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Map of the Mackenzie Valley Region of the NWT, Canada, depicting five Aboriginal claim areas and three diamond mine developments northeast of Yellowknife
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In some jurisdictions in northern Canada, co-managed environmental assessment (EA) processes, such as that of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB), have been adopted. In these same jurisdictions, Aboriginal communities are increasingly negotiating private agreements with mining project proponents as a means of managing im...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... project to which this respondent refers is one of three diamond mine developments located northeast of Yellowknife, NWT, within the Tlicho and Akaitcho claim areas of the Mackenzie Valley (see Figure 1). The other three Aboriginal claim ar- eas of the Mackenzie Valley are the Gwich'in, Sahtu, and Deh Cho; to date, three of the five claims have been settled with the Canadian Government (the Gwich'in, Sahtu, and Tlicho settlements). ...
Citations
... While we wait for BC to comply with UNDRIP standards that it has set out through its 2019 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), a complex web of supra-regulatory contractual agreements has grown over the past few decades (Scott, 2020). This is largely due to deficiencies of environmental assessment and regulatory processes that fail to properly assess the socio-economic and environmental implications of project impacts on Indigenous rights and the increased necessity to obtain consent (Boron & Markey, 2020;Galbraith et al., 2007). As Scott (2020) argues, instead of legislative reform, the state understands that the current status quo continues to hold space for extraction contracting, delaying the breakdown of the state's jurisdictional authority on Indigenous lands, which might inevitably lead to more radical political and economic changes. ...
Canada currently faces the challenge of implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, while also managing the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This shift will require massive new mineral extraction projects in ways that will continue to impact both the Global North and the South. The provincial government of British Columbia and the Canadian federal government have ostensibly committed to the current era of “reconciliation.” Despite this, conflicts over Indigenous jurisdiction and resource development persist in the fossil fuel (i.e. Trans Mountain, Coastal Gas Link) and renewable energy sectors (i.e. Site C dam). Extractive bargains occur at local, national, and global scales. With respect to ongoing fossil fuel extraction in Canada, Indigenous peoples and territories have often been sacrificed in favour of the “national interest.” Myriad factors—legal, political, economic—have led to greater Indigenous involvement in mainstream resource extraction projects via revenue-sharing and impact benefit agreements. We argue that these extractive bargains have been largely Faustian in nature. At the heart of the problem is an ongoing denial of self-determination and Indigenous nations’ (in)ability to exercise true free, prior, and informed consent with respect to development projects, fossil fuel or renewable.
... Other works that reach the same conclusions as these two authors also argue that the almost total absence of the State from the governance of resources in the Northwest Territories is perceived positively by the Native communities, given that the State is perceived by the Indigenous people as being an obstacle to the direct management of their territory and in Aboriginal political selfdetermination practices (Dickason and Newbigging 2015). By contrast, other authors consider IBAs as supraregulatory agreements and claim that their role furthers or masks the previous colonial policy (Galbraith et al. 2007). Yet, despite this consideration, the relationship between IBAs and the colonisation process is another theme that is only marginally addressed by scholars (Keeling 2012). ...
For many decades, the Northwest Territories were simply regarded by the Canadian government as barren land. Only with the discovery of mineral deposits that could be mined for gold and, after 1990, for the extraction of diamonds, did the government and the multinational mining corporations create
agreements with the Indigenous communities for the use of these lands. This research aims to understand the negotiation process that the Dene and Tłı̨ chǫ Indigenous communities have established with the government and the mining industries. Through a review of the regulations of the Indian reserves in the Northwest Territories, this study analyses specific agreements, called Impact and Benefit Agreements, between the mining corporations and the Native groups.
... While the meaning of 'equally valued' is never spelled out, this is clearly a project aimed at remedying the systemic exclusion of IKs within IA. This move could be fruitfully analyzed through the lens of epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007) or by picking up certain threads of feminist and postcolonial STS (Harding, 1998(Harding, , 2008(Harding, , 2011Seth, 2009). In this article, though, we are especially interested in how this effort to 'equally value' Indigenous and dominant knowledges can be understood as part of a politics of recognition, and in how this politics relates to the exercise of political power. ...
This article unpacks the logic of the equivalence invoked by the Government of Canada between Indigenous consent and the inclusion of Indigenous peoples and knowledges in impact assessment. We situate the logic within the politics of recognition in Canada-a politics that aims to shore up national unity in the face of regular challenges to it. We use the Canadian results from a recent scoping review on conceptions of environmental justice in impact assessment to highlight the challenges of invoking recognition, and we provide a theoretical analysis of these challenges. To do this, we highlight the ways in which 'we-making' is 'knowledge-making' and 'knowledge-making' is 'we-making'. In this sense, recognizing Indigenous knowledges is part of Canada's answer to the challenge of constructing and stabilizing a political 'we': a community of political subjects with shared connection to a nation state via the institutional, social, and cultural apparatuses that generate the kind of publicly visible legal and technical knowledge upon which the state's authority depends. We show how this project relies on actively obscuring the relationship between 'we-making' and 'knowledge-making' by treating 'knowledge-making' as neutral and un-situated, putting into practice a universalist logic. This logic shores up power because obscuring the situatedness of dominant knowledges also obscures the situatedness of the dominant political orders with which they are intertwined. We ultimately argue that Canada's approach to recognizing Indigenous knowledges helps consolidate power by sidestepping ongoing jurisdictional struggles with Indigenous peoples.
... Impact Benefits Agreements (IBAs), for example, are required as part of land-claim mandated environmental assessment processes in the Northwest Territories. These formal agreements reached between corporations and Indigenous communities help to secure particular benefits stemming from extractive industries, compensate for social and economic disruption, provide employment opportunities for Indigenous community members and development opportunities for Indigenousowned businesses, fund the improvement of community infrastructure, and occasionally provide funding for cultural activities (Kennett, 1999;O'Faircheallaigh, 1999;Galbraith et al., 2007). Yet, they are also a means of monetizing the impacts of extractive industries, and of interpolating Indigenous peoples into wage economies while simultaneously undermining subsistence livelihoods (Garvie and Shaw, 2015;St-Laurent and Le Billon, 2015;Mills, 2017). ...
Environmental assessment is an institutional apparatus through which proponents concede harm associated with extractive projects. Within these processes proponents define the nature and scope of harm, which is made visible through the production of indicators and measurements and made manageable through mitigation measures or economic compensation. That the activities of extractive industries may have effects on surrounding ecologies is rarely in question; proponents of extractive projects regularly concede that their activities will result in negative (but also positive) changes to environments and communities. What is often contested in the course of environmental assessment and regulatory processes is the “significance” of the impacts identified, the nature of the harm caused, and whether or not it is possible or acceptable to accommodate it. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Sahtu Settlement Area, NWT during the Mackenzie Gas Project environmental assessment, along with regulatory documents and transcripts, this paper examines how proponents and regulatory regimes work to make the impacts of extractive industries visible, and how these logics deviate discursively and materially from many Indigenous peoples' understandings of appropriate relationships between human beings and nature.
... Over time, the federal government's environmental processes became more formal, providing Indigenous intervenors with multiple opportunities to contribute to assessments and making community endorsement of a project almost obligatory. Company negotiators gradually came to understand the requirements and expectations of Indigenous communities, while Indigenous leaders gained a greater appreciation for corporate finances, the natural resource economy, and the benefits they could expect from a corporate partner ( Galbraith et al., 2007;Missens et al., 2007). ...
... They are also known as benefit-sharing agreements but go by many other names (Gunton and Markey 2021). Depending on the region, they can be required by regulators (Fidler and Hitch, 2007;Galbraith et al., 2007;O'Faircheallaigh, 2021). IBAs are a relatively recent instrument for company-community relations. ...
This research takes a novel approach to analyzing impact and benefit agreements (IBA) using multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) and game theory. Local communities, which are often Indigenous communities, face with difficult decisions regarding the trade-offs of impacts vs. benefits from mineral resource development. Analyses of IBAs typically focus on their economic benefits but fail to consider environmental, socio-cultural, and other sustainability criteria. By not considering these criteria, current methods struggle to predict if an IBA is adequate or if it will be accepted. This research develops a model with MCDM that balances complex sustainability trade-offs for communities during mineral development negotiations. Bargaining positions of companies or impacted communities are also an essential, yet understudied factor in IBA analyses. Game theory is employed to show how bargaining positions can affect the compensation included in an IBA. In all, this research develops a model that can consider different criteria, value systems, and the implications of cooperation or competition to predict if an IBA will be accepted. This study provides recommendations, which can be applied other resource development projects which impact communities. The model shows the importance of flexibility in design, power dynamics in bargaining, cooperation, and knowledge sharing.
... Over time, the federal government's environmental processes became more formal, providing Indigenous intervenors with multiple opportunities to contribute to assessments and making community endorsement of a project almost obligatory. Company negotiators gradually came to understand the requirements and expectations of Indigenous communities, while Indigenous leaders gained a greater appreciation for corporate finances, the natural resource economy, and the benefits they could expect from a corporate partner ( Galbraith et al., 2007;Missens et al., 2007). ...
... Processus la plupart du temps extra-réglementaires (Galbraith, 2007 ;Glason, 2017) elles se définissent comme l'attribution à une population subissant les effets négatifs d'une infrastructure d'un ensemble de mesures visant à rétablir un « équilibre » entre impacts négatifs et retombées positives : bourse du travail et accès privilégié aux emplois créés sur l'infrastructure aux « riverains » ; requalification des quartiers et des réseaux particulièrement éprouvés par le fonctionnement de l'équipement ; mise en place de fonds spécifiques pour les populations défavorisées riveraines (Gobert, 2010b). Ces dernières dans leur forme la plus intégrative exigent de sortir d'une logique de monétarisation et d'entrer dans un principe de traitement concret -et souvent en nature-des maux sociaux et environnementaux que posent l'infrastructure. ...
Les compensations socio-environnementales sont le résultat à la fois d’une plus forte sensibilité environnementale des sociétés, mais aussi des difficultés rencontrées par les aménageurs, les maîtres d’ouvrage pour réaliser leurs projets d’infrastructure. L’encadrement des projets par les évaluations environnementales et études d’impact ne suffit pas à satisfaire l’ensemble des acteurs, parce qu’il s’agit de modalités très contraintes de participation et visant une acceptabilité sociale restreinte. Toutefois la
compensation socio-environnementale pose un certain nombre de questions puisqu’il faut noter un manque de capitalisation de la connaissance et de retour d’expérience sur l’application de ces dispositifs et sur la manière dont ils fonctionnent sur le moyen et long terme. En outre, la problématique de l’équivalence entre dommages subis par les humains et non humains et les mesures de compensation reste entière, dès lors que ne sont pas globalement pensées les conséquences du cumul dans le temps et dans l’espace de actions d’aménagement.
... The increased need to obtain community consent and address regulatory gaps created by neoliberal policies has given rise to various types of multi-level governance regimes involving industry, the state, and Indigenous communities, resulting in increased collaboration and clarity on project expectations, benefits, impacts, and outcomes (Galbraith, Bradshaw, & Rutherford, 2007). Our study is particularly interested in the level of decision-making authority attributed to Indigenous community decision-makers through these supra-regulatory governance agreements that have emerged, specifically co-management arrangements and impact benefit agreements (IBAs). ...
With an increasingly political environment developing in western, industrialized resource sectors, the purpose of this paper is to explore Indigenous governments’ ability to assert sovereignty over their territory as it pertains to resource development. Utilizing a relational self-determination framework, we present a case study of the Stk’emlupsemc te Secwépemc Nation and their role in governance over mineral development in their unceded traditional territory located in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. This article adds to the growing case examples that suggest that First Nations governments in Canada are exerting their self-determination strategically, transitioning the role of negotiated agreements from an Impact-Benefit transaction to gain greater participation in resource extraction decision-making. Utilizing tools such as cultural heritage studies, legal action, and developing community-based processes of consent, First Nations governments are gaining more negotiating leverage and influence over decision-making processes for resource development projects. These insights are particularly relevant for Indigenous communities that are considering their options regarding resource development as a path to autonomy and self-governance over their territory, resources, and economies.
... Much of this scholarship addresses the common challenges Indigenous peoples face and details best practices or recommendations to address these challenges (for example, Booth and Skelton, 2011a; Kirchoff et al., 2013;Krupta et al., 2015;Lambrech, 2013;Noble and Udofia, 2015;O'Faircheallaigh, 2007). This scholarship also focuses on specific EA jurisdictions, most notably the north (for example, Armitage, 2005;Galbraith et al., 2007;Noble et al., 2013;Noble and Hanna, 2015;O'Reilly, 1996) and the west (for example, Baker and McLelland, 2003;Booth and Skelton, 2011b) or specific components in the EA process, such as the role of traditional knowledge (for example, Arsenault et al., 2019;Ellis, 2005;Eyporsson and Thuestad, 2015;Paci et al., 2002;Tollefson and Wipond, 1998;Usher, 2000) or private agreements (for example, Noble and Fidler, 2011;O'Faircheallaigh and Corbett, 2005). This research helps identify the parts of the EA process that are most likely challenged by Indigenous participants. ...
The duty to consult mandates that the Crown must consult affected Indigenous parties when Crown action may negatively impact Aboriginal rights or title claims. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has emphasized that the duty should be characterized by honourable dealings and good faith negotiations. This article argues that the concept of throughput legitimacy can help evaluate the Crown's conduct in consultation. By analyzing 131 British Columbia Environmental Assessments (BC EAs), this article finds that the Crown struggles to uphold throughput legitimacy from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, particularly in the areas of transparency, accountability and effectiveness.
