Strahl appoints adviser to review northern regulatory system

Frequent complaints from mining and other development companies and their critics about the slow, inefficient regulatory process in the North have prompted Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl to appoint an adviser to find ways to improve the process.

While in Yellowknife on Wednesday, Strahl introduced Neil McCrank as the special ministerial representative responsible for advising him on how to improve the northern regulatory system, which has long been criticized for being too complicated and costly.

McCrank chaired the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board from 1998 until his retirement in March. Before his time on the board, he was deputy justice minister in the Alberta government.

"Just to be clear, neither of us expect an Alberta system in the Northwest Territories," Strahl told reporters on Wednesday. "I mean, that's not the objective."

Strahl said he wants to strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection, while making the regulatory system more predictable.

"What no one wants is, you started down the environmental or the other [regulatory] reviews and it just went on and on and on until you ran out of money and the project collapsed," Strahl said.

"People need an answer. And that's why across the country, and here again in the North, it's important to get those answers for them."

McCrank's appointment was welcomed bysome parties in the complicated system for reviewing development in the North.

Current process is never-ending

"It's not any individual thing that we would object to; it's the length of time that the process takes and it's almost never-ending," said John Kearney, president of Canadian Zinc Corp., which has undergone at least half a dozen environmental assessments of its Prairie Creek mine since 2001.

Jennifer Morin, of the N.W.T. chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said McCrank should start by looking at a comprehensive set of recommendations made a year ago following an audit of the regulatory process.

She said Strahl's department could start by keeping appointments to the half dozen northern boards up to date.

"Those recommendations that would keep board members in place longer and more consistently are really, I guess, important and critical in maintaining efficiency."

But Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington, who is the NDP's deputy critic for natural resources, said he doesn't believe McCrank is right for the job, given his past with the Alberta board.

"We've taken on somebody that's proved that he can't run a utility board that can address the needs of people, say, in Fort McMurray [Alta.] they're facing very rampant development and we're going to put him in charge of deciding how our regulatory process works in the Northwest Territories," Bevington said Thursday.

"His track record doesn't impress me."

Strahl said he wants to see McCrank's report in the next few months, but he didn't give a specific due date.