Claim ratification paves way for oilsands venture

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Members of Fort McKay First Nation have voted in favor of a land claim settlement that will see the community receive 92 sq. km of land and close to $40 million in compensation.

The vote was held on Oct. 23 and 24, with 92 per cent of votes cast in favor of accepting the compensation package.

The First Nation filed its land claim with the federal courts in 1986, and it was accepted for negotiation in 1999.

"We've been involved in negotiations with the provincial and federal governments, as well as third party interests, since 1999," Fort McKay Chief Jim Boucher said.

With ratification of the settlement, the First Nation can now turn its attentions to using its new lands as a means of creating jobs and economic opportunities for its membership.

Located 55 km north of Fort McMurray in the heart of the Athabasca oil sands, it's no surprise that the First Nation has decided to capitalize on the resource at hand. The thick, black bitumen can be extracted and upgraded into synthetic crude oil, and that has made the oil industry the biggest employer in the region.

"We essentially have initialed the agreements which identified certain portions of land to be leased out to a company for the purpose of mining and extraction of the bitumen from the tar sands. That lease allows the companies to explore to determine the quality and quantity of bitumen," Boucher said.

While the First Nation will be concentrating on the mining end of things in the short term, in the longer term, the community may consider expanding to include on-reserve facilities to extract the bitumen from the oil sands.

This proposed oil sands project is a natural next step for the First Nation, many of whose members are already involved in the oil sector, either through employment with the big operators-Suncor, Syncrude and Albian-or in businesses servicing those operations.

"We're developing the capacity in the community, and I think that's something that everyone has embraced with regards to the oil industry," Boucher said. "We have people involved right from management on down to the floor worker. We have truck drivers, we have heavy equipment operators, we have people working on the geo-technical side, environmental services."

The First Nation is also in the process of developing an industrial park where it will lease space to companies servicing the oilsands industry. It operates a bison ranch in partnership with Syncrude Canada, located on land reclaimed from a former mining site.

With the land claim ratification vote behind them, the next step for Fort McKay First Nation will be to look at the environmental and engineering aspects of the proposed oilsands mining project, and to get regulatory approval for the project, as well as approval from the band membership.

"I think we could be up and running possibly on a smaller scale project probably within two or three years. That's if all the elements come together. In terms of the mining scheme on the reserve portion, that might take us another 10 years to plan out and to incorporate," Boucher said.

The project is just the latest move by the First Nation to create economic development and employment opportunities for its members, Boucher explained.

"And we do that because we don't want to see the social upheaval as a result of people not being able to work or not developing the capacity to work," he said. "We need to start addressing economic opportunities for our people on a long-term basis which is sustainable. We can't be mired in poverty forever. We have to break the log-jam sooner or later."