on legal fees on the Enbridge file. Of that $6 million, we got $32,000 from a foundation. That’s it. You know, so we don’t rely on any foundational monies from outside.
The Chair: Where did the rest come from?
Mr. White: From internally, from our own works. So they actually utilized all of their dollars to actually fight that Enbridge piece, and they’re prepared to do the same thing on anything dealing with oil on the waterways.
Our stance is still, clearly and absolutely, no oil tankers on the coast.
Senator Smith: Thank you all for being here and allowing us to be with you. I have spent a lot of time in business doing different things, but what I have learned is it’s always more important for people who want to get information to seek it from the people, where they live, and we thank you for your time.
We’ve had so many leaders from Indigenous communities visit with us in recent times, both on Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and I just want to try to understand what, for you, is the definition of “consultation?”
About two months ago, the people with the LNG project came to Ottawa, and there was a big dinner. The leader was about a 37-year-old young lady who was chief, and she negotiated the deal. What she said was, “We didn’t agree to anything until we had the trust with the big manufacturer that they were going to do what we wanted.”
I’d like you to say what is your definition of “consultation?”
Mr. White: For us, consultation is actually coming out to Lax Kw’alaams, Gitxaala, meeting with our governing structure, which includes chief and council, and getting into debate to determine whether or not whatever they’re proposing is actually for the benefit of everyone.
That’s our definition of what consultation would be. It’s meeting with our governing structure.
Senator Simons: I come from the other side of the mountains, from Alberta, from Treaty 6 territory, and I want to thank you all for your very impassioned words today.
One of the things that I’ve learned over the course of these hearings that has really concerned me is the lack of any kind of cleanup response along this part of the coast. One of the things that worries me is that, if we pass Bill C-48, the government will say, “See, there are no tankers, so we don’t have to worry about investing more in cleanup.” Most of the spills that you’ve had here weren’t heavy oil; they were diesel, they were gasoline.
I want to know how satisfied you are with the way fuel spills of all different kinds are handled here, and if you’re worried that the government might pass C-48 and then ignore the other risks that already exist because you have so much boat traffic.
The Chair: Mr. White, or whoever you want to answer. Just pick someone and go.
Mr. White: We see destruction all over the place. Society has not been good to our environment, and that’s why we basically have climate change. If you take a look at our forest pieces, for example, all of the devastation that’s actually happened in forestry. You take a look at our mining. You take a look at our fishing. We’re depleted in fishing, our roe and kelp, everything.
We have a mine out on Banks Island for which we’ve been after our government for the last three years to have it cleaned up. It doesn’t cost that much money to clean it up, but we’re still fighting them on having it cleaned up.
So there is devastation after devastation. It’s not just the reaping of Mother Earth in terms of where society is going today, but it’s also destroying our culture, destroying our children. The highest number of people in jails is our people. The highest number of children in foster care is our people.
You know, we have to stop this. We have to start working together in terms of being able to make life better for everybody. Thank you.
The Chair: Okay.
Is someone else going to answer that?
Senator Simons: I wanted to hear specifically about the cleanup of fuel spills in the water.
Mr. Reece: I talked about the Gulf of Mexico and the Exxon Valdez, and there’s no proven technology in the world for oil cleanup.
As I mentioned, if you go up there and have a look, there’s still oil under those rocks. If you can prove to us that there is such technology for oil cleanup, we’ll sit at the table and discuss it, but right now they don’t have that.
Senator Dasko: First of all, thank you very much to everybody for your presentations today. I learned a lot.
We have six leaders at the table, and we have heard from five. I would like to ask Madam Moody, who is described as a matriarch of your community, to tell us your position in your community and also your view on the bill.
Janet Moody, Hereditary Matriarch, Gitxaala Nation: My view? I will tell my story here. My late husband owned a territory, Campania. We go to Hawaii for a trip, yet we have a really nice sandy beach in Campania. He had a fishing area that had been passed down for generations, and my late husband owned it.
When fishing opened for all different people, gill netters came in and they raked up all the fish. We had to move from there because we couldn’t get no more fish.
I just want to open your eyes to what’s happening. That’s why I am against oil. You guys have to pay to go on a trip to B.C. here to hear the sounds of the waves, the quietness. Now, you’re not going to hear that, with all the ships going by. It’s loud.
Our village is an island. We’re facing north, and the back of our island is an ocean. We hear the ships go by, when it’s nice, and that’s not a good thing for me to see, nor for my generations of my grandkids.
Money is nothing. We can survive without that, because we know how to survive with our own traditional way.
I hope I answered your question. Thank you.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
The Chair: Could you tell me, what is the unemployment rate on your reserve?
Mr. Reece: I know it is down quite a bit in our community, because of our fish plant and our leisure centre where we have a lot of workers. About 80-something per cent are employed right now.
The Chair: So, like 17 per cent unemployment, or something like that? Well, that’s pretty good. But what about on the other reserves?
Guujaaw: I want to add a little to that. Our people were under economic sanctions for years, and the poverty was not by accident. It was deliberate, to create that dependency and to put us into the position that we’re in. It was deliberate. It was to break down our people.
Over the years, we’ve built it back. All of our communities are doing better now than they were doing 25 years ago. All of us are doing better, and all of us intend to keep building upon the sustainable life, the fishing, the things that are our traditions.
We have to fight against the government and work with them and reconcile with them to try to get our rights back, our rights to commercial access to fishing. None of us were entitled to have anything to do with forestry. We worked, we fought hard to get access to timber and all of these things — one of the richest lands in the world, and they impoverished our people. We’re slowly building it back up, in our own way, not by expecting somebody to come along and make us all millionaires while compromising our land.
The Chair: Thank you very much for this. Thanks again for your participation.
For our second panel, we now have with us, from the Kitasoo Xia Xia First Nation, Lorna Fraser, Councillor; from the Gitga’at First Nation, Arnold Clifton, Chief Councillor; from the Metlakatla Stewardship Society, Ross Wilson, Stewardship Director; and, appearing as an individual, Robert Hughes, Commercial Fisherman, Lax Kw’alaams.
We’re going to start with Ms. Fraser. You have five minutes each.
Lorna Fraser, Councillor, Kitasoo Xia Xia First Nation: [Indigenous language spoken]. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to acknowledge the Nine Tribes that make us the Tsimshian Nation and the [Indigenous language spoken] for allowing us onto their territory to present to all of you today.
I’ll begin by saying First Nations represent 50 per cent of the population on the north and central coast and Haida Gwaii, and our territories represent 40 per cent of Canada’s Pacific coastal waters. Therefore, our concerns for our lands and our water are legitimate, and they should be taken as such.
It is important to note that we are in a time of change, and a hope of rebuilding a positive relationship between the government and First Peoples in all aspects. Our collaborative effort to rebuild a sustainable economy for these territories is an integral part of the reconciliation with British Columbia and with Canada’s federal government.
Our leaders helped craft the landmark Great Bear Rainforest agreements, which will protect 85 per cent of these forests, and they will ensure our resources are managed using an ecosystem-based approach.
We are also creating integrated management plans through the Marine Plan Partnership, which is a joint initiative with the Province of B.C. Limiting oil shipments through these ecologically fragile waters is a key element of the Government of Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan. Supporting Bill C-48 and keeping large oil tankers out of these waters is a major component of these long-term planning objectives.
Our coastal ecosystems contain abundant marine species and provide critical habitat for roughly 20 per cent of the world’s wild salmon population. Moreover, more than half of all marine bird species in B.C. use habitats within our territories throughout their life cycle. Large oil tankers threaten these ecosystems, just as unsustainable resource extraction has been putting these resources at risk for decades.
For more than half a century, our natural and cultural resources have been extracted unsustainably, with no compensation for our people.
Again, I return to my initial comment of hope. Today, our communities are building a new sustainable economy in fisheries and forestry sectors that are committed to ecosystem-based management and through clean energy, carbon offsets, and eco-tourism.
Our vision for managing our lands and waters is based on the true concept of “sustainable.” To us, this means that the wealth of forests, fish, wildlife, and the complexity of all life will be here forever. Our leaders have taught us that what we have is not ours; we are just holding onto it for the next generation.
As such, in Klemtu, which is the main village of the Kitasoo Xai Xia Nation, we created a sustainable ecotourism business called Spirit Bear Lodge, which currently employs 10 per cent of our population. Its popularity is growing worldwide every year, therefore employment of our community members will continue to grow as well.
Further to that, the knowledge and wisdom our people have of our territories and the species we share with the land and waters will continue to be shared, and it will be spread world-wide, which can only be better for the future of lands and water all over the world.
This operation has diversified opportunities in our main community of Klemtu, particularly for our youth. It has given them a voice and a renewed sense of belonging and identity, and a desire to protect their territories, as we are doing for the generations that will follow in their footsteps.
Our community went from being largely dependent on resource-extractive jobs to being largely based on conservation and non-extractive activities. An oil spill would devastate these growing economies and destroy the livelihood that my people depend on for nourishment, for ceremonies, and employment.
As a teacher, I try to get my students to think outside the box — if something does not work, try a different approach — and to weigh their decisions with risk management.
I spoke earlier of the hope that I have for reconciliation to continue, for a healthier, trusting relationship between First Nations and government departments. Yet this conversation has come up time and again for the past 40 years. Why do we rehash the same old argument? For over 40 years, the same conclusion has been drawn from this discussion. The risk of large tankers travelling through this coastal region is too high.
It is clear and historically well documented that the status quo does not work. Dictating to First Nations, basing economies on raw resource extraction, and going big for the short term gain does not work.
We need to move on. The writing has been on the wall for two generations. Put our financial and mental resources into finding alternatives to unsustainable development. Nurture rather than destroy. It is obvious. How can we claim to be an intelligent species if we do not acknowledge the obvious? I am asking you, some of the highest decision-makers in the land, how can we claim to be an intelligent species if we fail to acknowledge the obvious?
We need balance and consideration for the wellbeing of all, for all people, for all species, for all time.
The Chair: We’re at seven minutes, now.
Ms. Fraser: Risking a catastrophic oil spill on B.C.’s coast can never do that. We human beings do not own this land, but we do have the ability to make decisions that affect it greatly. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to make the best decisions we can and, in this case, it is to keep large tankers from our waters and our shores.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Clifton, at four minutes and 30 seconds, I’ll give you a little warning. Go ahead.
Arnold Clifton, Chief Councillor, Gitga’at First Nation: Good morning. I’m a hereditary chief and elected chief in Gitga’at, and this is Bruce, my deputy chief.
First off, I want to talk about the three incidents that happened in our territory. The first one is a Brigadier ship, the Zalinski. It’s still sitting there. When it left Seattle it had 700 metric tonnes of bunker fuel, and when they pumped it out the other year, all it had on there was 42. They figured it had 650 when it went down. And it’s sitting there loaded with ammunition, and it’s got 12 bombs in there, plus it’s got 24 warheads. And this is sitting in our territory, and it’s in about 60 feet of water.
The other thing I want to talk about is the Queen of the North. Today, Queen of the North has been sitting there for over 10 years, in 200 fathoms of water, and it’s still burping oil. When Queen of the North went down, our people are the ones who saved the passengers on that boat. The Coast Guard was three hours away. Instead of launching their life raft, they turned around and they ran to the area. By the time they got there, all the passengers were in Hartley Bay.
Speaking of response, the Burrard Clean operations went down to Hartley Bay, and they were there for 27 days. All they got in those 27 days was 18 litres of oil. Not even five gallons, and they were there for 27 days.
The best in Canada is 3 per cent, for oil cleanup, and the best in the world is 15. I don’t know if that’s changed yet.
By the way, I’m a commercial fisherman. This is my fifty-seventh year running a seine boat. The other incident I want to talk about is at Wilson Rock. A ship heading to Kitimat hit that rock, and an engineer for the government came to Bella Bella. I was living in Bella Bella at that time. An engineer from the government came to Bella Bella with two CanAm divers, and he wanted to charter a boat, and everyone pointed their finger at me, saying that I knew the area, so I brought him up there.
On the way up, the engineer was telling me that the ship that hit that rock— it tore a hole in the bow — had a load of ore, something for Alcan in Kitimat. It tore a hole from the bow of that boat four to eight feet wide. It broke through all the bulkheads, going over that rock. The last bulkhead was the engine room, and that was quite thick, and it tore the top of the rock off, otherwise that boat would have been still there. The bottom there is littered with metal from the hull.
Anyway, when I went there, I anchored on the spot. I have a lot to tell you about what happened before we got there, but I’ll bypass that. I anchored on the spot and the divers got ready to go down. It was four hours before slack tide. I told them, no, it’s not going to be safe, because we have three to four knot tides here.
One diver got dressed an hour before and the other guy was getting ready. He jumped in and he was two feet under water, looking at the mess down below, while the other guy was waiting. They had a rope on him. Just like that, the wind hit. It was blowing about 20-25 miles southeasterly, and then the tide stopped, so I told them to abort.
They got him on board. They didn’t even have to lift him on board; by then he just scooped in on the side of the boat. We left and dropped hook at Channel Island, and the divers asked if they could go diving. I said, “If you find any abalone, bring me a feed.”
Anyway, they went about 200 feet from the boat where we were anchored. Then one guy popped up and hollered and went right back down. They came back up, and there was a blackfish, an orca on the bottom. It had big white blotches on it from oil. They came to the boat, and the guy that popped up, his suit was covered with oil a half an inch thick. There was oil under the surface of the water 8 to 10 inches thick, and it was getting closer to the shore.
The bottom was littered with dead shellfish. That’s the reason why he popped up, and he didn’t even see the oil. We couldn’t see the oil from the boat. It was under the surface of the water. And a lot of that oil was sinking to the bottom, and that was killing all the shellfish.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Wilson.
Ross Wilson, Stewardship Director, Metlakatla First Nation: Good morning. Before I start, I want to introduce Sm’oogyit Clarence Nelson and Sm’oogyit Mike Elk to my right. They’re supporting the presentation from Metlakatla.
The Metlakatla Stewardship Society opened its doors in 2012 with a strong mandate to represent the nation, the council, on stewardship initiatives.
This mandate is very clear and specific. It is a program on behalf of the Metlakatla Governing Council, and the mandate allows the Stewardship Society to be consulted and accommodated specifically to stewardship initiatives. The consent requirement comes from the Metlakatla Governing Council, not the Stewardship Society. We only concentrate on stewardship interests.
The Metlakatla members continue to travel through and harvest resources within their territory, and this territory stretches from the Copper River through to the marine waters and the Hecate Strait, the Granville Channel and north to Stewart, Alaska, and the Observatory Inlet.
It just so happens that the territory includes the Highway 16 and the CN rail corridor, the export terminals in the Port of Prince Rupert, and the marine shipping routes that travel north into the Hecate Strait. Metlakatla territory has become the epicentre of north coast traffic and commerce.
Given Metlakatla’s strategic location and its stewardship mandate, the Stewardship Society faces a huge workload and, with leadership support, we have built a department to oversee and manage the mandate. As an example of a fraction of our work, in the past seven years, the Stewardship Society has finalized nation-specific and bilateral marine use plans with B.C. and Canada; provided input and leadership on 23 environmental assessment and major project reviews; negotiated to be the environmental monitors of the Pacific Northwest LNG Project, in partnership with Lax Kw’alaams; began work on a reconciliation framework agreement with Canada, and specifically, that’s the OPP; have been recognized by the Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to contribute to the federal initiative to establish an Indigenous-led centre for expertise on cumulative effects management.
Despite our successes, during my time as the Director of the Metlakatla Stewardship Society, we have witnessed vulnerabilities in the face of some scary events. These include the grounding of a coal ship in the outer harbour, which happened in the middle of a sunny day with two pilots aboard; the derailment of a train along the Skeena River; a barge engulfed in flames being towed in circles just beyond Metlakatla Village, and this barge burned for three days.
In each of these incidents, Metlakatla was not notified, nor part of the coordinated response, and not part of addressing and monitoring for any ongoing impacts. From the Stewardship Society perspective, regardless of what happens with Bill C-48, we have so much more we need to do to protect, manage, and sustain the north coast waters.
First, we must focus on prevention. To Metlakatla, prevention means we must work meaningfully at a government-to-government level, between First Nations, British Columbia, and federal government, which includes all nine ministries and the Port of Prince Rupert.
Beyond prevention, First Nations are most often the first to respond and the most likely to be impacted by a major incident, therefore First Nations must lead preparation for, and be properly equipped to be the first to respond to, a marine incident.
Finally, should an accident occur, our ability to monitor the outcomes and support our communities to recover will be paramount. To do what I have just spoken to, we need a mandate and dedication from the federal and provincial governments, and we need the tools and capacity to carry out over a long term. Not just in the next year or the next election cycle, but as a new, integrated approach to managing our oceans together for long-term health and sustainability for our waters and north coast people.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Hughes.
Robert Hughes, Commercial Fisherman, Lax Kw’alaams, as an individual: Good morning. I’m here representing our commercial fishermen at the Lax Kw’alaams Band here. I’ve been a fisherman for the past 40 years. I also sit on the North Coast Area C Harvest Committee representing the north coast commercial fishermen.
Today, I am here to speak on the state of the fisheries that we face on the north coast, and the problems our Lax Kw’alaams members deal with yearly. Our band has a fleet of 70 to 80 boats still in the commercial fishery, compared most other bands, that only have a handful left.
When commercial fishing opens, DFO opens it only for a few hours, which results in our members being out fishing trying to make enough just to qualify for EI benefits. Some of our fishermen have only made the bare minimum to collect. As a result, the majority of our fleet, around 98 per cent, do not have insurance on their boats. We cannot survive on the amount of time we get to commercial fish. The past four or five years on the north coast have been a disaster.
DFO’s plan is to close down commercial fishing and hope that the salmon will return to the spawning grounds. There just is not enough enhancement to rebuild the stocks. The Americans in the north and the south have been doing it for years. The Alaska state fisheries have just announced a record 213 million that are expected to return this year. What is wrong with this picture? Maybe DFO needs to take lessons from the Americans, because what they are doing is obviously not working.
We used to be able to gillnet halibut and troll under one licence, but now you need a licence for each fishery, which our fishermen can’t afford. Corporate companies are buying them up. What is government doing to stop this? It should be an owner operator, not armchair fishermen who don’t fish, but lease the quota or licences out. Our fishermen are being monitored to death, with all the costs of this being on the backs of the fishermen.
DFO fees have been the same all these years; there have been meetings with DFO to lower these fees, with no success. DFO has been trying to implement a quota system for the commercial fishermen. We on the north coast are totally against this. If this is done, the corporations will buy most of the fishermen out, control it and pay whatever price they want.
Each and every year, fuel prices continue to rise; government has done nothing to help out the north coast. Why is oil shipped to the U.S. to be refined then shipped back to Canada, and it ends up we pay a whole lot more? What is wrong with this picture? We have all the resources in our own country; we shouldn’t be paying these high prices. What is the government’s plan to change this?
Back to the issue of commercial fishing, we are lucky to get a few hours each week; one day of fishing, maybe two, if we are lucky. In all fairness, if we are tied to the dock we think that the sports sector should be tied up as well. Right now, they are out seven days a week, every week. How many sport licences are issued each year? I was told once by a friend of mine who used to work with DFO that there were over 200,000 issued in the province of B.C. How much harm is being done when thousands of anglers alone fish in the Skeena?
A lot of the salmon will be snagged, which then tires them out, making it easier for predators to catch them. When I say predators, I mean seals; there is an overpopulation of seals and sea lions on the north and south coast. The seals used to be at the mouth of the Skeena River, and now they are spotted all the way up to Terrace. Can you imagine how much salmon they are getting on the way to the spawning grounds? When the salmon return to the ocean, you can imagine how many are caught when they are coming back out.
This is a huge issue, the seals and the sea lions. They are chasing all the fish, including herring, which have a massive impact on returning stocks . There needs to be a cull on seals, but once again DFO is dragging their behinds on this.
The Chair: We’re almost at the end, there.
Mr. Hughes: DFO and government officials have been sent a proposal from the Pacific Balance Pinniped Society to work on the issue of seals. However, it looks to me like government and DFO are scared of the all the environmental groups. Even when we fish on the outside waters, there are around three, four, five seals ripping the fish right out of our nets. They leave big holes in the nets, which are so expensive to repair. A cull would greatly enhance the amount of the salmon returning to the river to spawn. There has to be a balance to the ecosystem.
There are many issues we have with DFO and mismanagement of the fishery; another is how our Lax Kw’laams fishermen have been targeted after we lost our court case against DFO. Since then, our boats have been unfairly harassed and targeted. For example, my son was charged with an offence that didn’t make it to court. The Fisheries officer had falsified the evidence, so the Crown didn’t proceed with the charges. Another example, a Fisheries officer boarded a boat that had a father and his 10-year-old son aboard and pulled his gun without provocation.
The Chair: Thirty seconds left, Mr. Hughes.
Mr. Hughes: I’m just about done.
Charges were laid, it went to court and was tossed out. There is no trust between the fishermen and DFO.
Our people are slowly starting to heal after many years of racial discrimination, mental and physical abuse endured at residential schools and Indian day schools. We have survived on sea resources and we want it to continue. There are many opportunities that could be developed in our territory; our people should be the ones to decide this or have a say. We want to provide our own solution to what’s happening in the land of the Nine Allied Tribes and Metlakatla.
I’ll just cut it short. In conclusion, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to bridge the gap between our fisherman and DFO. We have met before and are willing to meet again. I just hope that it doesn’t fall on deaf ears once again.
The Chair: I understand . There are a lot more issues here than C-48, it seems.
Mr. Hughes: Yes. It sort of ties in, even with our oil and gas.
The Chair: We’ll get to questions, sir.
Senator Miville-Dechêne.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you Mr. Chair.
This is a question for Mr. Hughes. I understand from your presentation that you’re saying you need other projects to get out of poverty, and I suppose you may be referring to the pipelines, but I want to be sure of that.
I think you are the brother-in-law of Calvin and John Helin of Eagle Spirit?
Mr. Hughes: Yes, I am.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So are you investing in Eagle Spirit, and how do you reconcile fisheries with the oil industry? Some fishermen are really against this project.
Mr. Hughes: Well, I’m not working with Eagle Spirit or on their payroll. They’re my brothers-in-law. I’m representing our commercial fishermen. I understand there are two sides; a side against and a side for. What I say is, “Let our people decide.”
As an individual, I can’t tell other people what to do, or any other leaders what to do. It’s their personal opinion, and I have mine.
The bottom line is, with the way oil and gas prices are going through the roof, our guys aren’t going to be able to afford to go out. It’s just you’re damned if you do it this way and you’re damned if you do it that way. I’m here to relay the issues of our fishermen and how they relate to oil and gas.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Absolutely, and you did it so very well. I’m wondering how we can reconcile your vision and the vision of Mr. Gary Reece, who said that the community is not in abject poverty; that there are challenges. There seems to be many opinions on the poverty level of the Lax Kw’alaams.
Mr. Hughes: He didn’t talk about our fishermen. He talked about the people at the fish plant. I was part of that group, a former elected councillor. I was on council for 16 years, until four years ago. I was instrumental in getting that plant rebuilt to hire more workers. I brought the pick fee program to the village, when that came out, and that developed into us owning our own drag fish boat and putting our people to work. That was a huge help to our people.
Our shore workers work maybe six to eight months out of the year, but then, too, they just work to get enough EI stamps to survive the rest of the year. Nobody is getting rich, but they make enough to survive.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
Senator Patterson: Mr. Clifton, thank you for telling us about your experiences, the hereditary chief and the fishermen. You told us about the disasters on the coast, the Zalinski, the Queen of the North, the accident at Wilson Rock.
Bill C-48 is about heavy oil, about bitumen. I don’t believe any of those vessels were carrying that product, so my question is this: Bill C-48, if it passes, wouldn’t have done anything to prevent these accidents that you described; is that fair to say?
Mr. Clifton: You’re saying that it’s a different oil altogether. One is bunker C, and the other one is fuel with a bit of oil. Those ships carry that bunker C, and that was a big problem. I did a lot of research on it. A lot of that oil they’re going to ship down, they’re going to mix with a condensate to thin it so it can run easily.
The Chair: They mix it with regular light crude, yes.
Mr. Clifton: Yes. That in itself is another thing altogether. That’s a really deadly poison, that condensate.
Senator Patterson: I’m just asking, would you agree that Bill C-48 doesn’t cover the vessels in the accidents you talked about?
Mr. Clifton: No, not all of it. Just the heavy oil.
The Chair: The big tankers.
Senator Patterson: Ms. Fraser, you’ve talked about the fact that basing economies on resource extraction does not work. We in the Senate have to represent all of Canada. We were just in some western communities last week. We heard that there’s 130,000-plus workers out of work in Alberta who are dependent on what you call the resource-extraction industry. They say that there’s a growing demand for oil, according to the world forecast by the International Energy Agency, up to 2040. That oil is valuable to those people who work in extraction industries in Alberta.
Do you have any sympathy for all those people in Alberta who have lost their jobs and are struggling because their resources are landlocked and can’t get to the hungry Asian markets? Do you have any sympathy for those people?
Ms. Fraser: Of course, I have sympathy for people whose livelihoods can be taken away from them. I’m worried about our waters that surround us. I could put the same question to them, in that we depend on it for more than money.
The issue is not about the money. It should never be about the money. The issue is about our land, how to protect it and what we take from it. If there’s no money left, and if you take it away from us because there’s an oil spill in the water, what are we going to turn to?
Senator Simons: I want to follow up on some of Senator Patterson’s questions.
The accidents that Mr. Wilson and Mr. Clifton described took a terrible toll on your marine ecosystem. One of the things that has really shocked me as we’ve gone through these hearings is to learn how little cleanup capacity there is here, even though you have a lot of marine traffic.
Bill C-48 would bring in these modern, double-hulled tankers, which are probably safer, in a way, than the kinds of ships and boats that are already in these waters. We met with Minister Garneau and asked him, if we pass C-48, will the government be investing more money in marine cleanup capacity here. He basically said no, that if C-48 passes, they won’t need that capacity.
So my concern has become that the government may pass C-48, pat itself on the back, say, “There, we’ve protected your coast,” when really your coast is still at risk.
Maybe I can start with Mr. Wilson and Mr. Clifton. What kind of capacity do you need here, now, with the status quo, to keep this coast safe? It seems to me that the Coast Guard and the rescue teams based out of Vancouver are not adequate for the incidents you’re already facing.
Mr. Wilson: Thank you, senator. Quickly, Metlakatla First Nation, along with the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative, participated in the OPP process. We’re fully engaged, and we’re addressing those issues half-heartedly, because it’s flawed to the benefit —
Senator Simons: I just want to clarify: OPP is Ocean Protection Plan?
Mr. Wilson: Correct. It’s flawed to the point where it supports the federal government’s interests to move this thing forward as quickly as possible.
Could you rephrase a certain part of the first question?
Senator Simons: My concern is C-48 would ban modern double-hulled tankers, which are probably safer in a lot of ways than some of the smaller boats that are already in these waters. So I wanted to know: one, are you concerned about that, and, two, what we actually need right now for cleanup capacity in these coastal waters?
Mr. Wilson: So from the stewardship perspective, if Minister Garneau is correct, the pressure does not stop. Earlier, I made reference to the location of the Prince Rupert Harbour. It is the quickest route to Chicago by rail. It is a day and a half quicker to the orient. That makes it a very heavily trafficked area on the Pacific coast. Whether you’re in Vancouver or whether you’re in L.A., the ideal location is Prince Rupert Harbour.
DP World has told us they’re going to double their cargo container shipping in the next few years. I want to give you an analogy, here. I was reading an article. It talked about the difference in shipping between what’s happening in the East Coast compared to the West Coast .
I’ll use this room for an example. Over in that corner, you’ve got coal. Over in that corner, you’ve got oil, sulphur. And over there, maybe you’ve got grain. That reflects the size of the area where shipping happens on the East Coast.
In reality, Prince Rupert Harbour is the site where all of those interests and export opportunities come and go. When we talk about a bottleneck, it’s right in the Prince Rupert Harbour area. You can’t compare the East Coast with the West Coast, specifically with Prince Rupert Harbour.
The pressure is going to be something you can’t statistically qualify. With the two incidents I talked about, the coal ship and the burning barge, we don’t know whether anything was released into the water.
The Chair: We’ve got to move it along.
Senator Smith.
Senator Smith: To testimony regarding Bill C-48, Bill C-69, and the oil and gas business, there is a large group of people who think in a different way than what we’ve seen this morning, people who represent a large number of the bands throughout Western Canada. They are saying to us, “Get our people out of poverty.”
Then we hear today, “We can make enough to survive.” We’ve been hearing today about new sustainable economies. I think all of us recognize the importance and the realities of climate change. I’m just trying to understand, how do you create the balance so that both sides can win? Or is it an unrealistic expectation?
Mr. Wilson: Who are you asking?
Senator Smith: Ms. Fraser, Mr. Wilson, whoever wants to answer the question.
Mr. Wilson: How do we create the balance? I made some references to the work that would be needed, specifically to stewardship.
We hope that reconciliation will be viewed specifically through stewardship interests. We would work with the federal and provincial governments to look at the interests they have, whether they’re in the shipping industry, in the forestry industry, in the mining industry. I can go on and on talking about that, but we don’t have a level playing field at the bureaucratic level to do that work.
This could be a long, drawn-out discussion, but if we want to look at how it’s going to benefit everybody, you have to look at the pressures that have come through the evolution of Canada.
Let’s look at Alberta’s interests. This isn’t the analogy of “build it and it will come.” This is not a field of dreams. If there was an early discussion in Alberta and B.C. to talk about this whole industry, there might have been a solution, but there wasn’t. Now, we’re seen to be the bad guys to say no to transport of oil, because we’re the end of the line here.
The Chair: So do you want compensation?
Mr. Wilson: No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about reconciling this issue of stewardship specifically. I can’t talk about the title and rights stuff.
The Chair: Senator Cormier.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: The representatives of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council who appeared before our committee said that the incident response capabilities on the West Coast are insufficient, and that the federal and British Columbia governments aren’t supporting the establishment of an Indigenous marine response centre.
I was very surprised to hear this, given your knowledge of the land and your understanding of the environmental issues. Ms. Fraser referred to thinking outside the box. In your view, why haven’t the governments rallied around the proposal? Do you think that an Indigenous marine response centre would be useful and would help improve the speed and efficiency of the incident response teams?
My question is for anyone who wants to answer it.
[English]
Mr. Wilson: Yes.
Senator Cormier: That was an easy one. Thank you very much, sir.
The Chair: Senator Gagné.
Senator Cormier: Perhaps Mr. Clifton wants to answer.
Mr. Clifton: An Indigenous response is that we live here right on the ground and on the waters, so we’d be the first people there. That’s the answer. All our people on the coast here live close to the water. You can’t wait for somebody, like, in Vancouver to come up. There’s got to be some work done in that area where we train our own people. We could respond a lot quicker than anybody else.
The Chair: Senator Gagné.
Senator Gagné: This, again, is a follow-up to Senator Patterson’s and Senator Simons’ question about having a robust response system here in this region. A witness, Mr. Wim Veldman, testified in Ottawa, and he did talk about the oversight and the response being from the community. He actually said that it would probably be safer for the region if they would allow those oil tankers to come, because at least you’d have that robust response system or capacity in the region to respond to all the spills. I’m just quoting one of the witnesses.
I would like to have comments on that, starting with Ms. Fraser.
Ms. Fraser: With regard to response cleanup here in our territories, I did an experiment with the students in my class. We poured cooking oil into the water, and I asked them to clean it up. They were standing right there and watched me do it. We could not clean it up fast enough. We could never get all of the oil out.
Despite where you may place those response units, the question is how quickly are you going to get to the spill and how will you clean it up in an efficient manner? If I gave you a plate of food with one drop of oil on it, would you eat it?
To me, it doesn’t seem to make sense, even if you have the response equipment necessary. We are still humans, we are still people. Even if we make errors with the tankers and can respond in time, we still can’t compete with the spill.
The Chair: Senator Dasko.
Senator Dasko: First of all, I appreciate the importance of fishery, so don’t assume that I don’t think it is important. Councillor Fraser, your comment about Spirit Bear Lodge kind of perked my interest.
Is tourism part of your vision of the future? Does the passing this bill have any relationship to development of tourism?
Ms. Fraser: Absolutely. Ecotourism has been growing in our community, and it’s added to our community in so many ways. We’ve had people coming to our community from Germany and Italy and all over the world. They come to see our bears and our whales. They come to see all the wildlife and how all of those things depend on each other for survival.
If we have an oil spill that affects one part of that, it affects the whole thing. It will always come back and affect us. You’re speaking about the economy, but it affects us personally. The economy is just a small part of it, but yes, it would.
Senator Dasko: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Ms. Fraser, you mentioned in your presentation that resources had been developed “with no compensation for our people.” Would compensation for your people persuade you to think differently about the tanker ban?
Ms. Fraser: No.
The Chair: Why did you mention it then?
Ms. Fraser: I mentioned it because it also goes back to consultation. There’s always been take, and take, and take, and take. I’m not here asking that you give us something in order for tankers to be able to go through our territories.
The Chair: Did you want to add to that, Mr. Clifton?
Mr. Clifton: No. I want to respond to the question on response.
The Chair: You have about a minute.
Mr. Clifton: When they pumped the oil out of the Zalinski, we met with the Coast Guard and we had an agreement that they were going to hire people from our village to work on it. What did they do? After we had this agreement, they turned around and hired their friends, and we were left out in the cold. So I asked them a question, “If there’s ever an accident, what are you going to do? Are you going to go chasing up and down the coast looking for the guys that you hired?”
The other thing, too, during that time when we were talking to them, they went and came up with what they called “world-class response team.” They never did nothing. They just added that to make themselves look better.
The Chair: Mr. Wilson, did you wish to add something?
Mr. Wilson: I’ll respond to Senator Gagne’s question.
The Chair: Sure.
Mr. Wilson: You have to look at the bigger picture and look at whether it’s a certain size tanker or just a cargo ship. The incidents we’ve heard about, not only the coal ship but the Queen of the North and the Nathan E. Stewart, had nothing to do with size of ship. It had everything to do with training, certification, and the regulations for those running the ships within these waters.
When we talk about stewardship interests, these are the kinds of questions we want to engage in. We want to make sure that if there is something that is going to come our way, we can participate to ensure that not only the people who are going to work on the ships are certified, but also that they’re going to use local people to do this work.
The Chair: So you’re saying that if the tanker ban does not pass and tankers do end up here, what’s important is that local people are involved in the solution to the problem?
Mr. Wilson: Don’t misrepresent what I’m saying, please.
The Chair: I’m trying not to. I’m just trying to —
Mr. Wilson: I’m specifically talking about stewardship, as I’ve always said.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr. Wilson: If we were to be at the table to discuss the many moving parts that relate to the shipping industry, certification and regulations would be one of them.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Mr. Clifton?
Mr. Clifton: I have a question. I’m not sure which one of the ladies here mentioned it —
The Chair: You have a question of one of us? This is a new thing, here. Go ahead; we’re going to try it out, Mr. Clifton.
Mr. Clifton: She said if Bill C-48 doesn’t come, if it’s —
Senator Gagné: Oil tankers are allowed?
Mr. Clifton: Yes. You’re saying that if it doesn’t pass, double-hulled tankers are going to be allowed. Those were your words exactly.
Senator Gagné: Actually, I was just quoting a witness who said that the western B.C. coast would probably be better off, if ever they did allow oil tankers to come in, because there would be more capacity to respond to any spills or to anything.
That was not my view. I just mentioned that that was the view of one of the witnesses.
The Chair: We’ve heard that in testimony.
With that, we have to end this. We have another group that needs 45 minutes here as well, and then another group after that, so thank you very much.
Ms. Fraser? I’m trying to do the best I can.
Ms. Fraser: I know.
The Chair: You’re pushing the limits here.
Ms. Fraser: I know. I understand.
I just want to say, coming back to that question of compensation, that compensation does not just mean money. Compensation means being heard.
I also have a note passed to me here, that, if you ask First Nations on our coast to be first responders, even if they are well equipped, it would be highly disrespectful to expose them to the carcinogenic hydrocarbons from the crude.
The Chair: Thank you.
For our third panel this morning, we are pleased to welcome, from the Old Massett Village Council, Donald Edgars, Chief Councillor; from the Wuikinuxv Nation, Dan Smith, Tribal Manager; from the Nuxalk Nation, Blair Mack, Councillor, and from the Village of Port Clements, Teri Kish, Councillor and Deputy Mayor.
Thank you very much for attending our meeting. We will now hear from our witnesses, starting with Mr. Edgars.
Please try and keep it to five minutes, and then we will have more time for discussion. There were a few things left unsaid in the last session, which is never good. It’s always good to be able to finish the answers.
Mr. Edgars.
Donald Edgars, Chief Councillor, Old Massett Village Council: Good morning. Thank you for being here. My name is [Indigenous language spoken], which means Never Gives Up. My English name is Donald Edgars.
I kind of wanted to take a different approach with this hearing. At one point, the Haida Nation had over 100,000 people, and we were sent home from Victoria, and we had smallpox in our blankets. We lost 95 per cent of our people. Some of our people didn’t even make it home. A lot of them were walking in the water and just dying.
A lot of our people congregated in Skittigit, and the other ones congregated in Old Masset. Then all of our totem poles, all of our ancestors’ remains, were taken. They were shipped all around the world to be studied, because they thought we were going to be a dying species. Then our people were sent to residential school, and we feel the trauma from that.
I’m trying to speak from my heart, today.
If we have an oil spill on the coast, it would truly kill our people, because we all live off the land. I’m a commercial clam digger. I harvest seaweed for my family, for other families. I ran for this position knowing money wasn’t big for me. I make less than half of what I make when I work, and I do have a full-time position. So it’s not about money; it’s about changing our lives for our people, for the better.
In our community, for the first time in our history, some of our chiefs were removed from their positions for signing on with oil companies. These are their clan members who have taken them from those positions.
And for us, as Old Massetts, it’s not about money. It’s about our food source for the winter. If an oil spill ever happens, I don’t know what our people would do. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Edgars.
Mr. Smith.
Dan Smith, Tribal Manager, Wuikinuxv Nation: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to say thank you to the hereditary chiefs, to the matriarchs, to the elders, to the young people. What we are talking about is truth. Truth has been spoken here today, and I am hoping that the Senate committee will continue to listen to the truth and do the common-sense thing: Move forward on Bill C-48.
I am Dan Smith. I am from Oweekeno. Oweekeno is a small village on the Rivers Inlet, British Columbia. At one time we used to have a return of a million sockeye salmon; it went down to 250,000 last year.
I just want to talk a bit about the systemic and attitudinal barriers of the system itself. It goes back to the doctrine of discovery. That system has prevailed, and we continue, First Nations and Indigenous Peoples, continue to be confronted with a systemic and attitudinal barrier with respect to justice.
The truth? Coastal communities are very small compared to interior communities. Coastal community reserve lands were designated as a result of the richness of our marine, sea, and timber resources. Just in Wuikinuxv itself, the logging and the fishing has been decimated to a point of no return.
The first cannery was in 1842. Sixteen canneries were developed up to 1960. Then the sockeye returned; all five species were at a danger level.
So due to the systemic and attitudinal barriers, the Indigenous ecological knowledge of Indigenous Peoples has always been challenged by science and experts, but we have watched the decimation of our natural resources as a result of overharvesting, giving away our lands and our resources to various companies that would extract and create employment opportunities for the non-Indigenous community.
So the truth is also demonstrated in the reconciliation. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, $55 million spent on that, those were truth.
We in Wuikinuxv have identified our fisheries and our historical information dating back to 10,000, years, as with all Indigenous communities on the coast.
Mr. Chairman, we really believe that the committee, for whatever reason, is seeking more information in order to proceed with Bill C-48. You pass Bill C-48 not only for the people, but for the grizzly bears and all of the animals and for all the non-Indigenous peoples who look to protecting the natural resources of British Columbia and Canada.
Mr. Chairman, the truth has to prevail. The Canadian justice system has not been fair to Indigenous Peoples of Canada since contact. It’s a result of systemic and attitudinal barriers, and let’s hope that that system is amended in many ways. We need to have social change that adheres to social justice.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Mack.
Blair Mack, Councillor, Nuxalk Nation: Hello. I travelled two days just to get here to support Bill C-48. The nations here have spoken what is true, that we further inland will still be affected.
I’ve grown up living off salmon and seafood. If we see tankers coming through and we have an oil spill, that’s a disaster. Like my fellow friend here, Donald, said, it will kill us. That’s all we know how to live, how most of our people live, off the salmon and seafood. That’s our winter supply. We can’t just go out to any McDonald's or anything to eat.
We live in a small community of 1,800. At one time, we had 40,000. Then contact came, and we were down to about 200. It took us a long time to rebuild, and it seems that we’re always on the line for everything. Like somebody said earlier, we pay for the brunt of everything, what the rest of Canada wants. You know, we’re always left behind. I think it’s our turn to say something, and I hope this passes, because it’s going to affect us big time.
We were known as Salmon People. All the people sitting in here, that’s what we live on. Everybody listens to the big companies, corporations, for the rest of Canada. We’re here for our people. It’s about time that it happens.
Our voices should be heard. It’s going to affect us big time. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mack.
Ms. Kish?
Teri Kish, Councillor and Deputy Mayor, Village of Port Clemens: Good morning, honourable senators. My name is Teri Kish, and I am a newly elected councillor and the Deputy Mayor of the Village of Port Clements, Haida Gwaii, B.C. I work as a volunteer member on the All-island Emergency Planning Committee, and I am a retired industrial firefighter and safety supervisor of the oil and gas industry, with a career spanning over 20 years in Alberta.
I am here in Prince Rupert to affirm the local government position on the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, Bill C- 48. The Council of the Village of Port Clements supports Bill C-48 in banning tankers carrying 12,500 tonnes or more of crude and persistent oil products from north coast waters while allowing critical local resupply of essential petroleum products to continue. We believe allowing large shipments of crude and persistent oil products in north coast waters poses an unacceptable environmental risk to the communities of Haida Gwaii.
Haida Gwaii is a remote island off the west coast of northern B.C. With the ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Skidegate, it is approximately 90 nautical miles, eight hours in good weather, 48 kilometres south of Alaska, and 720 kilometres north of Vancouver. Our full-time population is around 4,200 island-wide and triples during the summer months.
Our economic industry consists of logging and some of the world’s best fishing. Tourism is in the beginning stages of growth and development, which is being dealt with in a sustainable and balanced way. The Haida word for this is “yahgudang,” meaning respect for people and environment.
As a very remote community in the Pacific Ocean, we have very limited ways to deal with a spill from large oil tankers in the waters around us.
I would like to bring to your attention an incident that is being called a near miss that happened in October 2014, involving a Russian bulk carrier named the Shimushir. It was adrift 25 kilometres off the coast of Haida Gwaii, near Moresby Island. It took approximately 20 hours to reach and secure the vessel in gale-force winds.
This incident was brought forward in the House of Commons and the B.C. Legislature because of how long it took to respond and what the consequences could have been if the vessel had hit the shoreline. It would have smashed against the shore for 12 hours before it could have been secured. Try to implement an emergency response plan for one of the most unique, magical places in the world. The cost of this would have been astronomical to the taxpayers.
A Haida elder told me this story and how it had a lasting effect on the community afterwards because of how close it came to be a reality, just as the Exxon Valdez was a deadly reality in March 1989. It was one of the worst human-caused environmental disasters. The proposed pipelines are projected to add more than 500 tankers annually to existing traffic along B.C.’s coast.
I lived in the province of Alberta for most of my life, and my career took me to Saskatchewan, Alberta, and northern B.C. for the oil and gas industry. During my career, I have been involved in situations that went seriously wrong in the industry, that caused injury or death and destruction of the environment, even with approved procedures and policies in place to help with variables that are human, mechanical, and weather-related.
Being able to react in the deployment of equipment and personnel was critical in mitigating the danger and damage to life and land. For Haida Gwaii to respond to a critical incident in the waters around our community involving a vessel in distress is a massive amount of organization and assistance from off-island authorities to respond as quickly and effectively as possible.
Governments are fully aware of the consequence to allowing more oil tanker traffic on the northwest coast of B.C. The damage that will be done to the ocean, the land, and the people will be catastrophic and will utterly wipe out our communities. A Haida culture that is making its way back will be destroyed. The land and the ocean, never to recover.
Haawa, honourable senators.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Kish.
Senator Dasko: Thank you all of you for your comments.
My question is for Councillor Kish. Tell me about your community and how they view this. You mentioned some of the councillors. What are their views? What does the community itself, your fellow citizens of the community, what do they think about this?
And tell me about the profile of this bill in the community. Have people been engaged in the topic? To what extent have they been engaged in the topic ?
Ms. Kish: Quite extensively, actually. First of all, I’m representing my community, my Village of Port Clements, but I also had conversations with the other municipalities on the island, the other local governments, who are in full support of this bill, as well.
We are doing marine stewardship, as well. We just finished — I can’t pronounce the names for it properly, but it has to do with ocean forum, as well. That was a 30-year undertaking for around the oceans, for protection; Gwaii Haanas, as well.
So it’s a huge undertaking. It’s a conversation that is always, always brought up. You see signs all over Haida Gwaii, “No Tankers.”
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
Senator Smith: Open question: What are the expectations of your young people moving forward in terms of careers, education, and how does that affect the development of where you live?
Mr. Smith: Thank you for your question, Senator Smith.
Before I go on, I just want to say, I’m sure that the senators came from Rigby Island on the barge. You saw that little tugboat. That’s called a pusher tug. The disaster in Bella Bella involved one of those.
The young people: We’re looking at capacity building within all of the First Nations communities as a result of reconciliation, and as a result of all of our ancestors pushing for truth and reconciliation with regard to justice for the people.
Since the UN declaration of Indigenous rights, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the governments have made policy changes, not by law but my acknowledging the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Truth and Reconciliation. So that has been a push forward for reconciliation in terms of education for the young people.
Yes, we are encouraging all young people to get involved in all of the careers that are in regard to good governance and good law within the community itself. From our community, we’re looking at engineers, marine biologists, land use planners, housing, lawyers, all of the aspects that were denied from the residential school initiation.
So this is what we witnessed, and that’s part of the truth. I say thanks to Canada and British Columbia, and to the senators, really, for recognizing that and pushing this forward.
Senator Gagné: I’ve heard all of you speak in support of Bill C-48. Bill C-48 bans the loading and unloading of crude and persistent oils from ports in northern B.C., but it does not ban projects and pipelines like the LNG, the liquid natural gas pipeline and the terminal in Kitimat, for example.
Do you or any groups that your represent have concerns with the movement of large quantities of natural gas in the northern B.C. area?
Ms. Kish: I can speak for Haida Gwaii, and we don’t have gas pipelines. We have nothing under our feet like that. We’re in the middle of the ocean. We don’t have pipelines. We don’t have LNG coming to us.
Senator Gagné: Any other comments?
Mr. Edgars: Haida Gwaii has never been fully supportive of LNG projects, and I don’t think they ever will be.
The Chair: Anybody else want to make a comment?
Mr. Smith: If you can tell us the difference between hauling natural gas and a tanker running aground with all its crude oil for fuel, then maybe we can move forward on that. I mean, maybe you can have triple hulls, double hulls, but the same thing could still happen. Even though natural gas would evaporate, it’s the fuel that the tanker is carrying that endangers the marine resources.
Senator Patterson: Mr. Edgars and Ms. Kish, you talked about the devastating effects of an oil spill. I think, Mr. Edgars, you said it would “kill our people,” and you referred to the Exxon Valdez.
I’ve been to Valdez, and there have been a great deal of improvements in technology since 1989. There are double-hulled tankers; there are escort vessels, bow and stern, in the ports. My goodness, they even test every captain for drug and alcohol before every voyage. All this is paid for by the industry.
I’m just wondering if you would agree that technology today provides a greater measure of safety for the huge volume of oil tanker traffic throughout the world?
Mr. Edgars: Yes, I was just going to say that. I think it’s human error. We’ve seen it throughout our lifetime. We cannot predict anything.
Senator Patterson: If I may, I’d like to ask Ms. Kish another question; you can answer about the technology, as well.
You said that, in your very remote community, “We have very limited ways to deal with a spill from large oil tankers in the water around us.” Would you agree that the Ocean Protection Plan, and I think the current government has invested about $1.5 billion in it, should include building capacity on the north coast to deal with incidents like what you are concerned about?
Ms. Kish: I don’t understand. Do you want me to agree about tankers coming through?
Senator Patterson: No. I’m asking if you agree that the Ocean Protection Plan should provide oil spill response capability on the north coast.
Ms. Kish: No.
Senator Patterson: We’ve heard it has to come a long way from the south coast. Should the plan not include measures for the north coast?
Ms. Kish: Right now, there are two vessels that have been put on the water. As of 2018, I believe August, $67 million was set for that. They come from New Brunswick. They’re tugs. One is in the north and one is in the south.
Even with them in the waters, it takes a long time to get to an oil spill. The damage is already done once the oil is out; no way to clean it up. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, the response, whether it takes two hours or 20 hours, is still the same.
The Chair: Mr. Edgars, did you have a comment?
Mr. Edgars: I just wanted to ask you, how many billions of dollars it would take to clean up an oil spill, compared to training for a billion dollars?
Ms. Kish: Exactly.
Senator Cormier: My question is following on the question of Senator Patterson. Usually, in Canada the municipalities are responsible for ensuring that they are prepared to respond to a range of environmental disasters.
I want to better understand the type of capacity building you need, or resources, no matter whether you are for or against this bill. In your villages, do you have resources to prepare for any kind of spills or disasters like the ones mentioned? Are you equipped? Should you be equipped? I would like to hear from you on that aspect.
Ms. Kish: Our role to play in cleaning up spills, or just in responding to an emergency on our island?
Senator Cormier: Yes, and to be equipped in terms of tools, in terms of the resources that you have.
Ms. Kish: There are two different types. If we have an emergency on land, we have resources on the island to help us with that.
If we have an emergency or a tanker spill in the waters around Haida Gwaii, it is difficult to reach our shorelines because of the topography. Have you senators been out to Haida Gwaii? Have you seen the coastline? Then you’ll understand what I’m saying.
Plus there is the weather. It changes so quickly, the currents, the water, to be able to get to something quickly and be able to clean it up would be a challenge. We’re working on a plan to have the resources on our island. We have a plan, we’re dealing with it, but to get to a spill of an oil tanker, we would need so much help from other authorities because of where we are, because of the limits we have.
Senator Cormier: When you say you have a plan, what does it entail?
Ms. Kish: We have an emergency response plan on the island. The Haida Nation has a marine steward program, as well. There are ways that we’re trying to take care of it, but like I said, an oil spill, for us, would be a catastrophe. We have no way to clean it up quickly or to reach it quickly to stop it from happening.
Senator Cormier: Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith: Just a comment with respect to having the resources. First, you need the fiscal resources; then you need the machinery to do that; and the weather to cooperate, of course.
In May 2017, a committee headed by Senator Andreychuk did a study with respect to the funding to First Nations and found that all First Nations in Canada are under-funded. So when you ask about this initiative in terms of response, it would be very difficult.
I just want to give you a real quick example. A person in our community, 90 miles from Port Hardy, the closest community hospital, had a heart attack. We couldn’t get a helicopter in. We couldn’t get a seaplane in. We went to the Comox base and got the helicopter there. They couldn’t fly because of the weather, and it was a day and a half before they could get into the community.
Senator Cormier: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Smith: Thank you for the question.
The Chair: That would be true of most remote communities in the country, no matter who lives there. Right? I know we have many communities like that in Saskatchewan.
Senator Simons.
Senator Simons: I’m from Alberta, from the other side of the mountains, and I know Ms. Kish understands the anxiety that many people in Alberta feel about the lack of pipeline capacity to the West Coast.
I also understand what you’re saying about the unique fragility and vulnerability of Haida Gwaii.
So what we’ve been struggling with, some of us on the committee, is to see if there is a way that we could protect most, if not all, of the coastline, and still reserve one corridor or sea lane for tanker traffic in and out, say from a new port, an imaginary new port, north of Prince Rupert.
Do you see any way that there could be a compromise that could protect the most vulnerable and the most remote parts of the coast, while still creating a little exit so that oil could get out to markets?
Ms. Kish: Are you asking for balance? Yes, I understand Alberta’s plight and all the people there. One of the reasons I lost my job in the oil patch, gone, is because of what happened. I began also to understand what was happening with the environment — fracking, and spills and things I was taking care of —realizing that, even though there are procedures and policies in place, there is always going to be an accident.
Haida Gawaii is limited in how we can respond to this accident.
Senator Simons: Haida Gwaii is its own place. Is there any chance that there is someplace else further north that would leave Haida Gwaii protected, where there could still be a reserved sea lane, just an in/out corridor that wouldn’t imperil the whole coast north to south, that would take people straight out to open waters?
Ms. Kish: In response, I have a question for you. You’re asking me what the balance is. I’m asking you, as the government, what the balance is. How are you going to protect that? You tell me. What are you going to do when the oil tanker does spring a leak? Not if, when. Because it’s going to happen. Five hundred tankers extra? Something is going to happen.
So what happens when that oil spills? And I don’t care if they’re 400 miles away from Haida Gwaii. It’s going to affect the entire north coast.
Just having double-hulls, it doesn’t matter. It takes once, and it’s already happened once. We learned from that in Alaska. Alaska is only 48 kilometres from us.
It would be catastrophic. I don’t see a balance there right now.
Senator Simons: Fair enough.
The Chair: So what do you say to the people of Vancouver?
Ms. Kish: What do you mean, what do I say?
The Chair: Well, they’ve got a pipeline. They’ve got tankers.
Ms. Kish: Yes.
The Chair: They’re going to have another pipeline, hopefully, and there will be more tankers. So what do you say to them? Should they ban that, as well?
Ms. Kish: There’s been a moratorium in effect since the 1970s, which has been working. Plus there are the exclusion zones that are around all of us right now, to help us with this.
What I’m saying is it just takes one tanker. It doesn’t matter. There’s not enough money in the world to fix what would happen.
The Chair: But tankers, I mean, how do you get your energy?
Ms. Kish: My energy is delivered to me. It’s done in a way that we are also worried about.
The Chair: Of course.
Ms. Kish: So you drive a car; I drive a car. How did you get here? Saying it that way makes me angry, actually, because you don’t live here.
The Chair: I’m just asking the question.
Ms. Kish: You don’t live here.
The Chair: I understand that. I live in the Prairies.
Ms. Kish: That’s right.
The Chair: So I’m asking the question.
Ms. Kish: Easier to clean up an oil spill in the Prairies, sir, than it is to clean it up in an ocean.
The Chair: Mr. Edgars?
Mr. Edgars: Just on that note, Skittigit and Old Massett have formed a partnership. We’re working on getting 100 per cent off diesel in the next three years, so we’re looking at upgrading the Run-of-the-River project in the south; in the north, we’re doing a 2-megawatt solar power project, and then we’re also looking at the wind study data right now.
Within the next three years, I’m hoping that all of Haida Gwaii will be diesel-free.
The Chair: Mr. Smith, you have something to say?
Mr. Smith: Thank you very much.
I am the Tribal Manager for Wuikinuxv, and our Chief, Frank Johnson, asked me to be here along with the councillors, as well as the people.
With respect to that question, you have to understand that all of our salmon from Wuikinuxv and Rivers Inlet, central coast, go from there all the way up into the Alaska waters. Anything that happens here, right from the transboundary or even in Alaska, will affect, impact on our salmon resources returning.
We just released 100,000 Chinook smolts, and we are hoping for a return on that. From transboundary Alaska all the way down to the central coast, and all the way down to the Fraser River, British Columbia, will be impacted if there is ever a big oil spill up in the northern area.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I’d like to ask our two witnesses from Haida Gwaii a question. I’ve heard contradictory versions on the respect of the voluntary exclusion zone. I’d like to know, from what you’ve seen, experienced or have been told, are the tankers coming down from Alaska to the United States, to the south, passing really close to Haida Gwaii or are they respecting the voluntary exclusion zone?
I’ve heard both. What have you heard, and have you seen anything worrisome on that coast?
Mr. Edgars: I have no idea how far out they are, and I’ve not heard from our people that they’ve seen them.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Same thing?
Ms. Kish: Yes, the same thing. I’m not sure how far out the exclusion zone is, but I know there’s a giant fine if you go into it.
On a side note, we had an issue when I was in a marine workshop course on Haida Gwaii. On April 2, a vessel was in distress in the Hecate Strait. I don’t have all the details on it. I was sitting in a meeting with actual Transport Canada people, and the Haida Nations were not alerted about this vessel that had been floating around for six hours in distress during heavy weather. They found out afterwards, the next day.
So there are holes in the system everywhere. They need to be worked on.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Just a second, a bit of a technical question. I’d like to ask you about your title land in the Dixon Entrance. We have heard about the territorial land of Haida Gwaii and other Aboriginal Nations. Where does your title land stop, if we go north, in the water?
It’s too technical?
Mr. Edgars: I don’t know if I can answer that, because, on the other side of Alaska, we have our Haidas, too. So all the way to Alaska.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: All the way to Alaska?
Mr. Edgars: Yes, we have family there, a Haida group.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
Mr. Smith: Just a comment on the question with regard to respecting the zones. I just want to remind people that all of the debris from the West has travelled east. I’m thinking about Japan. I know that Tofino and Ucluelet were cleaning up all of the plastics, et cetera on the beaches there, finding debris from Japan.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So it moves. Thank you.
The Chair: I am going to ask this question of all of you, because the question of emergency response has been raised by almost every witness this morning.
Is your concern about C-48 based on the lack of an emergency system or a response system that’s adequate for the coast now? Or is it that you don’t want to see oil as a resource being used, in other words, closing the Fort McMurray? Or is it because you just fear that the odds are that there will be an accident, and therefore that the risk is too high? Is it all three? Is it one or the other?
Mr. Edgars: For me, it’s the last one. It would just devastate everybody along the coast.
The Chair: The risk is just too high?
Mr. Edgars: Yes.
The Chair: Ms. Kish?
Ms. Kish: I’m the same. The risk is too high. All it takes is one incident.
The Chair: Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith: Very much so. We’ve seen the extraction of all our natural marine resources to a point of extinction, and if we’re going to be looking at species at risk, then we need to be able to protect that. Who speaks for all of the species with respect to protecting them for our future generations?
The Chair: What about all the people on the East Coast of Canada?
Mr. Smith: They face the same challenge. You’re talking about the cod?
The Chair: I’m just saying that they have tankers rolling in there every day.
Mr. Smith: That’s their choice, really.
The Chair: This has been a really interesting morning. Thank you very much, witnesses, for your presentations.
(The committee adjourned.)