Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Lakes across Canada, including the Northwest Territories, face being turned into mine dump sites under federal legislation. CBC reports that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly reclassified as toxic dump sites for mines. This process amounts to a hidden subsidy to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitats.
Under the Fisheries Act it’s illegal to put harmful substances into fish-bearing waters. But under a little known subsection known as Schedule 2 of the Mining Effluent Regulations, federal bureaucrats can redefine lakes as tailings impoundment areas. This means mining companies don’t need to build containment ponds for toxic mine tailings.
Elizabeth Gardner, vice-president for technical affairs for the Mining Association of Canada, said that lakes are often the best way for mine tailings to be contained. But Catherine Coumans, spokeswoman for the environmental group MiningWatch, said the federal government is making it too easy. Using the obscure Schedule 2 regulations, they quietly reclassify lakes and other waters as tailings dumps. By being put under Schedule 2 of this regulation, something that used to be a lake or even a river is no longer a lake or a river. It’s a tailings impoundment area. It’s a waste disposal site. It’s an industrial waste dump. Coumans said the procedure amounts to a subsidy to the industry that enables mines to get around the Fisheries Act. What Canadians need to know is that from March 2008 to March 2009, eight lakes are subject to being put on Schedule 2, which is just about every mine that is going ahead this year. Winter Lake in the Northwest Territories, as many of us know, is being considered. This is not just one lake at a time. This is a trend. It’s open season on Canadian waters. This is a precedent-setting decision by the federal government to start using fish-bearing habitat as a waste management area.
With climate change and rapidly increasing fuel costs, food supplies are becoming scarcer and costlier. We in the North rely on our caribou, our moose, our sea mammals and especially our fish. All are under siege.
I ask this government to engage in the active protection and true valuing of our land and water. Let’s guide our federal government to a position of sustainability.
Thank you. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
