Nunavut regulators want more time to complete Arctic oil and gas report

The Nunavut Impact Review Board has asked Ottawa for a two-month extension on its deadline for delivering its report, with recommendations, for oil and gas development in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait.

The NIRB had planned to deliver the report, called a strategic environmental assessment, or SEA, by May 31 but now would like that delivery date pushed back to the end of July.

Just 10 days before the expected delivery date, Kaviq Kaluraq, the NIRB’s acting chairperson, wrote to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs to say that regulators needed “additional time to ensure the SEA Final Report and Recommendation are as accurate and comprehensive as possible.”

The delay won’t cost more, the NIRB said May 21, and it won’t change the general timeline for community meetings planned to take place in the fall of 2019.

In March, the NIRB held a week of hearings for the assessment.

Among the issues repeatedly mentioned during the public hearing: the need for more spill preparedness, the effect on marine life of seismic testing during exploration, the lack of infrastructure and the unknown impact of climate change. All these uncertainties led many to come out in favour of an extended moratorium at the hearing.

They asked for the five-year moratorium, put into place by Ottawa in 2016, to be extended past 2021 for another 10 years because not enough is known about the potential risks and benefits of oil and gas development in the region.

“The moratorium should stay because we need information,” said Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. Vice-President James Eetoolook.

“We are not prepared,” said Miguel Chenier, NTI’s senior advisor on lands administration planning and management. Other, more sustainable uses of the offshore region, such as tourism and fishing, need to be looked at, he said.

And the Nattivak hunters and trappers organization, from Qikiqtarjuaq, said in a letter, read March 20 to the hearing on their behalf, that the strategic environmental assessment process fell short because Inuit Qaujimatuqangit was “overlooked,” the risks of oil and gas development outweigh the benefits and the technology required is “not yet advanced enough for the Arctic.”

For now, there’s still a moratorium on new oil and gas permits for at least three more years. In 2016, the federal government placed a moratorium on new oil and gas activities in all offshore Canadian Arctic waters and agreed to review this decision in 2021.

During the SEA hearing, the NIRB board heard about:

▪ Whether offshore oil and gas activity should go ahead in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait

▪ The location and timing of potential oil and gas activity

▪ Options for maximizing benefits for people in Nunavut

▪ Specific areas where regulators and others need more information

▪ Actions that could prevent or reduce the damage that could be caused by offshore oil and gas activity

The NIRB report on the assessment was to be sent to Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister of intergovernmental affairs, northern affairs and internal trade, who is now on health leave.

During LeBlanc’s leave of absence, Toronto Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett has temporarily assumed responsibilities related to northern affairs and continues to serve as Crown-Indigenous affairs minister.

All information relating to the SEA, including transcripts from the final public hearing in Iqaluit in March and materials provided by parties in response to questions raised there, can be accessed from the NIRB’s online public registry.