Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to promote and praise our integrated environmental management system in the Northwest Territories. This system is the result of hard-fought, constitutionally protected land rights agreements negotiated by Aboriginal governments. Some parts of the Northwest Territories now have legally binding land use plans, environmental assessments, land and water management, cumulative impact monitoring, and environmental audit functions in place. These components work together to protect our land and water, ensure we benefit from resource development, and allow people to have a meaningful say in decisions. Our system is the envy of many around the world searching for ways to build sustainability and use traditional knowledge. If there are problems with our so-called regulatory regime, these stem from chronic underfunding, a failure to properly implement the components as originally negotiated and legislated, and attempts to circumvent and undermine it.
The mining industry continues to complain about our environmental management system due to perceived uncertainty. Mr. Speaker, if you want to see uncertainty, go to the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario where there was a development free-for-all with no inspections, no consultations with local communities, and at the end of the day no mines. Our co-management boards have been working together for years, and since 2008, through a number of standard procedures and consistency working groups to develop guidance on application forms, community engagement, water use policies, and more.
This work has not received the recognition it deserves from this government or the mining industry. Attempts to unilaterally change the system have resulted in legal action. The legitimate and legislated way to improve our environmental management system is through the five-year Northwest Territories environmental audit. I look forward to the 2015 audit to be released soon, and to the response from GNWT that is to form part of that report.
This will be the first time our government has actually responded to the audit. I would like to hear our mining industry and this government begin to promote our world-class environmental management system. The continued negative messaging around our system is driving away potential exploration and development. Environmental management is not a barrier to development. It is the foundation of certainty of investment and stewardship of the land. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to my colleagues. One of the unfinished pieces of business with our environmental management system is the absence of participant funding, something available to all Canadians south of 60 in terms of federal environmental assessment. Later today, I will have questions for the Minister of Lands. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
