Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services
Thursday, November 29, 2007

Deh Cho - The NWT's senator is raising questions about how the public consultation on the proposed expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve was conducted.

Senator Nick Sibbeston, who has frequently criticized the expansion plans, is raising concerns about whether the public was provided with all the relevant information prior to the open houses held in October by the Nahanni Expansion Working Group. During the open houses public opinions were gathered that will be taken into consideration when the working group makes a boundary recommendation.

"I'm saying it's fraudulent. It's deceitful," he said.

The problem, according to Sibbeston, is that the public didn't have access to the Mineral and Energy Resources Assessment (MERA) of the greater Nahanni ecosystem prior to the meetings.

The assessment, conducted by the Geological Survey of Canada, was released on Nov. 19. It's an assessment of the potential mineral and energy resources that lie within the area that could be covered by an expanded park.

"All the facts weren't on the table and people were asked to give their opinions," said Sibbeston.

The assessment is a significant tool for people to use to evaluate the economic potential of the Nahanni watershed, Sibbeston said. For the federal government and Parks Canada to conduct public consultation without the MERA released is a throwback to the historical way the government made agreements with aboriginal people, he said.

"To me this smacks of the old, old days of doing business," he said.

Now that the MERA is out, Sibbeston is calling for the consultation process to be repeated because the original process was flawed.

"Sorry won't do the trick," he said.

Although the actual study hadn't been released, members of the public who attended the open houses were given an overview of the assessment's findings, said David Murray, a senior planner for new northern parks with Parks Canada.

Using maps of the mineral potential based on the findings gathered from the assessment, Danny Wright, the MERA project geologist, made presentations at each of the events, said Murray. The presentations included information on the areas that had potential for different minerals.

The data for the study was finished more than a year ago, said Murray but it took longer to compile the assessment document. Draft maps of mineral potential were available a year ago for the working group to use for making boundary options decisions. The most recent data provided by the Geological Survey of Canada in August was used to make the three boundary options presented to the public, Murray said.

"These maps of mineral potential are very adequate for making informed public policy decisions," Murray said.

The final MERA document is filled with many details of the scientific study that are not interesting to the general public, he said.

"Having the full MERA available I don't expect any significant statements about boundary options related to that," Murray said.

There was no intention to keep information from the public, said Murray.

"We feel like we're running a fairly open and transparent process," he said.

Originally the full assessment was expected to be released in time for the open houses. The MERA process, however, was delayed a year and a half and the whole working group process has also been delayed for more than a year. The group didn't want to delay the process any longer, said Murray about the decision to move forward.

"We moved as fast as we could with the MERA data when we got it," he said.

People still have an opportunity to have their opinions heard, Murray said. The working group set a deadline of Nov. 23 to receive public opinions and is still accepting submissions until the end of the week. Even when that period is over companies and individuals will still be able to write to Parks Canada and make suggestions, he said.

The MERA found that 12 per cent of the entire study area is "moderate to high in mineral potential with restrictive areas of very high potential."

The study looked at close to 20,000-square-kilometres of the greater Nahanni ecosystem that the park could cover, said Wright.

"There's lots of mineral potential in this area," Wright said.

The assessment shows the potential for four different mineral deposit types. The various deposit types could contain a variety of minerals including lead, zinc, silver, tungsten, gemstones and gold. Three areas of high gas potential were also located, Wright said.

Fieldwork was done during the summers of 2004 and 2005 and included a variety of methods including taking one sample per approximately every 12-square-kilometres of the study area, Wright said.