Meet the agency tracking cumulative industry impacts

Can mineral rights and conservation co-exist?

By Patrycja Romanowska

February 01, 2009

Simon Dyer, oil sands program director for the Pembina Institute, a founding member of CEMA, voices the frustration that led to its withdrawal from the association. “We felt that we couldn’t any longer participate in a process that had lost credibility and from our perspective was being used to deflect attention from the failure of the government to set environmental laws,” says Dyer. “Government hasn’t invested enough resources or leadership in CEMA to make it successful, while at the same time undercutting CEMA by continuing to approve projects.”

Dyer’s complaints are supported by a March 2008 PricewaterhouseCooper’s report that the government commissioned to assess CEMA’s efficiency and effectiveness. The independent review’s findings lay most of the blame for any CEMA inefficiency on the government. Reaching consensus has been difficult due to gaps in regulation. Project funders are frustrated because they are spending money to pursue uncertain results.

PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded there is a “need to bring environmental management in line with the pace of oil sands development in the region. Time has simply run out and, without immediate action, the gap will continue to widen.”

The review’s recommendations led to little action. The government is sticking to its current process and advocating its “regional approach” to land use planning that reduces CEMA to a voice in the wilderness. The aboriginal voice is also conspicuously absent as barring one Métis group, aboriginal groups are not represented on the government’s Lower Athabasca Regional Council.

Most of CEMA’s aboriginal members have left, and two have started lawsuits to seek more drastic measures than the ones the government rejected. Chipewyan Prairie First Nation and Beaver Lake First Nation have filed claims that development infringes on their treaty rights, and the Mikisew Cree are also expected to take their grievances to the courts. Beaver Lake’s lawyer, Jack Woodward, says this is the only way aboriginal groups can get any results. “We’re seeking damages for infringements that have already happened,” Woodward says. If necessary, injunctions will be sought to shut down projects that jeopardize treaty rights, he adds.

The case has considerable implications for provincial policy, he suggests. Land use rules may be decided by the courts and conservation zones may be established with the interests of only one stakeholder group in mind.

“This is a very serious case and it has an absolutely fundamental impact on how business is carried on in Western Canada,” says Woodward. “We’re going to win,” he vows. “So it would be useful for the Government of Canada or the Government of Alberta or the leading industrialists to wake up and have a serious conversation with us.” But CEMA had that constructive conversation, and the results appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

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