New environmental monitoring system limits Aboriginal participation

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation does not share Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen’s enthusiasm for the new arms-length Alberta Environmental Management Agency.

“Not really much has changed … when you have the minister of Alberta environment over seeing, directing, even approving financing. She basically holds all of the strings for the entire project,” said Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for ACFN Chief Allan Adam.

In mid-October, McQueen announced the creation of the AEMA.
“Alberta is already positioned as a global leader in environmental management. This new arms-length agency will take us to a new level, it will show … that we are developing our resources responsibly and we are taking action…. This is a solid commitment and pledge of … this government,” said McQueen.
It will take six to eight months for AEMA to be up and running. Until that time, a management board, chaired by Dr. Howard Tennant, who served on the environmental monitoring panel and working group that studied the implementation of an environmental monitoring system, will be put in place to both oversee the creation of AEMA and to get environmental monitoring work underway in the Lower Athabasca region, in which the first of seven provincial environmental regional plans was created.

How exactly an arms-length approach to environmental monitoring will work is unclear. Tennant says AEMA will work in a transparent manner, advising the minister and “ultimately that advice is public” along with the data collected. However, there was no indication that the public would receive the information at the same time as the minister. Indeed, the working group’s report on provincial environmental monitoring was presented to McQueen in June and only made public in October along with the announcement.

“What I wanted to do was make sure that we had a chance to look at (the report), to understand it and then move it forward as quickly as we could,” McQueen said.

The recommendations do not include Aboriginal representation on the management board, a point Deranger says Adam raised with McQueen when she phoned him prior to announcing the establishment of AEMA.

That heads-up followed the same format of notification Adam received when the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan was announced by the government: a personal phone call but no advanced copy.

Deranger says Adam is not pleased with the lack of Aboriginal representation although McQueen assures that First Nations engagement and traditional Aboriginal knowledge will be sought.
“The central thrust of Aboriginal people will continue to go back to their treaties and the rights that go from there and that argument is a sound argument from their point of view,” said Tennant, who added that the board will work with Aboriginal people in the same way it will seek input from interested groups and industry.

Co-management of the Lower Athabasca region is the only way to ensure First Nations voices are heard, says Deranger, who notes at this point it is industry that is calling the shots for environmental monitoring in the Lower Athabasca.

Industry has agreed to contribute up to $50 million in a three-year plan to monitor the environment in that region. It is this money that will allow environmental monitoring to move forward in what Tennant refers to as the first phase of environmental monitoring for the province.

“The money that’s come from industry has come from a number of oilsands-related companies who put money into a pool if it meets their criteria for what they would like to see happen,” Tennant said. “We have to … work with them to say does that monies come along with the plan that will be developed by the board.”

McQueen noted that her department has already budgeted $3 million “so we can get started what needs to be done.” However, where other funding will come from for AEMA to perform its duties across the rest of the province has not yet been determined.

Another key element of AEMA is the inclusion of a science advisory board to provide independent, credible scientific oversight.

However, that does little to encourage Deranger’s faith in the new system.  She points out that recommendations by government scientists in the past have been brought into question by independent scientists.

But she says she is hopeful.

“I can’t see this new body making the same mistakes. There’s too much of a public lens on Alberta and the tarsands at this point,” Deranger said.