Environmental rights under attack in Nunavut

This year, Indian and Northern Affairs is working with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Government of Nunavut to develop and release new land use planning legislation and new regulations for the Nunavut Water Board. 

These initiatives will dramatically impact mining operations in Nunavut. 

The land claim agreement originally contemplated environmental assessments and water permits for all mining projects in Nunavut.  The land claim provided broad participation rights to Inuit and to the public in these processes.

INAC, NTI and the GN want to severely constrain the rights of the public to participate in mining issues. 

This year, a number of inspections found that exploration companies were non-compliant with water board permits.  These incidences included leaky fuel barrels, potentially radioactive drill waste lying around, improper waste storage, and even illegal unlicensed exploration camps. 

Clearly, exploration operations need to continue to be tightly regulated to protect the environment, whether or not there are direct deposits of waste into surface water included in the project description. 

In the future, if the new land use planning legislation is passed, there will likely be no way for the public to even know if these problems are occurring.

The new legislation will give the Nunavut Planning Commission the power to exempt activities from a proper environmental assessment if it believes the environmental effects will not be “significant.” 

The new legislation will exempt a wide range of activities around the territory from environmental assessment.  This will be determined without any public or Inuit participation, behind closed doors.  The new legislation allows the commission to meet outside of Nunavut.

The development of new regulations and land use planning legislation has been going on without any meaningful information being provided to the public about these dramatic changes to the land claim land use regime. 

INAC’s idea of “public consultation” involves meetings with government and Inuit organizations without putting notices on posting boards in public places or in the newspaper and rarely involves holding meetings outside of working hours when actual members of the public might be available to attend.

Incredible changes are happening to the way mining will happen in Nunavut, almost completely in secret, with little or no opportunity for Inuit or other Nunavut residents to engage. 

It is time for public information to really be public in Nunavut before the rights that were fought for under the land claim are left to bureaucrats and NTI elites. 

Time is running out for the public and Inuit in Nunavut to stand up.

Laura Bowman
Edmonton

Editor’s note:Laura Bowman worked in Iqaluit in 2008 and for part of 2009. She now works in Edmonton.

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