Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to follow up on my statement and ask some questions about the action that’s going to be taken on replacing board members on the Ekati Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency Board.
In my experience, that board has done extremely good work. In my experience, as well, it is past practice to replace board members when they retire. It’s also my experience that the board has been relatively critical in doing their good work and sometimes forces the owner/operator, Ekati, to do some things which they may not want to do but which are better in the long run.
My first question to the Minister is: Who initiated this change in board members? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This particular board has bylaws where folks are appointed, but there is no end date to their terms. That’s one issue. At least one of the members has been on the board since 1997. That’s another issue. In the Northwest Territories in my time in government, my time in government period, the whole goal has been to put Northerners in positions and on the boards where they are making decisions about activities that affect people of the Northwest Territories, the whole thrust of devolution. So when the opportunity came that the board bylaws were going to be redone, that there’s going to be terms set in and that everybody would have end terms, their terms would lapse and the new bylaws would kick in, it seemed to be a very critical time and a natural time to put Northerners into those positions. We do have capable Northerners, skilled Northerners, experienced Northerners who can do that. That’s one of the functions of government, and when that opportunity came due, I as Minister said this was the time to do that. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that information. I can’t argue against putting Northerners on boards. I agree with that, but I do have a large problem with the way this process was done. It suggests that these particular board members weren’t doing good work and I know that that’s not true.
So, in order to provide for continuity on the board, in order to find a good way to do it to ensure a smooth transition from one set of board members to another, because this is happening in the middle of an environmental assessment, I would like to ask the Minister if he consulted the board before this decision was made on what was the best way to do it. Thank you.
I, as well, would like to acknowledge that the work that was done by the current board members is not the question. Their ability is not being questioned. The fact that they have the skill is not being questioned. What we have is an opportunity with the changing of the bylaws and putting in terms, that there’s a natural transition point that we should take advantage of because there’s a fundamental underlying priority that we have Northerners who can do those jobs and can fill those positions and they should be there. Current board members live in other jurisdictions, other provinces south of 60 and the time has come to make the switch. We’ve done it in a time where the board is changing its bylaws, there then will be an opportunity for outgoing board members to sit in a meeting with the incoming board members, along with the other board, to have that final meeting, to have that transitional arrangement. Then this board will be populated with Northerners, which is a fundamental priority of the government.
To say that these people, yes, they are living in the South; however, they lived here for a very long time. I think two out of the three I know for sure were here for 10 or 15 years. To make this change in the middle of an environmental assessment is what really concerns me. I don’t think that the Minister has accepted that.
In replacing these board members, what skillsets did he consider are needed for the board to do its job? What were they looking for in replacing these board members? Thank you.
There are three members out of the board, so there is critical mass there already. If, God forbid, these three hardworking individuals from the South were hit by lightning and were unable to do their jobs, we would soldier on. We would pick up the pieces and we would put people there to do the job. So this is a circumstance where there’s a natural break where we can put Northerners in place and we are looking for people, Northerners, educated, knowledge of the regulatory system, knowledge of the context of the work that’s being done, knowledge of the players, knowledge of the history of the North that live here and that have a clear, vested interest in making the right decisions, working with the rest of the board members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister may consider that it’s a natural break, but I think there are people who don’t consider replacing people in the middle of an environmental assessment is a natural break.
The decision to make the change was a political decision. The decision on how it was going to be done was worked through so that it would come at a time that makes logical sense, which the board was involved in and which the board supports. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
