Alberta failing aboriginal people in the oilsands area: report

The Alberta government's attempt to balance competinginterests in the oilsands region has failed to protect aboriginal
rights, lands and health from industrial development, says anunreleased report.

Instead, the document concludes the Lower Athabasca RegionalPlan, which came into force in 2012, has been used by both industryand government to erode traditional land use in favour of economicinterests.

"What Alberta said it would do and what it actually did are verydifferent things," says the review panel report, obtained by TheCanadian Press.

A government-appointed panel was struck in 2014 under a provisionin provincial law after six area First Nations complained that theland use plan violated their treaty rights.

The inquiry report has been complete since July, but has neverbeen released. Its findings are damning.

The panel agrees with the Athabasca Chipewyan that the plandoesn't protect aboriginal culture. It concurred with the MikisewCree that business was given priority over their constitutionalrights.

Few protection measures in place

The report says the Cold Lake First Nation is right that the plancreates new conservation areas without reference to traditional use.It finds justified Fort McKay's concerns that the plan has fewprotection measures and no thresholds for action.

It upheld the Onion Lake Cree's contention that the plan has nomeasures to manage traditional land use.

And it agrees with Chipewyan Prairie Dene that the LowerAthabasca Regional Plan has been turned against the groups it wasmeant to protect, eroding existing traditional use rights andblocking the creation of new areas for such use.

The panel discarded government arguments made by the previousProgressive Conservative administrationthat such issues werebeyond the review's jurisdiction.

"The review panel found that the Alberta argument ... reducedthe review panel's role to a point approaching absurdity," it said.

The panel made several recommendations.It's "critical" that a health study on contaminants in theAthabasca River be conducted as soon as possible, it said. Abaseline human-health study should also be conducted.

Mustlook at proliferation of projects

As well, Alberta should stop examining development on aproject-by-project basis.

"The regulatory regime must look at the overall proliferation ofresource development projects and the impact of such majordevelopments on the people living in that area," the panel said.

The report should raise questions about the oilsands projectsthat have been approved since the plan came into force, said ErielDeranger, spokeswoman for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

"The government knew very well that the First Nations were inthe process of challenging (the plan) and yet it was still used as apiece of policy to justify projects. It puts into question anyprojects now that may be given more leeway because they fall into aregion designated as a resource priority zone."

Martin Olszynski, a University of Calgary professor of resourcelaw, said the report "validates almost entirely First Nationsconcerns."

Plan poorly implemented

He said it also demonstrates critics were right that thegovernment's plan was poorly implemented and almost entirely opaque.

"When there are exceedances in air or whatever, it's not clearat all what's going on in government. We still don't have thattransparency around how the ambient environment is being managed."

Environment Minister Shannon Phillips acknowledged the LowerAthabasca Regional Plan needs work, but said her government won'tstart over.

"There are a lot of babies in this particular bathwater and itis not in the public interest to completely scrap the process. Whatis in the public interest is to hear loud and clear what is saidabout the relationship with indigenous people and work togethercollaboratively in order to improve on those very clearshortcomings."

Phillips said there are still ways First Nations can be involvedin already approved projects to mitigate their concerns. She addedthe government will consider the health and environmental studiescalled for in the report once it is tabled in cabinet.

"These are difficult files," she said."There's a lot of things we've inherited as a government. Are we
particularly pleased at this state of affairs? No."