Indigenous leaders oppose federal bill to fast-track major projects

Indigenous leaders across Canada are uniting against the federal government's latest plan to fast-track industrial projects, saying it infringes on their constitutional rights.

Senator Michèle Audette questioned federal ministers about Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, at a special Senate hearing on Oct. 6, starting her remarks by speaking in Innu-Aimun.

"It was to remind, in that important space, that there was a moment when the government had tried to erase us through legislation and policies," Audette, who comes from the First Nation of Innu Takuaikan Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam in eastern Quebec, told The Narwhal.

READ MORE: Green Party warns Bill C-39 would gut environmental protections and labour rights

READ MORE: Ottawa explores international carbon credit trading for Canadian projects

The 243-page omnibus bill would reshape how major projects like mines, ports or pipelines are scrutinized and approved.

It would centralize many Indigenous consultations under a new hub within the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, limit environmental assessments to a maximum of one year and consolidate all required permits into a single ministerial decision.

It would also let projects inside designated "regions of national interest" bypass normal approval processes, allowing some to start before assessments are complete.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has said the bill is a response to complaints that approval processes are too slow.

"This in no way reduces our responsibility to assess projects against environmental standards or to fulfill our obligations to Indigenous Peoples," Privy Council president Dominic LeBlanc told senators.

But a joint statement from the Chiefs of Ontario, the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation of northern Ontario on Oct. 8 said the government is rushing the bill.

"Prime Minister Carney is weaponizing the parliamentary process and his majority to force the bill through Parliament [and] override the inherent, Treaty and constitutionally protected rights of First Nations," the statement said.

Special committees in the House of Commons and Senate have been set up to examine the bill simultaneously, instead of the standard procedure where committees at each level take up a bill in succession.

The bill gives the government broad discretion to determine what is in the "national interest."

Last year's Building Canada Act, which first established this designation, said the government "may consider" factors like economic benefits, Indigenous interests and tackling climate change, but also allowed it to consider "any factor" it deemed relevant.

The first project the Carney government listed under this designation was the West Coast Oil pipeline, now named Pacific Link.

The Canadian Climate Institute expects the pipeline will usher in 20 million tonnes per year of new greenhouse gas emissions.

Your Space Hamilton reported in October that a seniors group urged the government to reject the pipeline, saying it lacks economic, moral and climate justification.

The new bill extends the same broad parameters to determining "regions of national interest," which the government says could be anything from an industrial area to one earmarked for "energy production" or a telecommunications network.

Audette asked ministers if their examination of these regions would include "not only the Indigenous Peoples who are directly affected by the projects but also those upstream and downstream who will feel the environmental, social and economic impacts."

She told The Narwhal she is concerned the bill may frame Indigenous consultations over these zones as primarily being related to development.

"They'll say, 'Oh, there's no First Nation, there's no reserve on that road,' but go back before it became Canada, we were there," she said. "We are still there. We never surrendered."

The government said it would first carry out a regional assessment to consider cumulative impacts, which would include Indigenous consultations, before designating a zone.

"We don't want to be a third party or a stakeholder," Audette said. "Even if you don't see a reserve, we are involved, and we want to make sure that what you do, we are at the same level, on the same page."

In his response to Audette on Oct. 6, Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, who is also the bill's sponsor, said First Nations would be involved "at the very beginning of the process, from the conception stage onwards."

He said he and LeBlanc have already "experienced a lot of very positive feedback from rights holders" about the government's new approval process.

With files from The Narwhal