Areva seeking an exemption, Baker Lake opposes request
'You will be overturning a decision by a board established by the land claim' - Hunters and Trappers Organization to Valcourt
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
BAKER LAKE
In what looks like yet another attempt to circumvent made-in-Nunavut decisions regarding resource development in the territory, Areva Canada requested July 3 that Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Minister Bernard Valcourt not accept the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) report and decision as written.
In May, after a two-week public hearing held in Baker Lake, the Nunavut Impact Review Board declined approval to Areva's Kiggavik uranium mine because the company had no start date. Areva is now seeking to bypass that decision via Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt. - photo courtesy of Areva Resources Canada Inc. |
The Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO) later expressed its displeasure at this new development. In his own letter to Valcourt dated July 13, HTO chairperson Richard Aksawnee said, "If you reject the NIRB recommendation, you will be overturning a decision by a board established by the land claim agreement, and designed to ensure that Inuit would have a voice in these discussions."
Areva's proposal would see one underground and four open-pit mines approximately 80 km west of Baker Lake in between two caribou calving grounds - Beverly and Qamanirjuaq -and near the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, considered the largest and most remote wildlife refuge on the North American continent.
In May, after a two-week public hearing held in Bake Lake, NIRB declined approval because the "Kiggavik Project as presented has no definite start date or development schedule." Further, the board's chairperson, Elizabeth Copland, stated, "The board found that this adversely affected the weight and confidence which it could give to assessments of future ecosystemic and socio-economic effects."
Even prior to the hearing, the company admitted it could take up to 20 years until the site is developed.
At the time of the NIRB decision, Areva Canada expressed disappointment in an e-mail to Nunavut News/North.
But in its July letter Areva took it further, 2,500 km further south to Valcourt's doorstep, using Nunavut's own need for economic stability as reasoning.
"To deny the project approval in the absence of significant, unresolvable issues is inconsistent with current economic strategies and development policies that speak to responsible resource development that can contribute to self-reliance and improved quality of life," stated the company's president and chief economic officer Vince Martin in the five-page communication.
Martin goes on to say that there are "available and existing remedies to address the concerns associated with lack of firm project start date."
In response to an e-mail sent to Valcourt asking when he would make his decision, Kivalliq News was told "The minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development will respond, on behalf of all the responsible ministers (Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, Transport Canada and Natural Resources Canada), to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and the proponent in due course."
As Aksawnee points out in his letter, Areva brought new information to Valcourt, information no one can respond to since the impact review board process is completed.
"For example," Aksawnee said, "Areva provides examples of other projects that have apparently been reviewed without project start dates."
In fact, the lack of a project start date had many interveners requesting that NIRB reject the Kiggavik proposal. The list includes Chesterfield Inlet and Naujaat HTOs, Kivaliq Wildlife Board and Lustel Ke' Dene First Nation.
Aksawnee states "Areva was aware that the lack of a project start date was a major concern for our community. If Areva took our concerns seriously, it should have researched this concern and presented its information and arguments about it at the NIRB final hearings.
"Instead Areva simply dismissed our concerns and said that NIRB reconsider terms and conditions. This is not the behaviour we expect from a company that says it takes aboriginal people and community partnerships seriously."
Aksawnee concludes there is now no instrument to ensure his community can respond to this new information.
'"I urge you not to grant Areva's request," he said.
Mary River's Baffinland requested a similar circumvention on a made-in-Nunavut decision. The Nunavut Planning Commission denied Baffinland's request to break through ice to ship ore 10 months of the year. That company similarly asked Valcourt to bypass the commission and ask NIRB for a different ruling.
