EDMONTON – The Alberta government’s attempt to balance competing interests within the oilsands region has failed to protect aboriginal rights, lands and health from industrial development, says an unreleased report.
Instead, the document concludes the low Athabasca Regional Plan, which came into force this year, has been utilized by both industry and government to erode traditional land use in favour of monetary interests.
“What Alberta said hello would do and just what it actually did are very various things,” says the review panel report, obtained by The Canadian Press.
A government-appointed panel was struck in 2014 within provision in provincial law red carpet area First Nations complained the land use plan violated their treaty rights.
The inquiry report continues to be complete since July, but has not been released. Its findings are damning.
The panel will follow the Athabasca Chipewyan the plan doesn’t protect aboriginal culture. It concurred using the Mikisew Cree that business was handed priority over their constitutional rights.
The report says the Cold Lake First Nation is right the plan creates new conservation areas without reference to traditional use. It finds justified Fort McKay’s concerns the plan has few protection measures and no thresholds for action.
It upheld the Onion Lake Cree’s contention the plan has no measures to handle traditional land use.
And it agrees with Chipewyan Prairie Dene the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan continues to be turned against the groups it was meant to protect, eroding existing traditional use rights and blocking the creation of new areas for such use.
The panel discarded government arguments – made by the prior Progressive Conservative administration – that such issues were beyond the review’s jurisdiction.
“The review panel discovered that the Alberta argument … reduced the review panel’s role to some extent approaching absurdity,” it said.
The panel made several recommendations.
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It’s “critical” that the health study contaminants within the Athabasca River be conducted as quickly as possible, it said. Set up a baseline human-health study should also be conducted.
As well, Alberta should stop examining development on the project-by-project basis.
“The regulatory regime must look at the overall proliferation of resource development projects and the impact of these major developments around the people residing in that area,” the panel said.
The report should raise questions about the oilsands projects that have been approved since the plan came into force, said Eriel Deranger, spokeswoman for that Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
“The government knew very well that the First Nations were in the process of challenging (the plan) but it was still used like a piece of policy to justify projects. It applies to question any projects since may be given more leeway because they fall into a region designated as a resource priority zone.”
Martin Olszynski, a University of Calgary professor of resource law, said the report “validates almost entirely First Nations concerns.”
He said it also demonstrates critics were right the government’s plan was poorly implemented and almost entirely opaque.
“When there are exceedances in air or whatever, it’s not clear at all what’s happening in government. We still don’t have that transparency around how the ambient environment has been managed.”
Environment Minister Shannon Phillips acknowledged the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan needs work, but said her government won’t start over.
“There are a lot of babies during this bathwater which is not within the public interest to totally scrap the process. What’s in the public interest rates are to listen to loud and clear what’s said about the relationship with indigenous people and work together collaboratively in order to improve on those very clear shortcomings.”
Phillips said there are still ways First Nations can be involved in already approved projects to mitigate their concerns. She added the government will think about the health insurance and environmental studies required in the report once it is tabled in cabinet.
“They are difficult files,” she said.
“There’s a lot of things we’ve inherited as a government. Shall we be particularly pleased at this situation? No.”
