SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Establish the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (MVLWB) as the only land and water board in the NWT.

Make the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board the final body to make recommendations for projects in its jurisdiction.

Neil McCrank, author of a just-released set of recommendations on how to improve the NWT's regulatory system, proposes eliminating the quasi-judicial authority of regional land and water boards. Instead, he favours making them administrative bodies charged with ensuring land use plans are in place for all NWT aboriginal groups. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

That's the central conclusion of Neil McCrank's report on how to improve the NWT regulatory system.

McCrank's findings, unveiled Thursday, include two options for restructuring the regulatory process, both of which recommend removing the quasi-judicial authority of regional land and water boards like the Gwich'in, Sahtu and Wek'eezhii boards.

The first option calls for removing the regional boards altogether.

The second would relegate the boards to administrative bodies, whose chief role would be to ensure land-use plans are in place to help the MVLWB make decisions on potential developments.

To date, only the Gwich'in Settlement Area in the Mackenzie Valley has an approved land-use plan.

The changes, said McCrank, are about "trying to ensure that there's local input, but at the right point. The right point is at the land-use planning stage, not at the stage where you're actually dealing with the significant application that involves engineering components, economic components. That should be handled by a professional regulatory body."

Paul Sullivan, chair of the Gwich'in Land and Water Board, cautioned against alarmist responses to McCrank's findings.

"It is just a report," Sullivan said. "It isn't a definite that the government is going to take that position."

Of stripping the regional boards of their authority, he said, "I think it's going to be an involved process to make a change like that. You'd have to reopen the land claims agreements and get consent from the claimant groups. It would involve a long negotiation period with the Gwich'in Tribal Council. But whatever the (council) makes a decision on, we'll live with that decision."

Mike Vaydik, general manager of the NWT Chamber of Mines, agreed the process would be long and difficult, but he said it would achieve results.

"If you go with option one, it's going to be a lengthy, drawn-out process to renegotiate some clauses in land claims, but it does bring about a significant simplification of what has become a very complex regulatory system," said Vaydik. "At this point, I couldn't pick between the two (options). But what I can say is that we now have 17 boards engaged in resource development decision making in the North, and we only have 42,000 people" in the NWT.

McCrank's report also included 22 recommendations for improvements to the system.

Vaydik was happy to see a recommendation to clarify the role of the federal government and the MVLWB when it comes to consulting aboriginal groups or boards.

"That's a key element because right across the country there are court cases being fought on consultation and accommodation for aboriginal people," he said.

Regardless of their political consequences, McCrank's options would definitely help speed the process of reviewing applications, according to Richard Edjericon, recently-appointed chair of the environmental impact review board.

"If Neil McCrank's report is suggesting that submissions be handled by the board for decision, that would definitely reduce the time on whether an application goes through or not," said Edjericon.