4690 1 MANITOBA CLEAN ENVIRONMENT COMMISSION 2 3 VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT 4 Volume 20 5 6 Including List of Participants 7 8 9 10 Hearing 11 12 Wuskwatim Generation and Transmission Project 13 14 Presiding: 15 Gerard Lecuyer, Chair 16 Kathi Kinew 17 Harvey Nepinak 18 Robert Mayer 19 Terry Sargeant 20 21 Wednesday, April 14, 2004 22 Radisson Hotel 23 288 Portage Avenue 24 Winnipeg, Manitoba 25 4691 1 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 2 3 Clean Environment Commission: 4 Gerard Lecuyer Chairman 5 Terry Sargeant Member 6 Harvey Nepinak Member 7 Kathi Avery Kinew Member 8 Doug Abra Counsel to Commission 9 Rory Grewar Staff 10 CEC Advisors: 11 Mel Falk 12 Dave Farlinger 13 Jack Scriven 14 Jim Sandison 15 Jean McClellan 16 Brent McLean 17 Kyla Gibson 18 19 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation: 20 Chief Jerry Primrose 21 Elvis Thomas 22 Campbell MacInnes 23 Valerie Matthews Lemieux 24 25 4692 1 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 2 3 Manitoba Conservation: 4 Larry Strachan 5 6 Manitoba Hydro/NCN: 7 Doug Bedford, Counsel 8 Bob Adkins, Counsel 9 Marvin Shaffer 10 Ed Wojczynski 11 Ken Adams 12 Carolyn Wray 13 Ron Mazur 14 Lloyd Kuczek 15 Cam Osler 16 Stuart Davies 17 David Hicks 18 George Rempel 19 David Cormie 20 Alex Fleming 21 Marvin Shaffer 22 Blair McMahon 23 24 25 4693 1 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 2 3 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation 4 Chris Baker 5 Lloyd Graham 6 7 Boreal Forest Network 8 James Schaefer 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4694 1 2 INDEX OF EXHIBITS 3 4 Number Page 5 6 BFN-1000: CV provided by James 7 A. Schaefer 4792 8 BFN-1001: Woodland Caribou and 9 the Wuskwatim Hydroelectric Project, 10 James Schaefer, April 2004 4792 11 BFN-1002: Site fidelity of 12 female caribou and multiple spatial 13 scales, James Schaefer et al, Landscape 14 ecology, 15 pages, 731 to 739, 15 year 2000 4793 16 BFN-1003: Fuzzy structure and 17 spatial dynamics of the declining 18 woodland caribou population, James 19 Schaefer et al, from Oecologia 126, pages 20 507 to 514, year 2001 4793 21 BFN-1004: Slide presentation 22 by Mr. Schaefer on Woodland caribou 4925 23 CNF-1020: Woodland caribou 24 conservation strategy for Manitoba, 25 May 2002, Manitoba Conservation 4797 4695 1 2 INDEX OF UNDERTAKINGS 3 4 UNDERTAKING NO. PAGE 5 6 7 8 NO UNDERTAKINGS GIVEN 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4696 1 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2004 2 Upon commencing at 10:08 a.m. 3 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning. We're at 5 the Radisson Hotel with the ongoing Wuskwatim event 6 this Wednesday. We begin this morning with the 7 presentation on the Boreal Forest Network. Mr. 8 Grewar, you will proceed with the swearing in. 9 MR. GREWAR: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'd ask 10 you each to state your names for the record, please. 11 MR. SULLIVAN: My name is Don Sullivan. 12 I'm the Executive Director with the Boreal Forest 13 Network. 14 MR. SCHAEFER: And I am Jim Schaefer. 15 I'm Associate Professor at Trent University. 16 MR. GREWAR: Gentlemen, are you aware 17 that in Manitoba it is an offence to knowingly 18 mislead this Commission? 19 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. 20 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 21 MR. GREWAR: Knowing that, do you promise 22 to tell just the truth in proceedings before this 23 Commission? 24 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. 25 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 4697 1 MR. GREWAR: Thank you, gentlemen. 2 3 (DON SULLIVAN: SWORN) 4 (JAMES SCHAEFER: SWORN) 5 6 THE CHAIRMAN: You may begin. 7 MR. SULLIVAN: I'd like to take this 8 moment to thank the Commissioners for accommodating 9 my request to have this presenter here today. We are 10 a non-funded participant so we wanted to secure a 11 date that accommodated Mr. Schaefer here and also 12 ensure that we didn't have to stay here too long and 13 pay extra airfares and whatever may come down the 14 road. 15 I am personally not making a presentation 16 here. Dr. Schaefer will be presenting as an expert 17 witness on our organizational behalf. Mr. Schaefer 18 teaches at Trent University. I'm sure you have his 19 bio here in front of you and some of the presentation 20 materials that he will be outlining. We have a set 21 of overheads that we will be using here and I will do 22 the flipping. 23 And with that, I think I will pass the 24 mike over to Dr. Schaefer here and maybe he can 25 explain a little bit more about his presentation and 4698 1 his area of expertise. Thank you. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Schaefer, you that 3 comes from the beautiful site of Trent University, 4 very nice place. 5 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. Good morning, Mr. 6 Chairman and members of the Commission, ladies and 7 gentlemen. Thank you for taking your time this 8 morning to listen to this presentation. 9 I thought I'd begin just a little bit 10 with some background about me since I'll be talking 11 specifically about woodland caribou. My experiences 12 in woodland caribou have gone back now 20 years, 13 actually began in this province. I was a masters 14 student at the University of Manitoba under Dr. Bill 15 Pruitt and I did my masters degree on what's now 16 considered the Atikaki-Berens population in 17 Southeastern Manitoba. I also served four years as 18 the Regional Biologist in Labrador with the 19 Provincial Inland Fish and Wildlife Division and 20 worked on caribou there. And I'm currently Associate 21 Professor of Biology at Trent University. I've 22 worked on caribou from Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, 23 Labrador and the Island of Newfoundland. 24 Could I have the first slide, please? 25 So this morning I'd like to talk about 4699 1 woodland caribou. There's four aspects to my 2 presentation that I'd like to consider. Since we're 3 talking about environmental effects and conservation, 4 I want to begin then with some of the essential 5 features of the ecology of the beasts, some trends in 6 populations and then we'd like to go more 7 specifically to take a look at the effects of 8 disturbance and industrial development on woodland 9 caribou and then finally some more specifics about 10 this project per se. 11 Next slide, please. 12 I think if we're going to select one 13 feature that is important to the ecology and 14 conservation of woodland caribou, it would be space 15 and how these animals use space. Indeed, an 16 important milestone in our understanding of caribou 17 is the distinction between two different ecotypes, 18 what we call a sedentary ecotype and a migratory 19 ecotype. The distinguishing features between these 20 are indeed how these animals use space. 21 The sedentary ecotype is generally what 22 we call forest dwelling caribou. They live 23 year-round in mature forest and peat lands. On the 24 other hand, we have migratory caribou, the more 25 typical tundra dwelling animals that may come down 4700 1 into the boreal forest during the winter. The 2 differences between these two are largely the extent 3 of their movements. 4 So migratory caribou, as the name 5 suggests, travel much further. And also the way that 6 females distribute themselves at calving time. So 7 during the spring, sedentary caribou tend to 8 disburse. Females tend to disburse and are found 9 singly out in muskegs and boreal forests types. 10 Migratory caribou, on the other hand, tend to 11 aggregate in large numbers on the tundra. 12 And by and large what we're talking about 13 for this project are sedentary caribou, the forest 14 dwelling type. 15 Next slide, please. 16 When we consider then the sedentary 17 caribou, we must realize they have immense 18 requirements for space. If we consider, for example, 19 typical density, population density for these 20 animals, a typical density would be .06 to .05 21 animals per square kilometre which translates to one 22 animal for every 16 to 20 square kilometres. At the 23 same time, we can also see this on the basis of 24 individual range size. For example, some of the work 25 done by Kim Brown and her colleagues on the Wabowden 4701 1 herd showed that on average, caribou in that 2 population had an individual home range of more than 3 580 square kilometres. 4 Similarly, if we take a look at 5 population ranges, we take a look at the median range 6 for sedentary caribou herds in North America, they 7 are considerably larger. 9,000 square kilometres 8 would be a typical population range. 9 And then finally we also note that 10 caribou require large vast tracks of intact forest. 11 The work by Bill Pruitt and I in Southeastern 12 Manitoba showed that forests less than 50 years old 13 were unsuitable for woodland caribou. 14 Next slide, please. 15 If we take a look at a typical 16 distribution of females at calving, this is an 17 example from the Red Wine Mountains caribou herd, 18 Central Labrador, a population I had studied when I 19 was regional biologist there, we see 20 radio 20 collared females at calving time. The overdispersion 21 is very clear. Essentially at this time of year, the 22 females occupy the entire herds range and they are 23 found singly often on points or islands. 24 And this is important implications for 25 their management and conservation because at this 4702 1 time of year, it's considered that these animals are 2 most susceptible to disturbance and predation. So we 3 think that these animals show this behaviour to 4 reduce the chances of being preyed upon or detected 5 by predators at a time when they are showing the 6 greatest range use, the lowest densities during this 7 time of year. 8 Another thing that we know about these 9 females at calving time in spring is that they also 10 show strong fidelity as we call it, a tendency to 11 return to these same sites year after year. 12 Next slide, please. 13 We looked at this situation in the Red 14 Wine Mountains herd and what we did was take a look 15 at the location of an animal one year and then at the 16 same time the next year, the location of that same 17 animal. And we looked at that distance from one year 18 to the next. This is a measure then of what we call 19 site fidelity, the tendancy to return to the same 20 place. If we look at those distances across the 21 year, we see a distinct annual rhythm such that 22 woodland caribou show very little fidelity to their 23 winter ranges. They tend to be 50, 60, 70 kilometres 24 from where they were the year before. But then in 25 spring as calving approaches, they show very strong 4703 1 tendancy to return to those same locations. And then 2 even more intense fidelity in the time we call 3 post-calving. 4 So after calving in spring, during the 5 summer months, these caribou on average, perhaps six 6 kilometres from where they were the year before, 7 which sounds like a long way away but the population 8 range in this case was some 25,000 square kilometres. 9 And we know particular animals may return to the very 10 same point or island that they were the year before. 11 Next slide, please. 12 If we take a look at woodland caribou, we 13 know that they are in trouble. And in retrospect, 14 this has been going on for a long time. It's 15 something that conservation biologists have called a 16 slow motion crisis. One indicator of this decline of 17 woodland caribou is their occupancy. 18 If we take a look at, for example, in 19 Ontario, we see that since the late 19th century, 20 there has been progressive range collapses, as we 21 call it, regression northward where caribou have 22 disappeared. So in 1880, for example, we used to 23 find woodland caribou in Ontario as far south as 24 Ottawa Valley or Georgian Bay. In fact, they used to 25 be as far south as Wisconsin and Minnesota. Now we 4704 1 see that you need to go much farther north, north of 2 Lake Nipigon almost to James Bay for encounters with 3 woodland caribou. 4 Next slide, please. 5 And Ontario is not unique. We can see 6 the same kind of pattern played out in Eastern North 7 America where we see a range recession or loss of 8 virtually widespread through most of woodland caribou 9 range. So, for example, we see that states that used 10 to have woodland caribou like Vermont and New 11 Hampshire and Maine have lost them as early as the 12 19th century. All the Maritime provinces as well. 13 If we take a look at the date of which 14 caribou were last seen in these jurisdictions, we see 15 the same kind of northward range recession from the 16 mid-1800s right into the 20th century. The one 17 exception to that perhaps is Prince Edward Island 18 where they were lost in 1873. And now again, if we 19 look into Quebec for example, one has to go a long 20 way north to get into woodland caribou range. There 21 are a few remnant populations such as in the Gaspe 22 Peninsula and they are considered endangered. 23 Next slide, please. 24 We can also take a look at this 25 phenomenon on an individual population level. 4705 1 Biologists can compute or estimate the rate of 2 population growth. We call this (r). Values of (r) 3 that are greater than zero indicate population 4 growth. Values that are negative indicate decline. 5 And if we look, virtually all studies of 6 woodland caribou in Canada now show declining 7 populations, some that are declining as much as 20 8 per cent per year. The only exception to this, which 9 is perhaps noteworthy, is in Manitoba. So the work 10 by Kim Brown and her associates show recently that 11 the Wabowden population is increasing but this is an 12 exception. 13 Next slide, please. 14 We can take a look at one of those 15 populations. This is some recent work through 16 Laurentian University and the Ministry of Natural 17 Resources in Ontario. What we see is the computation 18 of population growth really has two elements to it. 19 One is recruitment which is really the addition of 20 new animals to the population. And the other is the 21 survival, particularly survival of adult females. 22 And essentially, the recruitment needs to 23 counter-balance the mortality of those adults for the 24 populations to be stable. 25 In this population that was studied 4706 1 recently near Cochrane, we see reasonable 2 recruitment. The number of calves per 100 females is 3 an index of how many of recruitment. And the levels 4 here of 25 animals per 100 females is good. What is 5 lacking here is high survivorship of females. 6 Generally we find that that needs to be on the order 7 of 85 per cent or more per year and the values that 8 you see here between 71 and 80 per cent are much too 9 low for that population to remain stable and indeed 10 it's declining at a rapid rate. 11 Next slide, please. 12 So the key features then of caribou 13 demography or population dynamics is that they have a 14 relatively limited capacity to increase. And 15 therefore what's essential for them is adult survival 16 and particularly survival of adult females. And as 17 Tom Bergerud has said, there's a fine balance between 18 gains and losses in caribou populations. It does not 19 take much for them to tip that balance into 20 population decline. 21 Next slide, please. 22 Recently, I did some analysis of this 23 range recession in Ontario. And I had two questions 24 that I wanted to answer. One was how rapidly is this 25 occurring since it's well documented that this range 4707 1 recession has gone on? And second, with an eye to 2 the future, what are the prospects for woodland 3 caribou in this province? 4 So my approach here was geographic. I 5 simply looked at what I called the range breadth. In 6 other words, since this range recession was occurring 7 in a northward progression, I asked how wide is that 8 range at each of these time frames from 1880 to 1990? 9 Next slide, please. 10 The results here I show as a graph on the 11 "Y" axis, the vertical axis here you see the range 12 breadth. On the "X" axis is year. And what we see 13 here is that historically, woodland caribou in the 14 Province of Ontario had a range breadth that was 15 close to 800 kilometres. By 1990, that has been 16 halved. So we've lost half of woodland caribou range 17 in the province. And those four points there, 1880 18 to 1990 suggest that that has gone on at a more or 19 less constant rate since the late 19th century. 20 The slope of that line, negative 3.44 21 suggests that that rate is about 34 kilometres per 22 decade. So this is the rate at which caribou are 23 being extirpated in that province. 24 We can also project this forward. In 25 other words, we can say to ourselves what are the 4708 1 prospects for woodland caribou if that rate of range 2 recession continues? In other words, what we call 3 the "X" axis there where that line meets zero range 4 breadth, that is the year where caribou will be 5 virtually extirpated from Ontario. And that will 6 occur before the end of this century. 2094 is our 7 estimate. It may be there's some error around that. 8 It could be as late as 2152 or as early at 2060. So 9 rather sobering analysis suggesting that there are 10 concerns about threatened status of woodland caribou. 11 Next slide, please. 12 There's no doubt that we are to blame for 13 this extirpation. This is not a migration northward, 14 this is a systematic loss of populations. And 15 indeed, there's dramatic coincidence between the 16 southern limits of woodland caribou and the northern 17 limits of human encroachment. 18 We can use that -- for example, if we 19 take a look at roads in Ontario, there's virtually 20 remarkable coincidence between those two lines. In 21 other words, where we have encroached the woodland 22 caribou range, they have disappeared such that 23 woodland caribou occupancy or disappearance is 24 essentially the mirrored image of human encroachment. 25 Next slide, please. 4709 1 Here is the same map. What we are also 2 noting in woodland caribou studies is that the key to 3 their persistence seems to be refugia from landscape 4 disturbances. In other words, there are still 5 populations south of that line but they are isolated 6 and they seem to be in small islands such as the 7 Slate Islands or islands in parks such as Pukaskwa 8 National Park. But those populations are certainly 9 not secure. The population in Pukaskwa Park I 10 believe is 15 animals or fewer. And even on the 11 Slate Islands, it's been suggested that their 12 persistence is not assured either. So refugia from 13 disturbances then seems to be key to the conservation 14 of woodland caribou. 15 Next slide, please. 16 If we're going to understand then the 17 effects of this project, then we need to understand 18 the response of caribou to industrial developments. 19 And particularly, we can take a look at recent 20 studies that suggest what those effects might be. 21 This slide shows some of the work done by 22 Shane Mahoney and me on the Star Lake hydro 23 development in Newfoundland. This was a before/after 24 experiment where we took a look at the distribution 25 of radio-collared individuals within what was close 4710 1 to the reservoir and access road as part of that 2 development. What we found is, as you can see on 3 this graph here, is that within three kilometres of 4 that development, before the project proceeded, there 5 are about half of animals used to go through at least 6 once that area. Once the project was under way and 7 after that declined by about 50 per cent. And even 8 out to six and nine kilometres, there was some, 9 although statistically not significant, there was 10 some decline in use well beyond the limits of the 11 project per se. 12 Next slide, please. 13 We can also take a look at the effects of 14 powerlines or roads. This is some work by Christian 15 Nellemann and his colleagues in Norway. What we see 16 here is again a before/after experiment where 17 construction took place during the early 1980s. What 18 again we see is a redistribution, a loss of -- 19 effective loss of habitat well beyond the limits of 20 these infrastructures per se such that up to four 21 kilometres beyond our powerline or road we see 22 reduced abundance of woodland caribou, in this case 23 reindeer, and increases in areas beyond that buffer. 24 Next slide, please. 25 Those are two examples. Here I have 4711 1 listed what is our detected area of avoidance that's 2 been shown by several studies from Alberta, 3 Newfoundland and Norway. What we see is that there 4 is some variation from 250 metres of as far as 11 5 kilometres. But nonetheless, some reasonable 6 consistency in what we might expect to be the extent 7 of disturbance of caribou as a result of different 8 kinds of infrastructure. 9 One of the conclusions that these studies 10 also show us is that females are particularly more 11 sensitive than males and the variation may be due in 12 part to the degree of human activities associated 13 with the infrastructure. 14 Next slide, please. 15 We can also take a look at corridors 16 themselves as perhaps barriers to movement. This is 17 some work done by Simon Dyer and his colleagues at 18 the University of Alberta. I think this was 19 discussed a few weeks ago by Dr. Erin Bayne when he 20 also made a presentation to the Commission. 21 In essence what we can see is that in 22 this case, corridors may act as semi-permeable 23 barriers. In other words, there may be some crossing 24 of improved gravel roads in this case but the amount 25 of crossing is much reduced compared to what we'd 4712 1 expect. So for instance, if we take a look at the 2 degree of crossing, Dyer and his colleagues looked at 3 and modelled what we would expect the frequency of 4 crossing to be. They found that in every case, there 5 was a much reduced actual crossing of these corridors 6 as low as 19 per cent during late winter. 7 So the concern here of course is that 8 this may compromise that spacing out strategy that we 9 see those females showing in spring time in 10 particular. 11 Next slide, please. 12 Also, as has been showed in some of the 13 work in Alberta, there's an increased risk of 14 mortality in relationship to these linear corridors. 15 So this may come from four-legged predators or even 16 two-legged predators. So if we take a look, the 17 implication here is that corridors open up the range 18 to movement by wolves, for example. And the work by 19 James and Stuart Smith showed that indeed there was 20 greater mortality of caribou within the vicinity of 21 these corridors than we'd expect. There was also 22 greater harvest of caribou next to these corridors 23 but that relationship was not statistically 24 significant. Nonetheless, two out of the five 25 mortalities that they documented were within just 30 4713 1 metres of the corridor per se. So these were 2 mortalities caused by humans. 3 Our conclusion then I think that we can 4 draw from these studies are as follows: One is that 5 caribou operate on broad spatial scales and need to 6 be managed accordingly. Second, they are perhaps the 7 most sensitive wildlife species to anthropogenic 8 landscape disturbances. And third, the impacts of 9 projects such as this can be expected to extend 10 beyond the precise bounds of the project per se. 11 Next slide, please. 12 I now want to consider just a few aspects 13 of the Environmental Impact Statement with respect to 14 this project. First I'd like to consider some of the 15 HSI modelling that was done as part of a selection 16 process for alternate transmission routes. We should 17 note that this kind of HS modelling, and I think this 18 is acknowledged in the EIS, is that the assessment of 19 caribou habitat on a stand level may be necessary but 20 is insufficient for predicting the occupancy of 21 woodland caribou. Very clearly, caribou need to be 22 managed and assessed on landscape scales. 23 Fragmentation of habitat increases in 24 predation or parasitism, increases in forest fires 25 for example. These are landscape phenomena. And so 4714 1 the kind of HSI modelling that was done I think is 2 insufficient in itself to evaluate the kinds of 3 transmission routes that were looked at. 4 And indeed, we can take a look in 5 Ontario, for example, where caribou were extirpated. 6 There are many forest stands there that are seemingly 7 suitable for woodland caribou. Quetico Provincial 8 Park, for example, is a fairly large area in 9 Northwestern Ontario that looks suitable for woodland 10 caribou and yet they haven't been there since the 11 1940s. And this is because of the kinds of landscape 12 features that have gone on outside the park leading 13 to their extirpation. 14 My recommendation would be to evaluate 15 these alternate routes on the basis of the caribou 16 themselves. I understand that there were 24 animals 17 radio-collared as part of the work relating to this 18 project. It would seem to me that a more compelling 19 assessment of various transmission routes will be to 20 take a look at the percentage of those home ranges 21 that are intersected by different routes or, perhaps 22 even more compellingly, to take a look at the 23 proportion of calving sites within various distance 24 classes of those transmission routes. This would be 25 a much more incisive assessment I believe of where 4715 1 the transmission routes might be placed. 2 Next slide, please. 3 I think we can also make a more 4 compelling argument with respect to the functional 5 habitat loss that is going to be associated with this 6 project. The conclusions that we draw from the 7 literature are that the precise boundaries of the 8 project per se are insufficient to conclude with 9 respect to the impacts on caribou per se. 10 What I've done here is to take a look at 11 three different scenarios based on what we see from 12 the literature; in other words, the effects of the 13 project per se in addition to in three different 14 columns that you'll see on the right-hand side of the 15 screen here are of buffers of effect that extend 250 16 metres beyond the project, 2.5 kilometres beyond the 17 project and then 5 kilometres beyond the project. 18 And what we see is that in these cases, whereas we 19 might have an affected area that is perhaps 30 square 20 kilometres, these other scenarios suggest perhaps 200 21 to 4,000 square kilometres are more likely the 22 effects that we'll see on woodland caribou. 23 And indeed, if you recall from the table 24 that I showed earlier, 2 and a half to 4 kilometres 25 seems to be the kinds of distances where we can 4716 1 assess effects that are negative on caribou and 2 reindeer. 3 Next slide, please. 4 Finally we have to be concerned certainly 5 about hunting mortality. And it's suggested in the 6 EIS, if I can quote by looking over my head here, 7 that, 8 "The Province of Manitoba will be 9 asked to establish a wildlife road 10 refuge." 11 I believe this is imperative. In other 12 words, we know that the effects of hunting mortality 13 on caribou can be very severe. The recent 14 circumstances in Labrador where the Red Wine 15 Mountains herd was harvested, 32 animals were taken 16 out of a herd of 100 suggests indeed that we have to 17 take great care with respect to increased access to 18 woodland caribou. 19 So in my view, it seems imperative that 20 this kind of refuge should be a requirement, a 21 prerequisite for this development should it take 22 place. 23 Next slide, please. 24 And finally, I would like to emphasize 25 the role of adaptive management. Predictions had 4717 1 been made with respect to the effects of woodland 2 caribou as a result of this EIS. I believe it's 3 incumbent on the proponent, if this project goes 4 ahead, to test those predictions. In other words, we 5 need to treat developments such as this as an 6 experiment. And therefore, some annual monitoring 7 before, during and after construction of projects 8 like these are vital if we are to increase our 9 knowledge about the effects of this kind of project 10 on sensitive species like woodland caribou. And so 11 we need to have a program in place before the project 12 takes place to look at movements, survival, 13 recruitment, fidelity, these kinds of things that we 14 know are important to woodland caribou populations. 15 And finally I might say that I believe if 16 this project goes through, the benefits need to be 17 more than just financial or electrical, they should 18 include our increased understanding of projects like 19 this and their effects on such sensitive species. 20 Thank you very much. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Schaefer, in your 22 presentation, you have shown how the southern 23 boundary of the territory occupied by the woodland 24 caribou over the last century or in the last decades 25 has increasingly moved, that southern boundary has 4718 1 increasingly moved northwards. Do you have any 2 information as to what's happened to the northern 3 limit of their territory? Has that been moving 4 northwards as well? 5 MR. SCHAEFER: We have no precise 6 information about that. What we know is that the 7 northern limit of sedentary caribou or woodland 8 caribou seems to be related to the timing of breakup. 9 In other words, what appears to be important for 10 females is to have some escape habitat as it's 11 called. And therefore, having open lakes and loss of 12 ice and snow cover seems to be the important 13 component. And so we might expect, for example, that 14 there might be some slight movement northward. 15 We know the climate is warming. But I 16 think from what we know of the literature, for 17 example, species are moving northward in the northern 18 hemisphere as the climate warms but that rate is 19 about five kilometres per decade. And these are 20 often for species such as birds or insects that are 21 very sensitive to temperature. So I would, without 22 having any knowledge of this, precise knowledge 23 anyway, I would suspect that there may be some minor 24 movement northward that coincides with the same time 25 frame. 4719 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Mayer. 2 MR. MAYER: Doctor, I have a couple of 3 questions, largely for clarification, of your 4 presentation. 5 You have indicated in your presentation 6 that space is primary or the primary factor in 7 dealing with the survival of caribou herds. What 8 competes with space? I mean aside from human 9 invasion of the territory, what competes with space 10 in the wilds? I mean are we talking wolves, are we 11 talking moose, are we talking other animals or can 12 they survive alongside? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: The use of space seems to 14 be related certainly to, and this is a conclusion 15 that's increasingly growing in the literature, the 16 use that we see of space by woodland caribou seems to 17 be related to reducing the probability of 18 encountering predators. So these females, for 19 example, that space out in the spring, it seems to be 20 an anti-predator strategy whereby they make 21 themselves rare and hard to find. And so the return 22 to those same areas is probably the same kind of 23 adaptation. 24 What's important then in the conservation 25 and management of caribou is to allow for that use of 4720 1 space. In other words, we could expect that if we 2 begin to confine caribou to higher densities than 3 they normally occur, then there will be negative 4 implications of that because predators, for example, 5 may be able to find them more easily. And of course, 6 then we can get greater mortality of both adults and 7 the young. 8 MR. MAYER: You mentioned early on in 9 your presentation that you've got to have 50 year old 10 forests in order to provide proper habitat. And 11 that's 50 years from the last fire. When was the 12 last time you were in Manitoba, sir, to do any work 13 up here? 14 MR. SCHAEFER: That was in the 1980s. So 15 1988 I think was the last time. 16 MR. MAYER: I'm sure you heard about the 17 '89 fires? 18 MR. SCHAEFER: Indeed I had smelled the 19 smoke when I was in Thunder Bay. 20 MR. MAYER: And the '89 fires devastated 21 a significant amount of the area through which Hydro 22 presently tends to or to run at least portions of 23 that powerline. I am assuming you are aware of that? 24 MR. SCHAEFER: Um-hum. 25 MR. MAYER: So we can consider that that 4721 1 whole area that was burned out in '89, and it was 2 significant especially around the Town of Snow Lake, 3 to be virtually useless for caribou habitat? 4 MR. SCHAEFER: Let me invite you to take 5 a longer term perspective. 6 MR. MAYER: Okay. 7 MR. SCHAEFER: In other words, our 8 conclusion for Southeastern Manitoba was that indeed 9 there were short-term detrimental effects of forest 10 fires. By short-term, we meant up to 50 years. And 11 it seems that the fundamental response of woodland 12 caribou to forest fire is to shift to ranges that are 13 greater than 50 years old. And so even though areas 14 that are less than 50 years old may be unsuitable 15 now, they will become suitable as succession 16 proceeds. 17 MR. MAYER: So then you wouldn't 18 recommend that Hydro send its powerlines or its 19 transmission lines along the fire line, the burned 20 out areas? 21 MR. SCHAEFER: Well, the management 22 recommendations from that work in the Wallace Lake 23 area was that caribou need these alternate ranges if 24 fire does occur. And that suggests not only 25 currently occupied ranges are important but also 4722 1 those alternate ranges in case fire takes place. So 2 this is a formidable challenge I would say. 3 MR. MAYER: You had mentioned in what I 4 believe is table 1 of your presentation that Manitoba 5 has a growth rate of .17. I think you said that was 6 17 per cent? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: These numbers are 8 logarithmic. I think it translates to about a 19 per 9 cent growth rate. 10 MR. MAYER: Over what period of time? 11 MR. SCHAEFER: That work was done I 12 believe over just less than a two year period. 13 MR. MAYER: So are we talking about 19 14 per cent every two years or -- 15 MR. SCHAEFER: For two years, that's 16 right, or just a little less than that I believe. 17 The radio-collared work that was done to assess the 18 survival of females, I believe it was about 20 months 19 if I recall. 20 MR. MAYER: You also mentioned the issue 21 of powerline or transmission line and road invasion 22 into the territory. And I asked this of Dr. Bayne, I 23 ask it of you. Travelling that road significantly, 24 the major road through which this project will 25 presumably impact, the only time I see caribou is 4723 1 when they are grazing on the side of the road and 2 after they have crossed two powerlines and one 3 provincial trunk highway. And basically I find them 4 grazing southeast of Ponton which indicates that they 5 have crossed at least two lines and undoubtedly will 6 cross Provincial Trunk Highway number 6. The only 7 other time I've seen caribou generally crossing the 8 road, and I understand that's the only reason I would 9 see them in light of fact that I don't hunt, but I 10 find it surprising the number of times I see caribou 11 grazing near what both you and Dr. Bayne have told me 12 is an impediment. Can you tell me why that would be 13 or are they just strange birds? 14 MR. SCHAEFER: I think it's important to 15 note that when we talk about these effects, they need 16 not to be absolute. In other words, simply noting 17 that caribou on occasion cross powerlines or 18 occasionally they are found in younger forests or 19 occasionally are found on roads does not mean that 20 that road, I'm going to use a double-negative here, 21 does not mean that that road has no effect. In other 22 words, if we take a look at that work by Simon Dyer, 23 the work suggests that the crossing of that road is 24 about 1/5 of what we would expect if the road was not 25 there. And so the avoidance need not be absolute. 4724 1 Indeed if we take a look at some of the 2 use of areas around powerlines in Norway, the 3 reduction there -- you still find some caribou near 4 the powerline but the reduction is about 79 per cent 5 from what we would expect. And so these effects 6 don't have to be 100 per cent for them to be 7 significant. 8 MR. MAYER: You mentioned in your 9 presentation Dr. Bayne's work on caribou. Have you 10 had an opportunity to read his presentation? 11 MR. SCHAEFER: I did see -- as far as -- 12 I did read some of the transcript from his 13 presentation, yes. 14 MR. MAYER: Can you comment on what he 15 called the edge effects? 16 MR. SCHAEFER: I can't comment to the 17 degree that he can. And I don't recall his comments 18 regardless. 19 MR. MAYER: Okay. He dealt with again 20 dealing with generally transmission lines about how 21 far from the edge of the corridor we have concern 22 with. 23 MR. SCHAEFER: Um-hum. 24 MR. MAYER: That leads me to a totally 25 leading question. We know that there is a route for 4725 1 this powerline which is not being considered by Hydro 2 which would basically move the powerline as quickly 3 as possible from the Wuskwatim project almost 4 directly east to Provincial Trunk Highway number 6 5 where it will then meet yet another powerline from 6 thence to Ponton and then along an existing 7 transmission line corridor to the station just 8 outside of Snow Lake at Herblet Lake. We know that 9 that's going to cost or that route would cost 10 significantly both in the cost of the construction 11 and also in extra loss of power over the transmission 12 line. 13 But I would like you to confirm for me 14 that that route or that kind of route would cause 15 significantly less concern to one who is concerned 16 about the caribou than the existing proposed routes 17 would? 18 MR. SCHAEFER: That's a good question. 19 In essence, what we see from research studies is that 20 caribou need large contiguous tracks of forest. In 21 other words, a fragmented forest, even if it's only 22 say 1 per cent of the forest, if it's frequented 23 enough can lead to not just a 1 per cent effect but 24 something that's much greater than that. 25 This would suggest that indeed, the 4726 1 clustering of the affected areas would probably have 2 a reduced impact on caribou. The negative effect 3 would be perhaps less likelihood to cross those areas 4 if there's two powerlines instead of one. The 5 positive effect would be the lack of a powerline at 6 all perhaps in some of the existing woodland caribou 7 range. 8 And so those trade-offs are difficult to 9 give a definitive answer but I would be inclined, if 10 the project proceeds, to go with a more, how shall I 11 say, clustered set of developments; in other words, 12 leaving large contiguous tracks that way. 13 MR. MAYER: Then I take it you have at 14 least had an opportunity to review the proposed 15 routes? 16 MR. SCHAEFER: I have looked at, I think 17 there were "A" and "B" and perhaps another one. Go 18 ahead, yes. 19 MR. MAYER: My concern is the route 20 proposed for the section of line from Wuskwatim to 21 Herblet Lake, which appears to run significantly 22 north and west of Provincial Trunk Highway number 6, 23 appearing to again fragment at that point or in that 24 area, there is no other significant human built error 25 unless you want to call the forest fires human and 4727 1 there's some suggestion they were. 2 Has there been any research done in that 3 regard trying to compare the edge effects that Dr. 4 Bayne mentioned with the interruption of what is 5 otherwise largely open space? And how can this 6 Commission, in making its recommendations or what can 7 it look to to determine whether we would recommend a 8 route that parallels already existing barriers or 9 permit the passage or recommend that the Minister 10 permit the passage of the transmission line through 11 what is, to this point in any event, relatively 12 unoccupied boreal forest? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: Perhaps the best indicator 14 will be to take a look, I would think, at the 15 existing information. In other words, my 16 understanding is that 24 animals were radio-collared. 17 There must be hundreds if not thousands of locations 18 from those animals. Some had GPS collars I believe. 19 It would seem to me to be a wise thing to analyze 20 those data to take a look at those routes, for 21 example, and look at the number of home ranges 22 intersected or the number of known calving sites that 23 were likely to be affected and look at that as a 24 proportion. In other words, one out of 24 would give 25 you perhaps an estimate of 4 per cent. Twelve out of 4728 1 24, obviously greater. 2 MR. MAYER: I understand that. 3 MR. SCHAEFER: So that would be, for 4 caribou at least, that would be a more compelling 5 evaluation of those routes. 6 MR. MAYER: Thank you very much, doctor. 7 I have no further questions, Mr. Chair. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sargeant. 9 MR. SARGEANT: Dr. Schaefer, one 10 follow-up on the question that Mr. Lecuyer asked 11 earlier about a northern range for woodlands caribou. 12 I assume, by their very name and the fact you said 13 that they require a more or less 50 year old forest 14 that a northern range would be limited by the tree 15 line? 16 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, I think that's -- if 17 you take a look at the map of where those lines have 18 been drawn, the tree line is a pretty good indicator. 19 MR. SARGEANT: Do they come into conflict 20 at all with barren grounds caribou? 21 MR. SCHAEFER: There are certainly range 22 overlaps that occur. For example, the Red Wine 23 Mountains herd that we studied intensively in 24 Labrador overlapped during the winter with fairly 25 large incursions of George River caribou, migratory 4729 1 type, for many years that I was there. 2 MR. SARGEANT: Just as an aside, is the 3 Red Wine herd the one that was in the news a week or 4 so ago? 5 MR. SCHAEFER: That's right. There were 6 32 animals I believe that were shot out of a herd 7 that we think is perhaps 100 in total. 8 MR. SARGEANT: Now, the loss of habitat 9 in the perhaps alteration of where the caribou will 10 live, is that a problem just during the construction 11 of the project? Is it the very existence of the 12 project on a permanent basis that will disrupt their 13 habitat? Do you follow what I'm trying to say? I 14 mean there's a lot of activity during construction. 15 Would their loss of habitat settle down post 16 construction? 17 MR. SCHAEFER: Generally we find in the 18 literature that the degree of human activity is 19 related to the effect. So the construction phase I 20 would imagine would be more disruptive. But 21 nonetheless, some of the work which Christian 22 Nellemann in Norway suggests that powerlines, even 23 without, if I recall exactly his wording in the 24 paper, without specific traffic associated with them 25 still had effects that were discernible for a few 4730 1 kilometres. 2 And this is also our conclusion from some 3 of the work in the Star Lake project in Newfoundland. 4 The construction phase seemed to be more disruptive 5 than the operation phase but there was still an 6 effect. And the work by Nellemann shows that those 7 effects are likely at least long term if not 8 permanent. He found that they continued for six 9 years after construction was completed. 10 MR. SARGEANT: Again, noting that your 11 comment about a 50 year old forest, Hydro has told us 12 during these hearings that the transmission lines 13 will be allowed to regrow to a certain height. Will 14 that lessen the impact on the caribou and their 15 willingness or unwillingness to cross? 16 MR. SCHAEFER: I can't give you a 17 definitive answer. I would suspect it would have 18 little effect. In other words, what we see in 19 Ontario, for example, or in other parts of what used 20 to be within caribou range is likely those changes 21 are more or less -- are going to be something that is 22 detrimental for at least the foreseeable future. So 23 it's hard to say if summer generation is allowed, 24 whether or not that would be more permeable to 25 caribou. I would suspect that its effect would be 4731 1 not great. 2 MR. SARGEANT: You made a couple of 3 suggestions or recommendations for, I don't know 4 whether it's mitigation, at least management. You 5 talked about controlling the hunting by implementing 6 a wildlife road refuge I think you described it. You 7 also talked about adaptive management. Are there any 8 other recommendations for mitigation that you might 9 suggest? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: There's certainly -- let 11 me start again. There's some uncertainty that is 12 considerable with respect I think especially to 13 overharvest. So we know that in Canada, we work in a 14 wildlife management regime that works on the basis of 15 common consent. In other words, we don't have enough 16 conservation officers out there, we never will, to 17 enforce rules if, by and large, citizens of this 18 country didn't abide by them. And so I think the 19 recent events in Labrador are instructive. In other 20 words, we have a ban on hunting more or less of those 21 Red Wine Mountains animals. We had agreement by the 22 Innu of Labrador to restrict or ban their hunting. 23 And yet we had a small number of individuals that 24 were intent on harvesting those animals. 25 And so it does not take a large number, a 4732 1 large proportion of the population of people that 2 want to poach, for example, to have a very important 3 influence, a negative influence on species like 4 woodland caribou. 5 And that's probably the most difficult 6 aspect I would say of one of the most difficult to 7 project with regard to this project, is how likely is 8 it that animals will be harvested. And we know this 9 can have major effects on population persistence. 10 MR. SARGEANT: We were told yesterday 11 that there are 200 caribou within the I believe it's 12 within NCN's resource management area which includes 13 a fair chunk of what we're talking about but not all 14 of the transmission line. 15 I don't know whether this is a fair 16 question but I'll ask it anyway. If it's not fair, 17 you can just say so. Can you guestimate how many of 18 those 200 would be negatively impacted? 19 MR. SCHAEFER: The question might be 20 unfair but I think that if we take a look at my 21 analysis of effective loss of habitat, for example, 22 the range I had I believe was between 200 square 23 kilometres, up to about 4,000 square kilometres. We 24 can use that perhaps as a proportion of the range 25 loss within that area. And there are some 4733 1 projections in the EIS based on the density of one 2 animal per 100 square kilometres. So it could be 3 perhaps as small as two. I think that's very 4 optimistic. It could be as large as perhaps 40. And 5 that is just with respect to habitat loss. It would 6 not include perhaps the effects on harvesting or 7 disruption of movements. 8 MR. SARGEANT: Thank you. No further 9 questions. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Kathi Avery Kinew, 11 please. 12 MS. AVERY KINEW: Hi, Dr. Schaefer, 13 thanks for coming. I appreciate your being here. I 14 appreciate the fact you also took time to read about 15 what the EIS says. And in their effects on VECs, 16 woodland caribou, it talks about most of the expected 17 effects being negative, small, regional, long-term 18 and therefore insignificant and that they are 19 mitigable or reversible. And you recommended, as Mr. 20 Sargeant pointed out, two possible mitigations I 21 guess. 22 We heard yesterday some interesting 23 testimony that the traditional knowledge of the 24 people was so accurate from the elders and the 25 resource users that they said there were 200 caribou 4734 1 and subsequently western science also agreed with 2 indigenous science. 3 Do you think the baseline data is 4 sufficient in the EIS in that it could be carried on 5 annually as you said from what they are doing now? 6 MR. SCHAEFER: Let me say that it's hard 7 to evaluate. I didn't see anything in the EIS with 8 respect to the caribou data that had been gathered. 9 There is some. 10 MS. AVERY KINEW: There are two maps and 11 the mention of collaring. That's all that you saw? 12 MR. SCHAEFER: But no home ranges, no 13 designation of calving areas or calving sites, no 14 suggestion or no computations of survival rate. 15 These kind of things we know are good indicators of 16 health and population and their space use. It seems 17 to me that it would be wise, as I said earlier, to 18 use those data to their fullest. 19 MS. AVERY KINEW: All right. One of the 20 things the EIS says is that there's only one 21 identifiable sites for calving habitat out of 100 or 22 more. That's why they put the generating station 23 site and the access road where it is. So they are 24 taking care, the two proponents considered, in the 25 design? 4735 1 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, if I might comment on 2 that. My experience with woodland caribou is that 3 it's virtually impossible to identify calving sites 4 without having a radio collar on the female. So my 5 experience has been that even with a radio collar on 6 and radio telemetry equipment, a helicopter and a 7 GPS, you still have trouble trying to find that 8 female. They are very difficult. They are secretive 9 and shy. They tend to be in those closed canopy 10 forests. And therefore one calving site is likely 11 the minimum. 12 We have to realize that unless we have a 13 better -- well, how shall I say, unless we have a 14 good proportion of animals with radio collars that 15 are tracked on a reasonable basis, then knowing the 16 calving distribution will be -- or the calving 17 distribution will be virtually unknown. 18 MS. AVERY KINEW: I just wondered in your 19 own research, did you work with Native people, Native 20 hunters, indigenous science, traditional knowledge, 21 because this one relies quite a bit on -- 22 MR. SCHAEFER: Increasingly so. The four 23 years that I spent in Labrador, we had increasing 24 cooperation and a collaboration particularly with the 25 Innu Nation. So we had them with us on some of the 4736 1 arrow surveys that we did. We worked on other 2 species like porcupine and instituted studies with 3 them. And indeed they were the leaders I would say 4 in conservation initiatives for other populations 5 like the Mealy Mountain caribou herd in Eastern 6 Labrador. 7 MS. AVERY KINEW: That's why I was 8 wondering about one of your recommendations for 9 possibly saying a wildlife road refuge or something 10 else for the caribou, if the Province of Manitoba 11 were to set it aside, you would think it would be 12 more important to be co-management in minimum, that 13 it would have to be with the Native people, with 14 First Nation? 15 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, I would agree. As I 16 said, the common consent is the basis for wildlife 17 management. We need to have people by and large 18 agree with the regulations that are put in place and 19 that's certainly my experience in Labrador. 20 MS. AVERY KINEW: Not just agree but also 21 help plan and -- 22 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, that's right. 23 MS. AVERY KINEW: Okay. Thank you very 24 much. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Other questions? 4737 1 MR. SOPROVICH: Hello, my name is Dan 2 Soprovich. I am a consultant with Manitoba 3 Wildlands. Dr. Schaefer, just as a starting point. 4 I wonder if you can tell us, give us a sense of how 5 many peer-reviewed journal level publications you 6 have on woodland caribou, approximately? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: About a dozen. 8 MR. SOPROVICH: About a dozen. And that 9 is over about a 15 year period; would that be 10 correct? 11 MR. SCHAEFER: Thirteen years. 12 MR. SOPROVICH: Thirteen years, okay. 13 Thank you very much. We heard some -- when I've been 14 in this room, we've heard a little bit about the 15 caribou that came south to Thompson some three years 16 ago or so, a considerable number of them. I 17 contacted Mr. Darryl Hedman who is the regional 18 wildlife manager out at Thompson the other day and he 19 told me this was the Penn Island herd. Are these 20 Penn Island caribou, are these the migratory ecotype 21 you talked about or would they be the sedentary type? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: Those would be the 23 migratory ecotype. 24 MR. SOPROVICH: We're talking about 25 woodland caribou here and this boreal population that 4738 1 we're concerned about here, we're talking about the 2 sedentary type? 3 MR. SCHAEFER: Exactly yes, that's right. 4 MR. SOPROVICH: Okay. Thank you. I have 5 been exposed to certain information on the Kississing 6 Naosap herd which is a herd of woodland caribou that 7 is found, oh, sort of west of Snow Lake, south of the 8 Thompson highway and then north towards Flin Flon. 9 And with that particular herd, there are some 10 individuals that go through some fairly large burns 11 and they calve on islands and lakes during the 12 summer. So I'm just wondering, does that surprise 13 you? 14 MR. SCHAEFER: No, it doesn't. The work 15 that we did in Southeastern Manitoba near Wallace 16 Lake, I tracked caribou for two years there on skis 17 during the winter and they did traverse burns, 18 probably less frequently than one would expect. But 19 they showed that fidelity to the range even though it 20 had burned four or five years earlier, but that was 21 declining. What we found was after five years, they 22 had moved entirely out of their pre-fire range and 23 largely out of the burn that occurred in 1980. 24 MR. SOPROVICH: Yes. These particular 25 caribou I am talking about don't winter in the burn 4739 1 but they do calve on some islands and lakes in the 2 burn. So it would be possible perhaps that this burn 3 where this hydro line goes through, there could be 4 some suitable calving spots that these woodland 5 caribou still might show some fidelity; is that 6 correct? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: It is possible although I 8 would -- if I could ask you a question, were those 9 islands themselves burned? 10 MR. SOPROVICH: I couldn't say. I would 11 suspect not. 12 MR. SCHAEFER: I would suspect not 13 either. And we know those animals again show that 14 strong fidelity. They return often to the very same 15 island as they did the year before and I think that's 16 particularly true if they have success of recruiting 17 a calf. And so they may continue to show that 18 fidelity even though the circumstances of travel to 19 get there are not as suitable as they once were. 20 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you. We have heard 21 observations about caribou grazing along highways 22 and I just wanted to ask you a question. Do you 23 think those particular caribou, would they be grazing 24 on Native species or perhaps some introduced species? 25 MR. SCHAEFER: It's hard to say. What we 4740 1 do know about caribou diets is they are rather 2 catholic. In other words, there's a wide range of 3 plants that are included in the caribou diet. So it 4 wouldn't surprise me if they were using species that 5 might be located along roadways. 6 MR. SOPROVICH: And if they were using 7 these things and grazing along these roads, might 8 that make them somewhat vulnerable to various things, 9 sources of mortality? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: Well, one would imagine 11 that harvests of course would be the chief concern 12 there. The work by Adam James in Alberta suggests 13 that strongly as well as wolves. We know that wolves 14 use corridors like roads and seismic lines to access 15 caribou range and this can lead to higher mortality. 16 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you. You 17 referenced populations rates of increase. You talked 18 about population rates of increase and you cited 19 Brown's work, Brown and Caughley's work as being 20 somewhat of an anomaly amongst the other ones in 21 terms of it being a positive number and increasing 22 population in that particular study. Did you look at 23 Metsaranta's? I didn't see if you cited Metsaranta's 24 work? 25 MR. SCHAEFER: No, I didn't cite that. 4741 1 MR. SOPROVICH: Metsaranta did a little 2 piece of work on the Kississing Naosap herd and it's 3 probably not in the primary literature now but I have 4 access to his thesis. And again, this is for a 5 population in Northern Manitoba to the west of the 6 Wabowden population or Wabowden herd. And I just 7 wanted to maybe let you know that his conclusions and 8 findings were that that population is fairly stable. 9 He observed or estimated a female survival rate of 10 10 per cent. Now that would be fairly high, wouldn't 11 that be correct? 12 MR. SCHAEFER: Survival rate or mortality 13 rate? 14 MR. SOPROVICH: Mortality rate, sorry. 15 MR. SCHAEFER: That would be typical of a 16 woodland caribou population that's stable. 17 MR. SOPROVICH: So we've got two studies 18 that have been done here in Northern Manitoba and 19 both of them seem to be somewhat atypical from the 20 rest of the other studies in that they found stable 21 and/or increasing rates of increase. Can you 22 speculate why there might be this difference in 23 Northern Manitoba? 24 MR. SCHAEFER: It would be -- it would be 25 speculation given my lack of understanding of the 4742 1 area. But it does seem, if we take a look at range 2 recession, the maps that are available for North 3 America, it certainly seems that Manitoba probably 4 seems to have done proportionately better than other 5 provinces. And Ontario is probably typical but we 6 have provinces that have lost their populations 7 entirely. So Manitoba may have, I would say, an 8 opportunity that say the Maritime provinces will 9 never have. They have lost that. 10 MR. SOPROVICH: Might you expect that 11 overall levels of disturbance by humans might be 12 somewhat greater in the southern mart of Manitoba 13 than the northern part of Manitoba? 14 MR. SCHAEFER: One of the areas where we 15 know caribou have disappeared in Manitoba is south of 16 the Winnipeg River. And again, I don't know of any 17 detailed maps of caribou distribution in this 18 province but I'd be very surprised if you plotted the 19 extent of roads and other kinds of development in 20 this province and looked at the extent of caribou 21 range, almost certainly they would be the mirror 22 image as we'd find in Ontario. 23 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you. You also 24 talked about James and Stuart-Smith study and you 25 noted that of the five caribou killed by humans in 4743 1 that particular study, two of the five were found 2 within about 30 metres of the access, the corridor. 3 And the other three were located somewhat further 4 away. You didn't cite the exact number. 5 Would you perhaps agree that the real 6 significant finding is not so much location relative 7 to the corridor, but the fact that five were killed 8 and that perhaps in the absence of that good access, 9 maybe all five might have survived? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: That's a reasonable 11 observation. What we believe about woodland caribou 12 is that harvest mortalities, what we call additive -- 13 in other words, for each individual that dies, 14 there's probably not a response, a positive response 15 of the rest of the population because they are being 16 held down by predators and other kinds of regulating 17 factors. And therefore, the loss of woodland 18 caribou, each individual, particularly adult females 19 that are lost is a significant loss for the 20 population. 21 MR. SOPROVICH: I guess that doesn't 22 really answer my question. I think what I was trying 23 to suggest was that if those access roads hadn't been 24 there, maybe all five wouldn't have been killed by 25 humans. Does that seem reasonable? 4744 1 MR. SCHAEFER: No access road and yet 2 harvest? 3 MR. SOPROVICH: I'm saying the actual 4 study related the locations of the harvests to the 5 distance from the linear corridors. Now what I'm 6 saying is if those linear corridors hadn't been 7 there, maybe all five might not have been killed by 8 humans. In other words, the fact that humans killed 9 these was probably directly related to the fact that 10 those corridors allowed them to access the general 11 area. 12 MR. SCHAEFER: That's the conclusion by 13 the authors even though statistically, the result was 14 not statistically significant. They still made 15 explicit mention of that possibility. 16 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you. You have 17 indicated that wolves will make use of corridors. Do 18 you have any experience or knowledge of wolves using 19 packed snowmobile trails? Do they tend to use those 20 preferentially at all? 21 MR. SCHAEFER: I have some personal 22 experience of that. And that in the Wallace Lake 23 area, I was skiing along a packed skidoo trail and 24 followed I believe it was two wolf tracks. They 25 stayed on that trail at least five kilometres. 4745 1 MR. SOPROVICH: Might that also -- the 2 behaviour in relationship to packed snowmobile 3 trails, might it relate to snow depths as well or 4 snow characteristics? 5 MR. SCHAEFER: Oh, I think so. The 6 advantages of travelling on them are largely 7 energetic. So it's no surprise that animals like 8 wolves will take advantage of that. 9 MR. SOPROVICH: So might it also be 10 reasonable to suggest that these packed snowmobile 11 trails would help make wolves more efficient 12 predators? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: I would think so. Search 14 time is probably the important determinant of whether 15 or not caribou fall prey to wolves. Anything that 16 increase search efficiency would likely increase the 17 predation rate. 18 MR. SOPROVICH: Might it also be 19 reasonable to suggest that increasing access to 20 areas, caribou ranges that were previously isolated 21 might also tend to allow wolves to access these sites 22 more easily? 23 MR. SCHAEFER: That's the conclusion from 24 James and Stuart-Smith's study, yes. 25 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you. Would you 4746 1 suggest or agree that creating access for wolves and 2 humans into caribou winter range and range in general 3 is a significant caribou conservation issue? 4 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 5 MR. SOPROVICH: That's all the questions 6 I have, thank you. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Other questions? Are you 8 available for a while longer? There appears to be 9 other questions and we normally would take a short 10 break about now but proceed with your questions, 11 we'll take the break after. 12 MR. SCHAEFER: I am available. My flight 13 leaves today, Mr. Chairman, 6:20 p.m. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: We're doing fine. 15 MR. LINKLATER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: Your name? 17 MR. LINKLATER: My name is Darcy 18 Linklater from the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation. I'd 19 like to say good morning to all the Commissioners and 20 all the participants in this hearing. I'd like to 21 thank Dr. Schaefer for his presentation and 22 especially I'd like to thank you for your positive 23 comments on Native science. 24 I got excited in 1987 as a Native person, 25 as a Cree person when I heard about the definition on 4747 1 sustainable development. And I thought finally we 2 have an effect on western science. Native science 3 has an effect on western scientists. And that 4 definition contains our philosophy with respect to 5 sustainable development. 6 And I don't know, you've been doing 7 extensive research in Manitoba, I don't know if you 8 are aware that in 1987, I was working for the 9 Department of Natural Resource at that time. It's 10 called Manitoba Conservation now. In 1987 and 1988, 11 one of the elders approached me and he said you work 12 for government, you should pay attention to this 13 caribou between Nelson House and Thompson. 14 As a result of that initiative by the 15 elder, by the local elder, I talked to the biologist 16 in Thompson region and we went flying around at that 17 time. I only counted 13 caribou. We've seen wolf 18 kills at that time. So I'm proud to sit here and 19 also been told that there are 200 caribou, 200 plus 20 caribou now and it's because of that initiative by 21 the elder. I'm very proud of that. I don't know if 22 you are aware, I think it was shared to the 23 Commission yesterday or the other day. 24 But first as a result of that elder's 25 initiative, they did a study, a Manitoba Conservation 4748 1 and biologist Cam Elliot. And that was as a result 2 of the Article 15 of the Northern Flood Agreement. 3 And I don't know if you are aware that 4 also under Article 15.7 of the Northern Flood 5 Agreement that our people were trained on resource 6 management. Some of them are here today. 7 And in 2002, I don't know if this was 8 shared with you, that our women, the Nisichawayasihk 9 Cree Nation women and also the youth and the elders, 10 we did a woodland caribou habitat research project. 11 And this project was as a result of Article 6 of our 12 1996 Implementation Agreement. And this project was 13 a partnership between Nelson House Resource 14 Management Board under Article 6 of the 1996 15 Agreement in Partnership with Manitoba Conservation, 16 Aboriginal Northern Affairs and Environment Canada 17 and also Manitoba Hydro continued to provide 18 additional financial support for this project. I 19 don't know if you are aware of that, if you've got a 20 copy of that study. Our goal was to document local 21 knowledge about woodland caribou. 22 And also as a part of our land use 23 planning -- 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Linklater, I suspect 25 there's a question coming and I'm just awaiting it. 4749 1 MR. LINKLATER: I asked questions. I 2 don't know if you are aware of our initiatives but we 3 are initiated by our people and our elders. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: I'm just waiting for when 5 you will give him the chance -- 6 MR. LINKLATER: No, no. I contained 7 questions in my comment, Mr. Chairman. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We're awaiting the 9 questions. 10 MR. LINKLATER: I asked the questions 11 already. I don't know if you are aware of these 12 initiatives by our people, Mr. Schaefer? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: I am not. 14 MR. LINKLATER: Thank you. 15 MR. SCHAEFER: Thank you. 16 MR. LINKLATER: Thank you. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Linklater. 18 We shall take a 15 minute break. We will start again 19 at 25 to 12:00. 20 21 (PROCEEDINGS RECESSED AT 11:24 A.M. and 22 RECONVENED AT 11:40 a.m.) 23 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Soprovich. 25 MR. SOPROVICH: I just got lost in my 4750 1 page here so I've got one more question. I 2 apologize. 3 I just wanted to talk about the concept 4 of habitat partitioning and principally with respect 5 to or have you respond to the concept of habitat 6 partitioning and I'm talking about principally moose 7 and caribou. 8 In the absence of the type of 9 anthropogenic influences that we see in caribou 10 range, I guess I'm thinking before these things came 11 about and even to some degree since then, we tend to 12 see moose and caribou separate to some degree in 13 terms of their habitat use and spatially across 14 landscapes. Can you comment on this? 15 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, that's true. If we 16 take a look at some work by Harold Cumming, for 17 example, there is spatial separation that occurs 18 between those two ungulate species, between moose and 19 caribou. 20 MR. SOPROVICH: When we now start to put 21 together or put these human disturbance events onto 22 these landscapes where these animals occur, do we 23 have a concern about this in terms of how these 24 animals might, the partitioning might change? 25 MR. SCHAEFER: Well, generally moose and 4751 1 white-tailed deer are deer species that respond 2 positively to most kinds of disturbance. So they are 3 well-adapted to take advantage of the kinds of 4 successional stages after fire or after logging. So 5 they tend to increase in abundance if there's a 6 adequate shelter for them. 7 The concern for woodland caribou is that 8 with increases of those other two species, they often 9 bring with them increases in predators or increases 10 in parasites. For example, for white-tailed deer, 11 there is a meningeal worm, a brain worm that's a 12 natural parasite of white-tailed deer. It is lethal 13 to woodland caribou. 14 Similarly, if we have increases in those 15 ungulate species, those deer species, then we can get 16 increases in predators such as wolves. And 17 incidentally then, the rate of predation increases on 18 woodland caribou and can cause their demise. 19 MR. SOPROVICH: So if this particular 20 transmission corridor or transmission line because of 21 some of the young shrubs and the like, young trees 22 that come up in response to the clearing, with those 23 things being adjacent to some very good cover for 24 moose, we might perhaps see a positive response by 25 moose in these areas? 4752 1 MR. SCHAEFER: I would think so. The 2 general rule of thumb for increasing moose 3 populations, does it have food close to cover. So 4 increases in browse with some coniferous cover 5 generally will allow for a positive response for 6 moose. 7 MR. SOPROVICH: And just lastly here, I'm 8 sure you are aware of the strategy for woodland 9 caribou in Ontario. And as I understand it, the idea 10 is to try and separate the woodland caribou and the 11 moose principally by actually having fairly large cut 12 blocks so that these species can be separated in 13 time; is that correct? 14 MR. SCHAEFER: The key to woodland 15 caribou again seems to be refugia. In other words, 16 large areas of intact forest away from disturbances, 17 that's their key. And this seems to be the strategy 18 that's being adopted in Ontario. 19 MR. SOPROVICH: Thank you very much. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: Other questions? 21 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Good morning, Dr. 22 Schaefer. This is a non-scientist asking a couple of 23 quick questions. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Your name for the record. 25 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I'm sorry, Gaile Whelan 4753 1 Enns. Good morning. 2 We have a lot of boreal forest in Canada, 3 specifically millions and millions of hectares of 4 intact boreal forest in Northwest Ontario and 5 Manitoba. Can you tell us for the lay person what 6 the relationship is between the health of woodland 7 caribou and the health of boreal forest ecosystems? 8 MR. SCHAEFER: Generally, as that map I 9 showed you from Ontario seems to show quite clearly, 10 is that intact boreal forests, those that are largely 11 free of anthropogenic disturbances, are the areas 12 where caribou persist. And areas that are affected, 13 they are areas where we have encroached, caribou have 14 disappeared. 15 Also the concept in biology that we use 16 with respect to indicator species, umbrella species 17 in particular is one that's applied to woodland 18 caribou. And the idea here is essentially that if we 19 conserve woodland caribou, then there's likely to be 20 a whole range of boreal forest species that are 21 conserved at the same time. And the reasons for that 22 again are likely due to the requirements of the 23 species, woodland caribou, for space. If large areas 24 of intact boreal forests, then other species are 25 likely to persist along with woodland caribou. 4754 1 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Would you tell us what 2 happens to the other species if the woodland caribou 3 are absent from a range that they were in? 4 MR. SCHAEFER: The effects are 5 detrimental but it will depend on which species you 6 are discussing. For example, we know that caribou 7 are prey for bears, for wolves. They are carrion for 8 ravens and wolverines. Their loss then is a 9 disruption to that ecosystem functioning. 10 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Has there ever been an 11 estimate made of the -- and again, it's a general 12 question -- the number of species that are most 13 likely to be found in an intact healthy boreal forest 14 range where the woodland caribou are using it? 15 MR. SCHAEFER: I don't have that number 16 on the tip of my tongue but there certainly are very 17 good accounts of the number of plants and animals and 18 other species that one finds in typical boreal forest 19 or taiga. 20 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Thank you. May I ask 21 you whether you have read the Manitoba Woodland 22 Caribou Strategy? 23 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, I have. 24 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Did you identify which 25 woodland caribou herds are listed as being at high or 4755 1 moderate risk that are in the vicinity then of either 2 the generation station or the transmission system for 3 Wuskwatim? 4 MR. SCHAEFER: There is a nice table in 5 that strategy. I would have to pull it out. My 6 recollection is that the Wabowden herd was one of 7 them, the Reid Lake herd I think was another. That's 8 my recollection. 9 MS. WHELAN ENNS: For the record, this is 10 page 8 in the Manitoba's Woodland Caribou Strategy 11 and the chart lists the Wabowden woodland caribou 12 herd being at high risk from timber harvesting, 13 hydro, mining, hunting and access overall and 14 predators. The Reid Lake herd is actually referred 15 to as the Reid Yawning (ph) Stone Clearwater Lakes 16 herd. And the impacts are similar in the listing 17 though not yet identified from hydro activity. 18 Now I am pretty sure then that the 19 Kississing herd, is it elsewhere in the province? 20 MR. MAYER: Kississing Lake is northwest 21 of Snow Lake. 22 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Then perhaps that's 23 potentially within the regions. Thank you. We'll 24 set that aside. 25 Is it your finding and a basis for your 4756 1 work that anticipating and identifying the impact of 2 combined threats on the same landscape to woodland 3 caribou is timely but also difficult to do? For 4 instance, if you have roads already and you're having 5 a detailed assessment in respect to future logging 6 operations or a development like Wuskwatim, what 7 steps are needed and what sets of information are 8 needed to be able to actually talk about the impacts 9 combining or maybe even accelerating for the caribou? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: This is very difficult, 11 these kinds of piecemeal developments. The 12 cumulative impacts are, in my view, the kinds of what 13 we call non-linear in biology. In other words, if 14 you double the area affected, you don't get a 15 doubling of the effect, you get something greater 16 than that. And these make predictions very 17 difficult. 18 The best example of that is some of the 19 work by Nellemann in Norway where he looked at 20 piecemeal developments of roads, hydro lines and the 21 like and found that there was an apparent demographic 22 effect; in other words, a decline in reproduction of 23 reindeer. Less than 1 per cent of the area was 24 actually affected and yet he found that more than 25 three-quarters of the area was within four kilometres 4757 1 of any one of those developments. 2 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Thank you. Are you a 3 participant in or aware of mechanisms from technical 4 work and woodland caribou reviews and scientific 5 projects in Manitoba for peer review? I'm sorry 6 about the structure of the sentence. But basically 7 what I'm asking you is whether you are aware of how 8 peer review was put in place when we are doing 9 technical work in Manitoba regarding woodland 10 caribou? 11 MR. SCHAEFER: Well, generally in 12 science, one proceeds by doing the research, 13 analyzing it, writing it and then submitting it to 14 what we call scholarly or peer review journals. In 15 other words, those that are familiar with the topic 16 analyze and look at the manuscript to make sure that 17 the analysis is done properly, that the conclusions 18 drawn are done legitimately. 19 There is a few publications from this 20 province, Kim Brown's work in the Wabowden area, some 21 of the work that Bill Pruitt and I did. I'm not 22 aware of any other such publications. 23 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Thank you very much. 24 Thank you to the Chair. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Mayer. 4758 1 MR. MAYER: Doctor, just one question 2 arising out of what I think were Ms. Whelan Enns' 3 comments, not a question. She mentioned the Wabowden 4 herd. Now I'm not sure whether it was in your 5 initial presentation or in your response to Mr. 6 Soprovich, but I thought I heard you say good things 7 about the Wabowden herd so I am surprised to hear 8 that it's at high risk. 9 MR. SCHAEFER: The strategy I think takes 10 a look not only at current trends but also likely a 11 degree of impending threats. And so my 12 understanding, reading the conservation strategy, is 13 that many of these herds are scheduled for 14 developments. And given what we know about, as I 15 discussed earlier, about the effects of those, then I 16 think there's good reason for listing them at low, 17 medium, high risk and Wabowden is one of those. 18 We also have to be aware of the length of 19 time over which some of these studies have taken 20 place. Designating a herd as stable or increasing or 21 declining really depends strongly on how long a 22 perspective one takes at making that designation. 23 And so we may have stability for two years, growth 24 for two years, decline for two years, but a better 25 measure will be a long-term study where we take a 4759 1 look at caribou in this province for decades for 2 example. 3 MR. MAYER: When you commented on the 4 Wabowden herd, and I thought favourably, what kind of 5 period of time are we talking about regarding the 6 statistics you have? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: It was a two year period 8 and showing positive growth which is exceptional for 9 woodland caribou herds in Canada. 10 MR. MAYER: Thank you. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 12 MR. MILLER: Hello, Dr. Schaefer, I'm 13 Peter Miller representing TREE and RCM in these 14 proceedings. And my questions go back to a couple of 15 things, one is the Ontario strategy and the other is 16 cumulative effects since logging is likely to be one 17 of the other impacts in the area. 18 I am wondering if you could comment. I 19 mean you correlate the recession of caribou range 20 with the increase in logging I think. But then you 21 also, in the paper that I read, indicated logging 22 might be a proxy for a variety of activities and 23 presumably, the creation of roads and access would be 24 one of those. 25 My question has to do with potential 4760 1 strategies with respect to the logging component. If 2 there is road management and vigorous road retirement 3 and replanting and so on, and if there is a policy of 4 retaining a certain amount of the older habitat and 5 rotating by logging in a fashion that tries to 6 emulate what fire does, do you think that that is 7 likely to be a successful mitigative strategy for the 8 logging component of the cumulative effect? 9 MR. SCHAEFER: That's a very good 10 question. I might start by answering in the 11 negative. In other words, we know what isn't going 12 to work is what we've been using to this point. And 13 so Ontario is looking, I think other jurisdictions 14 are looking, at emulating disturbance as a means to 15 try to conserve sensitive species like woodland 16 caribou. We know that caribou have lived in a fire 17 prone ecosystem for millennia. And so one might 18 expect that emulating fire through logging would be 19 sufficient to maintain their persistence. 20 The concern of course, as you alluded to 21 to some extent, is that one thing that fire doesn't 22 create are roads. And so part of the mitigation that 23 would be to try to decommission roads and remove 24 access and use of them. 25 The answer to your question is difficult 4761 1 to give because these kinds of effects take long-term 2 studies before we really have the answer. 3 I would think that emulation of 4 disturbance might be successful but what is needed, 5 as I mentioned earlier about this project, is to 6 treat those strategies as experiments. In other 7 words, it may take us 10 years, it might take 20 8 years for us to get a definitive answer, but we need 9 to start now to get that answer. 10 I don't know if I addressed your question 11 satisfactorily. 12 MR. MILLER: I think so. But given the 13 state of knowledge and absence of knowledge of 14 uncertainty, are those, again thinking of the logging 15 component or the cumulative effect, are those the 16 most reasonable strategies to pursue or do you have 17 any alternatives that you would recommend? 18 MR. SCHAEFER: We have to be careful that 19 I think that when we develop those strategies is that 20 we're not developing them for a given quantity of 21 timber. In other words, we need "X" cubic metres of 22 pulp wood and timber and that this is how we're going 23 to cut in order to get that quantity. We have to 24 look at the forest and the conservation of caribou as 25 the constraint on our desires for other things from 4762 1 the boreal forest. And therefore, that may mean some 2 difficult choices. 3 I would say in a more philosophical tone, 4 the sooner we come to some accommodation of that, the 5 more likely we are going to be successful. And what 6 we learn from resource management difficulties, like 7 Northern cod, for example, in Newfoundland, is that 8 the longer we let these situations persist, knowing 9 that we're not doing things correctly, the more 10 costly they are at the end. 11 And therefore, the emulation strategy 12 might be the solution but we have to temper that with 13 our understanding presently of what we know caribou 14 need for their persistence. 15 MR. MILLER: I take it that part of your 16 answer was we can't say we are definitely going to 17 get a get a certain volume out of this area and, you 18 know, how can we do it with the least damage? That 19 part of the answer might be saying we should be 20 prepared to reduce the volume. Is that a correct 21 interpretation of what you said? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: That's possible. There 23 certainly are high expectations for what the boreal 24 forest is going to provide for us. And yet we've 25 couched it in terms of sustainability. 4763 1 The lesson that we have for more than 110 2 years for woodland caribou is that what we are doing 3 is not sustainable for that species. So we may have 4 to -- if we want to indeed look for sustainable 5 resource management, then we may have to temper our 6 expectations somewhat. 7 MR. MILLER: Okay. Thank you very much. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Other questions? Is this 9 your re-examination? 10 MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah, I just want to ask a 11 couple of questions. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Then I will let Mr. 13 Bedford go before. 14 MR. SULLIVAN: Sure. 15 MR. BEDFORD: Almost good afternoon, Dr. 16 Schaefer, but I think we're still in the morning. My 17 name is Doug Bedford. I'm counsel for Manitoba 18 Hydro. And I too would like to thank you for joining 19 us today. 20 One of several things I expect that we're 21 going to be able to agree upon is something that I 22 read yesterday in anticipation of your visit with us 23 today but you'll tell me. What I read was, 24 "Linear corridors may affect woodland 25 caribou habitat utilization well 4764 1 beyond the immediate footprint of the 2 corridor on the ground both in terms 3 of habitat use and potentially habitat 4 preference during movement." 5 As I say, I assume that that's a 6 statement that you would endorse? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 8 MR. BEDFORD: And having had the benefit, 9 after I read that, of reading both your written 10 presentation today and I must tell you several of the 11 articles that you have written over the years, one of 12 the things I have learned from what you've written is 13 that one of the challenges in your field, 14 particularly when one looks at woodland caribou, is 15 trying to predict the extent of this effect beyond 16 the footprint of a linear corridor; am I correct? 17 MR. SCHAEFER: It has been a challenge 18 but if you look at the table that I presented today, 19 it is becoming predictable. In other words, one to 20 five kilometres, this is, I would say, a reasonable 21 prediction based on our experiences to date. 22 MR. BEDFORD: And I gather that one of 23 the tools that professionals such as yourself have 24 used over the years is, as you mentioned, you do 25 research, you do studies, others do the same and 4765 1 those studies are recorded and written in 2 professional journals and you each read and rely upon 3 one another's work? 4 MR. SCHAEFER: Caribou are well-studied 5 species and certainly there are a large number of us 6 that do caribou research, yes. 7 MR. BEDFORD: One of the things I would 8 like to show you, and you'll tell me in a moment 9 whether you've had the opportunity of seeing it 10 earlier, is something that the proponents have filed 11 in this proceeding. And at this time, my assistant, 12 Mr. McMahon, is going to do me the kindness of 13 delivering this over to you and a few copies for our 14 Commissioners. 15 I can tell you, Dr. Schaefer, that those 16 of us who have been involved in this process, 17 certainly in the last six months, will recognize this 18 as an interrogatory answer to a question that was 19 posed a number of months ago, in this case by the 20 Canadian Nature Federation, Manitoba Wildlands to the 21 EIS proceeding. It's 182A. 22 Did you have the opportunity to read this 23 particular interrogatory answer which is devoted to 24 woodland caribou? 25 MR. SCHAEFER: I did take a look at 4766 1 several interrogatories. I do not think that I 2 looked at this one, however. 3 MR. BEDFORD: Okay. I am not going to 4 ask you to take the time at the moment to read it all 5 because it's fairly lengthy. My particular interest 6 takes me and you to page 7 which you will see is a 7 table. And I'm sure when you cast your eyes down the 8 table, you'll recognize the names of a number of 9 authors of professional studies and I was alert 10 enough to hear you mention Simon Dyer studies. You 11 mentioned on a couple of occasions, James and 12 Stuart-Smith. And what I understand from this table 13 is it was set out as a useful summary of some of the 14 information that comes from the articles that these 15 various authors have written. And I noted in your 16 written presentation material that you cite, in that 17 material, a Simon Dyer study from Alberta. I am 18 correct, am I not? 19 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, that's correct. 20 MR. BEDFORD: Now, I'm told that the one 21 kilometre allowance that was made on behalf of the 22 proponents in preparing the EIS was based in large 23 part upon the work done by Simon Dyer and those 24 professionals in Manitoba who prepared the EIS read 25 Simon Dyer's study and James and Stuart-Smith's 4767 1 study. I of course noticed that you chose an even 2 broader extent in your written presentation and you 3 made reference to a 2.5 kilometre extent. I gather 4 that comes largely from reading the work, and you've 5 mentioned his name several times, of Mr. Nellemann or 6 Dr. Nellemann? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, that's correct. 8 MR. BEDFORD: His work was done in Norway 9 with respect to reindeer; am I correct? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, that's correct. 11 MR. BEDFORD: And I must confess, I've 12 never had the pleasure of visiting Norway but I 13 recall from my high school geography that it's a 14 somewhat long narrow country mountainous and it 15 didn't surprise me when you answered one of Ms. 16 Whelan Enns' questions that the detail of the study 17 indicates that there is a relative proximity, I think 18 you said four kilometres, between much of the human 19 disturbance that takes place in Norway and places 20 where we find reindeer in Norway; would I be correct? 21 MR. SCHAEFER: His analysis, at least one 22 of them, was that indeed there were measurable 23 effects up to four kilometres. 24 MR. BEDFORD: One of the papers I read 25 before I had the material that I was presented with 4768 1 yesterday afternoon that you have written is a paper 2 that was published in 2002. And you prepared it in 3 conjunction with Mr. Mahoney. I am sure you'll 4 recall this. In fact, you've alluded to it a couple 5 of times today, "Hydroelectric Development and the 6 Disruption of Migration in Caribou." And I was 7 particularly attracted to your concluding remarks in 8 that paper where, you may recall, you wrote, 9 "Given the degree of variation between 10 caribou populations, their ranges and 11 the form of human developments, we are 12 yet to arrive at a predictive 13 understanding of where and when these 14 thresholds exist." 15 And when I read that, I thought that does sound 16 familiar from the other reading I have now had to do 17 about woodland caribou, that this ability or this 18 task of trying to predict the extent of effects is 19 simply not an exact science where woodland caribou 20 are concerned? 21 MR. SCHAEFER: That extract that you 22 referred to refers in particular to demographic 23 effects. In other words, we are often most 24 interested in reductions or impairments to survival 25 or to recruitment, in other words, changes to 4769 1 population growth. The approach that caribou 2 biologists have taken is largely with respect to 3 changes in distribution and movements. In other 4 words, because of the mobility of caribou, because of 5 their difficulty, for example, in having a control in 6 space or having long enough experiments through time, 7 caribou biologists therefore have looked at changes 8 in space use which we also know is fundamental to 9 caribou biology. 10 And as I noted in my written submission, 11 I think those reactions, spatially, are good 12 indicators of what the effects are on that species. 13 MR. BEDFORD: I was a little surprised to 14 find that you made no reference to your paper on 15 hydroelectric development in caribou in the 16 presentation that you prepared for us today. I'm a 17 little curious as to why not. I would have thought 18 simply on the basis of the title alone that it would 19 have been one of the more relevant works that you 20 have authored, that you would have wanted to have 21 brought to our attention? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: And indeed I did show you 23 a slide. It was the first one I believe Star Lake 24 development, the reduction in -- a 50 per cent 25 reduction in activity in and around the access road 4770 1 and reservoir. I can show that to you again if you'd 2 like. 3 MR. BEDFORD: Well, the conclusion I 4 reached when I read your other papers was that you 5 had not made direct reference in the written material 6 to your paper from Newfoundland on hydroelectric 7 development because the Buchans Plateau caribou herd, 8 which was the subject of that paper, is a migratory 9 herd as opposed to, and as you've made clear, we're 10 talking about sedentary herds in Manitoba? 11 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes, there were two 12 aspects to that paper. One was to take a look at the 13 redistribution of those animals. And again, I showed 14 you that earlier. The other was to take a look in 15 particular because this project was in the very 16 pathway of migration of this herd from its wintering 17 ground in the south to its calving ground in the 18 north. So we had additional interest in looking at 19 how that migration itself might be disrupted. 20 And indeed we found some evidence that 21 there was some disruption of that, particularly 22 during the construction phase of that project. 23 MR. BEDFORD: And help me out with 24 something that initially caused me some confusion, 25 which was the subject of female caribou returning to 4771 1 the same site to calve each year. And when I first 2 saw a reference to that in your papers, what I 3 imagined in my own mind was a female caribou 4 returning to exactly the same spot where she had 5 calved the previous year. But when I read some of 6 your other papers, I gathered with respect to 7 sedentary herds that when you say returned to the 8 same spot, it's really within a radius and I believe 9 one of your papers you said 6.7 kilometres? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. Fidelity is a 11 relative measure. And on average, we found that for 12 Red Wine Mountains caribou, it was I believe 6 13 kilometres was the average distance that a female 14 showed from one location to the next. Nonetheless, 15 there are, and these observations are personal and 16 anecdotal, of animals returning to precisely the same 17 island or point where we saw them the year before. 18 So some animals did not show that. 19 Our hypothesis was that the variation may 20 be a result of experience. In other words, females 21 that had successfully reared a calf were likely to 22 show stronger fidelity than those that were 23 unsuccessful. In other words, it makes somewhat good 24 evolutionary sense for an animal who has not had 25 success to try a different location. And that's 4772 1 probably the reason for the variation that we have 2 seen. 3 MR. BEDFORD: One of the other things I 4 have read in preparation for chatting with you, now 5 it's this afternoon rather than this morning, is that 6 roads have a higher effect on woodland caribou than 7 subtransmission lines. Would you agree that the 8 studies reflect that? 9 MR. SCHAEFER: It seems to be, to some 10 extent, a function of the degree of human activity 11 along these infrastructures. Nonetheless, the 12 relevant study I think that I can point to is that by 13 Nellemann again who showed I believe it was 2.5 14 kilometres from a powerline was the avoidance 15 distance even though there was no specific traffic 16 along those same powerlines. 17 MR. BEDFORD: Your experience with 18 woodland caribou I gather is particularly with Red 19 Wine Mountain herd which is in Northern Labrador and 20 the Buchans Plateau herd that we just talked about 21 that's in Newfoundland? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: I have worked on those 23 herds. I have also worked on the George River herd, 24 the Mealy Mountain herd in Labrador, what we used to 25 call the Aikins Lake herd here in Manitoba. More 4773 1 recently with the Middle Ridge herd in East Central 2 Newfoundland, the island, and we have some -- we're 3 just beginning some studies now in Ontario where 4 we're looking at essentially the whole province where 5 we're looking at the degree of landscape disturbance 6 in relationship to the range recession that I noted 7 earlier. 8 MR. BEDFORD: I asked you about herds 9 because unlike many people in the room, I have had 10 the benefit of being able to chat with professionals 11 like yourself who do study caribou. And one of the 12 things they observed to me was that every herd is 13 different and that specialists in your field 14 recognize that you really have to know your herd. 15 Would you agree with that comment? 16 MR. SCHAEFER: We do need to define 17 populations. So the word "herd" is the traditional 18 one that caribou biologists have used. That label 19 most aptly applies to the migratory herds. In other 20 words, the George River population indeed aggregates 21 on a traditional calving ground on the banks of the 22 George River. 23 What we see with the forest dwelling 24 populations or herds is that their bounds are much 25 more -- are much harder to define. They occupy what 4774 1 Tom Bergerud has called a region of favourable 2 calving sites. Because of that dispersion, it's 3 difficult to define populations exactly. But 4 nonetheless, we must do it for management. 5 MR. BEDFORD: And I am reminded that we 6 sometimes or you professionals sometimes interchange 7 the word "herd" for "range" or have I misunderstood? 8 MR. SCHAEFER: The "herd" really refers 9 to the animals or population. The "range" usually 10 refers to the area over which they occupy or use. 11 MR. BEDFORD: There is a statement in the 12 Environmental Impact Statement that I have read and I 13 found it in one of the sections you identify as 14 having read in your paper that woodland caribou were 15 of particular concern to the Nisichawayasihk Cree 16 Nation. I'm sure that's not a surprise to you? 17 MR. SCHAEFER: No. 18 MR. BEDFORD: And I gather from some of 19 the answers you've given to the questions of others 20 that you do accord and would accord some deference to 21 the knowledge that has been provided in this process 22 by members of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation with 23 respect to the herd that's found in their resource 24 management area? 25 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 4775 1 MR. BEDFORD: And I'm sure would endorse 2 what I'm told is a practice that's now followed by 3 the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation where they have their 4 own management practice for the harvesting of the 5 caribou in their resource management area? 6 MR. SCHAEFER: This is essential. 7 MR. BEDFORD: One of the things that I 8 noted as others questioned you was your concern 9 regarding the absence of a lot of data, I think is 10 the way you put it, in the Environmental Impact 11 Statement on caribou. I initially noticed the same 12 thing when long ago I had to look at the 13 Environmental Impact Statement. And certainly not 14 being a specialist such as yourself with caribou and 15 not being quite obviously a member of the 16 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, I wondered why there 17 wasn't more material there and got what I thought, 18 you may disagree with me, was a completely 19 satisfactory answer and that was that we had to be 20 very careful not to disclose in a document, that's 21 certainly a public document, precise calving 22 locations for woodland caribou because that would be 23 information that could be seriously abused by 24 dishonest two-legged predators with rifles. 25 MR. SCHAEFER: This certainly depends on 4776 1 the harvesting traditions of the people in the area 2 that we are concerned about. In Labrador, we did 3 have a map in our office that displayed caribou 4 locations but the range was virtually inaccessible. 5 So I agree though that the precise locations may be a 6 concern but I don't think that precludes analysis of 7 those data or some less precise disclosure of where 8 those calving locations are occurring. 9 MR. BEDFORD: And one of the things I 10 have also learned in this process with respect to the 11 subject of woodland caribou is that it's a really 12 daunting task for specialists such as yourself to 13 actually discover and know calving locations for 14 woodland caribou. I've heard you describe how the 15 female caribou are very secretive, shy, protective of 16 where they calve and that you really do have to rely 17 on either a lot of sophisticated scientific study 18 using GPS collaring or alternatively have the good 19 fortune of working in partnership with a community 20 such as the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation where 21 traditional harvesters and elders can provide you 22 with assistance on this subject? 23 MR. SCHAEFER: There is some information 24 and knowledge, yes. We know that caribou often calve 25 on islands, for example, so this was the approach 4777 1 that biologists often took. 2 The Innu in Labrador knew very well that 3 Red Wine Mountains caribou were disbursers in the 4 area they used to calve. For scientists, if we want 5 to know the distribution of that calving though, 6 radio telemetry, not necessarily GPS telemetry, but 7 radio telemetry is the means by which we can 8 determine that. 9 MR. BEDFORD: And if my employer had had 10 the good fortune to retain your services, perhaps in 11 planning say the transmission routes for the 12 transmission portion of the Wuskwatim projects, would 13 you agree with me that one of many pieces of advice 14 you might have given us, accepting, for arguments 15 sake, that a transmission line has to be built, that 16 we would be well-advised to avoid, along the 17 transmission route, any sites where local harvesters 18 told us caribou are known to calve, islands for 19 example, locations such as Partridge Crop Hill where 20 local residents warned us they had seen caribou and 21 they believe caribou use that particular area? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: The more information that 23 one can marshal for those kinds of answers, the 24 better. 25 MR. BEDFORD: And again, on the subject 4778 1 of transmission lines, and assuming for a moment that 2 the only variable we would have the luxury of 3 considering is the woodland caribou, ignoring all 4 other variables, would I be correct in concluding 5 that what would be best for the woodland caribou, 6 accepting that a transmission line has to be built 7 somewhere, what would be best is the shorter the 8 transmission lines, the better? 9 MR. SCHAEFER: All things being equal, 10 that would be true. But the distribution of range 11 use by those animals is also a consideration. 12 MR. BEDFORD: I heard Mr. Sargeant ask 13 you to speculate, which you did so gingerly, as to 14 how many of the 200 caribou which we know live within 15 the resource management area of the Nisichawayasihk 16 Cree Nation might be affected by these projects. I 17 did hear your answer. I was a little concerned in 18 your answer that you had not subtracted out of your 19 calculations those portions of the transmission lines 20 which, to my knowledge, lie outside the resource 21 management area of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation 22 but which I suspected you may not know lie beyond and 23 outside their resource management area. 24 MR. SCHAEFER: The approach I took in my 25 answer was largely that of what I saw in the EIS. In 4779 1 other words, the affected area times what I think is 2 likely a low, on the low side for a density for 3 woodland caribou. 4 As I had mentioned as well in my 5 presentation, I think a more effective estimate would 6 be the proportion of the area affected. We don't 7 need to know precisely the numbers of caribou there 8 but we can project the proportion that is likely to 9 be affected and that can be done using existing data, 10 if it was put to that effect. 11 MR. BEDFORD: And that was my concern, 12 that in turning to proportion, which is a 13 mathematical calculation, that you based, and I did 14 read your table in the paper, you were addressing in 15 the paper the entire area with further extent that 16 you use for both projects. And I'm not suggesting 17 that your calculation of the length the transmission 18 corridors was inaccurate, it was just that with 19 respect to the particular 200 animals in the 20 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, I was concerned that you 21 were including a broader calculation than what was 22 required to answer the question. 23 MR. SCHAEFER: Precisely. We need to use 24 the existing data, which I did not see in the EIS, to 25 answer that question in a more effective way. 4780 1 MR. BEDFORD: I do know from the 2 conclusion I read in your written paper that you do 3 agree that with respect to woodland caribou, it's 4 critical to have an access management plan for the 5 road that's described in the materials that will be 6 built to get into the sites at Taskinigup Falls and 7 Wuskwatim Falls? 8 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. 9 MR. BEDFORD: There is a draft Road 10 Access Management Plan that was filed in February. I 11 suspect that you didn't have an opportunity to review 12 that? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: No, I did not. 14 MR. BEDFORD: And finally, I certainly 15 know from the conclusions that you wrote and the 16 conclusions that you finished your oral presentation 17 with today that you agree that follow-up monitoring 18 is absolutely vital for these projects where woodland 19 caribou are concerned. And I was pleased to see that 20 your description of follow-up monitoring wasn't a 21 narrow one confined to simply determining whether the 22 predictions that had been made in the Environmental 23 Impact Statement are accurate but that you took it a 24 step beyond, I think a proactive step beyond and said 25 let's use these projects as an opportunity to benefit 4781 1 the sorts of science that you do in your speciality 2 to learn more about the woodland caribou. And I 3 think that's something that I know my colleagues at 4 the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation certainly endorse 5 with the obvious caveat that some information that 6 has been disclosed ought to be kept confidential so 7 as to avoid disasters from those dishonest two-legged 8 predators with rifles that I described earlier. 9 MR. SCHAEFER: I would agree with that. 10 I would think as well, I'd like to underscore that 11 the existing information that's out there, the data 12 that has been accumulated, not only in the project 13 area but perhaps beyond, needs to be analyzed. In 14 other words, we know as biologists, we are awash in 15 data. But what we are often deficient in is 16 knowledge. And so those telemetry locations that 17 have accumulated as part of this project need to be 18 analyzed so we can put them to wise use. 19 MR. BEDFORD: Dr. Schaefer, those are all 20 the questions I have. I'd like to finish where I 21 began by thanking you for coming today. I can tell 22 you I am ill-equipped to gauge the real quality of 23 your work but I recognized, as dimly as I could, the 24 very professional quality of the work you've done. 25 I had the advantage of course of speaking 4782 1 to people who are very familiar with your work. I am 2 told you are recognized as one of the finest caribou 3 specialists in the country and I think you 4 demonstrated some of that today. Thank you. 5 MR. SCHAEFER: Thank you. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sullivan? I believe 7 it was Mr. Sullivan that was going to close -- 8 MS. WHELAN ENNS: We would like to ask 9 the Chair what the best steps are for correcting 10 information in reference to one of our 11 interrogatories. This is a needed correction in 12 reference to the information and answer to that 13 interrogatory that Mr. Bedford has used recently. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: You want to correct 15 something that's on the record? That can be done 16 more or less any time but we'll finish with this item 17 first. 18 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Thank you. 19 MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you. Good 20 afternoon. I have just a few questions. So 21 hopefully this won't take long. 22 I was listening to a various set of 23 questions and a couple of things popped up in 24 relation to cumulative impacts. And one of the 25 things that kind of concerns me is we tend to look at 4783 1 projects in isolation and incrementally. And 2 certainly we have plans in terms of road designs and 3 transmission line design work. I also know that the 4 project region also has fully an annual allowable cut 5 allocation for the area. And I am assuming 6 historically there had been cutting occurring in the 7 project region and there are projections of cutting 8 in the region probably at minimum for 20 years. 9 Usually a company is required to put in a 20 year 10 forest or 10 year forest management plan or a 5 year 11 forest management plan. And various development 12 interests tend to look at their development in 13 isolation to other development. And when we are 14 looking at cumulative impacts, and this is how we 15 should be proceeding, I mean it's a recognized thing 16 these days, would it be incumbent upon Hydro or even 17 for that fact forest companies to look at other 18 development intentions which are not related to their 19 development intentions and include those into the 20 projected impacts? 21 For instance, if the transmission 22 line, if there was a historical cut level and where 23 the cut blocks had historically been let's say for 30 24 years, because we know that woodland caribou thrive 25 in areas of where trees are 50 years or older, 4784 1 technically defined as class 4 or class 5 trees, 2 would it be advantageous to include that kind of 3 information into the maps and into the planning 4 regime in terms of where those cut blocks or that cut 5 history would intersect with the let's say road 6 development or the transmission facility? And would 7 it also be of use to project that based on other 8 development intentions having to forecast at least 9 within a five year term? Certainly in forestry, 10 they must submit a five year or 10 year forest 11 harvesting plan where they would indicate where their 12 cut blocks are occurring. 13 So would that be a useful kind of 14 information that needs to be included into the EIS? 15 MR. SCHAEFER: With respect to woodland 16 caribou, from what we know of the species, their 17 longevity, their response to forest fires, their 18 large requirements for space, these invite us I think 19 to think large and plan large, not only in space but 20 in time. 21 And so as I was mentioning earlier, what 22 we know of their response to forest fires is to shift 23 to areas short term, I'm talking 50 years, because of 24 the detrimental effects of forest fires over that 25 short term. 4785 1 And so I think with respect to caribou 2 conservation, if we're going to develop a plan for 3 that species, we need to think beyond perhaps our 4 traditional management units or our traditional what 5 we call long-term plan, perhaps 20 years. We need 6 perhaps a century plan for the species. 7 MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you. Have you 8 indicated in any of the materials that you read any 9 kind of forethought in terms of that kind of planning 10 and putting in other linear disturbances into the mix 11 and projected linear disturbances that may be 12 anticipated through harvesting activities? 13 MR. SCHAEFER: There is a section of 14 course, as you know, in the EIS with regard to 15 cumulative impacts. I don't recall anything of that 16 magnitude of time though. 17 MR. SULLIVAN: The other thing was that 18 you had mentioned that Ontario was looking at 19 emulating fires in terms of harvesting activities as 20 a, if I understand, a mitigative strategy for 21 woodland caribou? 22 MR. SCHAEFER: Yes. In essence, the 23 strategy is that if logging can mimic fire, that's a 24 big if, then we should have success at forest 25 harvesting at the same time as we can keep caribou on 4786 1 the landscape. 2 MR. SULLIVAN: All right. Enlighten me, 3 what is the difference between logging and forest 4 fires and where are the differences in terms of 5 trying to emulate that? 6 MR. SCHAEFER: Well, there is some 7 substantial differences. Both tend to revert boreal 8 forest to early successional stages. The differences 9 are enough to give us some pause though. For 10 example, timber harvesting removes larger amounts of 11 biomass which fires do not. Dead and standing trees 12 are important for many species after fire, and of 13 course fires do not create roads. And this is of 14 concern for access of course. It's a concern for 15 many species. 16 MR. SULLIVAN: Another question is 17 hypothetically if you were in a position to be a 18 person who had influence in Manitoba over policy 19 direction in terms of the woodland caribou strategy, 20 and that's a big hypothetical, I am kind of wondering 21 because the colleagues over here to my left had 22 mentioned that, you know, studying woodland caribou 23 isn't an exact science. And usually scientists in 24 the community say if you don't have an exact science, 25 one should use the precautionary approach, or the 4787 1 PPC. 2 And I'm just wondering, you know, what 3 would be the precautionary principle approach or 4 policy for woodland caribou in Manitoba if you had 5 the chance to write such a precautionary principle 6 approach or policy? 7 MR. SCHAEFER: That's a good question. I 8 think what I glean from that is that we need to 9 proceed cautiously. In other words, if -- the 10 precise answers to conserving woodland caribou, we 11 have some indications about what those are. But 12 increasing our knowledge will take great effort. And 13 I think what's important is that we don't foreclose 14 on options as we move forward. In other words, if we 15 move too quickly, many of the changes that we're 16 likely to implement will be irreversible. 17 As I said earlier, I don't think the 18 opportunities for reintroducing caribou into areas 19 that had been lost is going to occur in the 20 foreseeable future. And so that suggests to me that 21 as we move forward with developments, we need to 22 learn as we go, we need to mobilize the existing 23 information that we have. 24 And from what I see in Manitoba, for 25 example, is that there is a great deal of information 4788 1 that's been gathered with regard to radio telemetry 2 that has not been used to its fullest extent. We 3 need to marshal our efforts to get that together and 4 learn as we go without proceeding too quickly. 5 MR. SULLIVAN: So you are indicating that 6 obviously there is data out there. What it needs to 7 be is brought together and analyzed and products need 8 to be produced from that data. And that's not 9 occurring to the degree it should be there? 10 MR. SCHAEFER: There is a big difference 11 between data which exists in diskettes and in files, 12 and there appears to be quite a bit of that here, 13 not unlike other jurisdictions in Canada. But we 14 need to analyze those data, interpret them to 15 increase our knowledge. And the data themselves will 16 not give us those insights. 17 And so I have been collaborating, for 18 example, in Newfoundland where I have been working 19 hard to put those data to good use. I think there's 20 an opportunity here as well to do the same. And this 21 does not mean initiating new projects. There seems 22 to be large copious amounts of information that 23 simply has not been analyzed to its fullest extent. 24 MR. SULLIVAN: And in your opinion, what 25 would be the road blocks to that problem and what 4789 1 would be the solution? 2 MR. SCHAEFER: Part of it is conceptual. 3 In other words, for those that fund these studies, 4 for example, make the decisions about whether to go 5 ahead, they have to realize that science involves 6 more than just getting into a helicopter, counting 7 animals or putting radio collars on animals and 8 tracking them. You have to take that information, 9 put it through the analytical tools that you have 10 available to put it in light of existing information 11 and then use it to increase our predictive power. 12 So the road blocks are I think 13 fundamentally conceptual and to some extent perhaps 14 financial. Provincial agencies need to have the 15 wherewithal to do science because that's the very 16 basis for doing management. 17 MR. SULLIVAN: Would you find it useful 18 in terms of this process that part of the -- in your 19 opinion, part of the set of recommendations is to 20 make sure that as part of a monitoring process, that 21 data such as this be compiled, be analyzed and that 22 resources be set aside to specifically take the 23 existing resources and make it transparent and do the 24 analytical, the next step, the analytical work that's 25 necessary to make some rational determinations with 4790 1 that data? 2 MR. SCHAEFER: I think we'd be remiss if 3 we did not use those data. In other words, are they 4 simply going to sit in a file and leave important 5 questions unanswered or are we going to mobilize them 6 to their fullest extent as I said earlier. 7 MR. SULLIVAN: Maybe this is a bit of a 8 projection, the next question. I am wondering what 9 in terms of the time frame, in terms of research that 10 was done, let's say in increments of the last 20 11 years, 10 years and five years, what kind of combined 12 knowledge based out of those research, what 13 incremental things have been learned over let's say 14 the last 20 years on caribou research and where do 15 things need to go at the next step in terms of 16 projecting the needs of studying woodland caribou and 17 particularly in Manitoba? 18 MR. SCHAEFER: We've certainly come a 19 long way. If you take a look at the table that was 20 just handed to me, table 1.1 from the interrogatory, 21 we see that all those studies I believe are from the 22 1990s or later. And so we're making good progress in 23 this -- in these kinds of questions. 24 I've forgotten the rest of your question. 25 I'm sorry. 4791 1 MR. SULLIVAN: I am just wondering if 2 what I was saying in the last 20 years, the knowledge 3 that's been accumulated, and from that knowledge, 4 what things need to be added upon that knowledge in 5 order to add value to that information that's there? 6 MR. SCHAEFER: Okay. I think the 7 questions now, we have good evidence of the what we 8 call correlations. In other words, we see in Ontario 9 the limits, southern limits of caribou are correlated 10 to the northern limits of roads for example. What we 11 need to answer more fundamentally are the causative 12 links. In other words, what is the mechanism that's 13 causing woodland caribou declines? Because this is 14 essential. We need to diagnose the problem through 15 looking at mechanisms before we'll have a good 16 understanding of what remediation or what effect, 17 what prescriptions need to be put into place. 18 So this is where I see the most pressing 19 questions needing to be asked in the foreseeable 20 future, is trying to get at those mechanisms, those 21 agents of decline that are causing caribou to 22 disappear. 23 MR. SULLIVAN: I believe that's all the 24 questions I have. Thank you. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 4792 1 MR. GREWAR: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we 2 might enter some exhibits from Dr. Schaefer. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 4 MR. GREWAR: The first would be the CV 5 provided by Dr. Schaefer, James A. Schaefer as 6 BFN-1000. 7 8 (EXHIBIT BFN-1000: CV provided by James 9 A. Schaefer) 10 11 MR. GREWAR: The next exhibit, BFN-1001 12 would be Woodland Caribou and the Wuskwatim 13 Hydroelectric Project, James Schaefer, April 2004. 14 15 (EXHIBIT BFN-1001: Woodland Caribou and 16 the Wuskwatim Hydroelectric Project, 17 James Schaefer, April 2004) 18 19 MR. GREWAR: Exhibit BFN-1002 would be 20 Site fidelity of female caribou and multiple spatial 21 scales, James Schaefer et al, Landscape ecology, 15 22 pages, 731 to 739, year 2000. 23 24 25 4793 1 (EXHIBIT BFN-1002: Site fidelity of 2 female caribou and multiple spatial 3 scales, James Schaefer et al, Landscape 4 ecology, 15 pages, 731 to 739, year 2000) 5 6 MR. GREWAR: And finally BFN-1003, Fuzzy 7 structure and spatial dynamics of the declining 8 woodland caribou population, James Schaefer et al, 9 from Oecologia 126, pages 507 to 514, year 2001. 10 11 (EXHIBIT BFN-1003: Fuzzy structure and 12 spatial dynamics of the declining 13 woodland caribou population, James 14 Schaefer et al, from Oecologia 126, pages 15 507 to 514, year 2001) 16 17 MR. SOPROVICH: You had indicated that we 18 could do this clarification at any time so it's a 19 short thing so I thought we might finish off with 20 that if that's okay. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: There's a clarification 22 from some record? 23 MR. SOPROVICH: It's with respect to the 24 interrogatory that Hydro provided to Dr. Schaefer. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 4794 1 MR. SOPROVICH: Can I proceed with this? 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 3 MR. SOPROVICH: Can you read that 4 interrogatory, Dr. Schaefer, the one that was given 5 to you by Hydro? 6 THE CHAIRMAN: No. You tell us what you 7 want. 8 MR. SOPROVICH: Oh, okay. Sure, yeah, 9 that's fine. Mr. Bedford, during his questioning, 10 referenced a one kilometre buffer, okay. If you look 11 at the interrogatory, I believe it deals with 100 12 metre buffer which is a long-term effect of habitat 13 loss; is that correct? 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, I see. 15 MR. SOPROVICH: Okay. Mr. Bedford's 16 reference to a one kilometre buffer is with respect, 17 as I understand it, to just during the construction 18 phase, okay. The 100 metre buffer referenced in this 19 interrogatory relates to the long-term effect of 20 habitat loss. So that should be clarified. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: What is the change that 22 you are proposing from the -- 23 MR. SOPROVICH: Well, what I wanted to 24 just clarify was that this interrogatory spoke to the 25 100 metre long-term effect. 4795 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 2 MR. SOPROVICH: Yet Mr. Bedford spoke in 3 terms of a one kilometre buffer. It does not speak 4 to the question because it speaks rather to the 5 buffer just during the construction phase. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: It's really, call it a 7 clarification. It doesn't change the record. It 8 does speak to 100 buffer, 100 metre wide zone in this 9 particular document and you're not saying that that's 10 wrong in this document. It's not this that is wrong. 11 MR. SOPROVICH: That's correct. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. 13 MR. SOPROVICH: I believe it's Mr. 14 Bedford's questioning tends to maybe obscure what 15 we're dealing with. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: That's a matter of 17 disagreement and you have opportunities to raise 18 issues of that nature on the EIS when you get to talk 19 to the panel representing Hydro. And therefore, that 20 is not a matter of correcting the record. Thank you. 21 MR. SOPROVICH: Okay. Thank you. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Other documents that you 23 need to file at this time? 24 MR. GREWAR: No, Mr. Chairman. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schaefer, we thank you 4796 1 and appreciate your time and the presentation you 2 provided to us. Thank you very much. 3 MR. SCHAEFER: Thank you. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: At this point, we will 5 adjourn for lunch we'll be back as much before 6 quarter to 2:00 as we can. 7 8 (PROCEEDINGS RECESSED AT 12:37 P.M. 9 AND RECONVENED AT 1:45 P.M.) 10 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, 12 we are ready to begin. We will begin this 13 afternoon with the questioning on the EIS with 14 headman, Chris Baker, with the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin 15 Cree Nation. 16 MR. GREWAR: Mr. Chairman, just while 17 they are getting themselves set up, I just wonder, 18 the Canadian Nature Federation has provided us 19 with copies of a document that they referred to 20 this morning. I know the Commission expressed an 21 interest in having access to it. It is the 22 Woodland caribou conservation strategy for 23 Manitoba, May 2002, Manitoba Conservation. And my 24 computer just went off, so I can't give you the 25 number. I will come back and give you the number 4797 1 shortly, Mr. Chairman. 2 Mr. Chair, I do have a number now, the 3 strategy I just mentioned will be CNF-1020. 4 5 (EXHIBIT CNF-1020: Woodland caribou 6 conservation strategy for Manitoba, 7 May 2002, Manitoba Conservation) 8 9 THE CHAIRMAN: If you would introduce 10 yourselves and then proceed. 11 MR. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, hello. My 12 name is Chris Baker, and I am the headman of the 13 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation in South Indian Lake. 14 I am joined today by Lloyd Graham, and together we 15 have a number of questions for the panel. My 16 questions today will relate primarily to the 17 socioeconomic component of the Environmental 18 Impact Statement. I am hoping that the panel can 19 clarify a number of questions that we have. 20 If it pleases the Chair, I will begin 21 my questioning. Mr. Graham will then lead to 22 sections of our questioning, and I will again take 23 back the mike and lead our concluding questions. 24 To begin, I have a few questions 25 pertaining to community organizations and 4798 1 governance. Volume 8, page 8-232, with respect to 2 the existing environment, the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin 3 Cree Nation has been recognized as a Cree Nation 4 with full membership in the Manitoba Keewatinowi 5 Okimakanak, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and 6 the Assembly of First Nations. OPCN has also been 7 recognized by the Chief and Council of the 8 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation. 9 We have exhibits to -- and I am sure 10 you have the exhibits. I draw your attention to 11 the fact that these resolutions were moved by NCN 12 councillors. You will note that Councillor Jimmy 13 Spence's resolution confirms that South Indian 14 Lake First Nation has been recognized by the 15 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation as a separate First 16 Nations, and the MKO chiefs and assembly recognize 17 the South Indian Lake First Nation as the 27th 18 member First Nation within the MKO. Do you agree, 19 Councillor Thomas? 20 MR. WOJCZYNSKI: Before Councillor 21 Thomas answers, do I understand right that there 22 is an exhibit? 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, it is being 24 distributed. 25 MR. WOJCZYNSKI: I don't believe that 4799 1 our panel up here has it. Maybe the other end of 2 our panel does, but this end doesn't. 3 MR. REMPEL: Would you repeat the page 4 number that you were referring to, Mr. Baker. 5 Volume 8 -- 6 MR. BAKER: 8-232. 7 MR. REMPEL: Page 8-232? 8 MR. BAKER: That's correct. 9 MR. THOMAS: With respect to the 10 questions, or the line of questioning that is 11 being put forward, Mr. Chairman, we do have a 12 process underway that deals with the separation of 13 South Indian Lake. And that is a situation that 14 is occurring amongst a number of different 15 parties, but the separation issue itself is 16 something that is between NCN and South Indian 17 Lake, and this is not a matter that is within the 18 scope of the Commission. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: That may well be. I 20 don't think that we have gone into beyond just 21 asking whether that you agree that there was a 22 document signed to the effect that you just 23 mentioned. The question was, do you agree that 24 there was such a document in existence that had 25 been signed? 4800 1 MR. THOMAS: There is a number of 2 various documents in this package, and I have 3 heard that there has been resolutions put forward, 4 but there is a number of conditions that have been 5 included as part of the resolution. So to state 6 that we have recognized South Indian Lake as a 7 separate First Nation at this point in time, while 8 it may be headed that way, we have not gotten 9 there yet. So it can't be stated that they are a 10 separate First Nation at this point in time, even 11 if they have resolutions that are supportive of 12 their desire to achieve separate status. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. 14 MR. BAKER: With respect to the 15 Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Resolution, which was 16 moved by Councillor David Spence, you will note 17 that he has confirmed that the South Indian Lake 18 First Nation occupied our traditional lands prior 19 to the arrival of Europeans, and that the Assembly 20 of Manitoba Chiefs recognize the South Indian Lake 21 First Nation as a member within the Assembly of 22 Manitoba Chiefs. Do you agree with that, 23 Councillor Thomas? 24 THE CHAIRMAN: I think I heard 25 Councillor Thomas say that was a matter that is in 4801 1 the process of becoming, and I don't know that he 2 wanted to add more. 3 MR. THOMAS: I don't feel that I am at 4 liberty to discuss the internal issues with 5 respect to the separation issue during this 6 process here. I can't, as one of the elected 7 leaders of my community, put myself in a position 8 where I am headed towards negotiating in front of 9 a Commission with respect to the separation of 10 reserve issue. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: You are correct in that 12 respect, the matter in front of us is the 13 questioning on the proponents' EIS, and I think 14 that the documents that you have tabled with us 15 attest to the process, to the fact that there is a 16 process ongoing dealing with the separation 17 between the two nations of South Indian Lake and 18 NCN. The process has not been completed, and I 19 think that has been established. Now I think what 20 I hear Councillor Thomas say is there are matters 21 of negotiation involved, and this is not the forum 22 where this will be discussed. So I encourage you 23 to proceed with your environmental assessment 24 questions. 25 MR. BAKER: I am just -- I am in the 4802 1 process for recognition only by Canada in 2 establishing a baseline on the governance in the 3 EIS. I will continue, sir. 4 The Assembly of First Nations 5 Resolution confirms that there are First Nations 6 who are not recognized by the Indian Act, but who 7 are recognized by their citizens as First Nations, 8 and are members of the Assembly of First Nations. 9 The AFN accepts the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation 10 as a member of the AFN. Also, Chief Primrose and 11 former MKO Grand Chief Francis Flett were very 12 clear in their letter to former Indian Affairs 13 Minister, Jane Stewart, when they wrote in 14 September of 1997, they stated: 15 "The Chief and Council of Nelson House 16 First Nation have recognized the 17 membership at South Indian Lake as a 18 South Indian Lake First Nation, and 19 MKO has now recognized the South 20 Indian Lake First Nation as the 27th 21 member of MKO First Nation. It now 22 only remains for you, your department 23 to recognize the South Indian Lake 24 First Nation as a new band under 25 section 17 of the Indian Act." 4803 1 Do you agree, Councillor Thomas? 2 MR. THOMAS: Do I agree with what? 3 MR. BAKER: With what the Chief said, 4 and the Grand Chief, in the quotes that I just 5 read? I can read it again if you wish. 6 MR. THOMAS: Please do. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: It is on page 2, 8 paragraph 2. 9 MR. BAKER: "The Chief and Council 10 of Nelson House First Nation have 11 recognized the membership at South 12 Indian Lake as a South Indian Lake 13 First Nation. MKO has now recognized 14 the South Indian Lake First Nation as 15 the 27th member of MKO First Nation. 16 It now only remains for you and your 17 department to recognize South Indian 18 Lake First Nation as a new band under 19 the section 17 of the Indian Act." 20 Do you agree, Councillor? 21 MR. THOMAS: If you are asking me if I 22 agree with what is written in this document as it 23 is read out, I agree that that is what is written 24 in this document. 25 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Recognition by 4804 1 Canada is supported by every First Nation in 2 Canada. 3 Mr. Osler, I want to know why the 4 reality of OPCN and the views of every First 5 Nation in Canada have not been included in the EIS 6 analysis? 7 MR. OSLER: The question is why 8 have -- the page that you referenced in the EIS 9 recognized and -- to quote, people holding NCN 10 membership at South Indian Lake, these members 11 have been in the process for some time of applying 12 to create a separate Cree Nation of 13 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation. I understood that 14 the document that you are looking at had 15 recognized what you had just been referring to in 16 these various other documents. 17 MR. BAKER: I want to know why the 18 reality of the OPCN and the views of every First 19 Nation in Canada have not been included in this 20 EIS analysis? 21 MR. OSLER: My response was that the 22 reality of this new First Nation's emergence is 23 recognized in the EIS. We didn't get into 24 documenting that process in the way that you have 25 documented certain documents today, but it 4805 1 certainly was recognized. And the advice that 2 this document reflects is that it hasn't yet been 3 completed. 4 Beyond that point, to the extent that 5 this project would have expected effects on the 6 members of this emerging new First Nation, or the 7 people living at the community of South Indian 8 Lake who may or may not be members of this First 9 Nation, the document attempts to assess the 10 effects that this project would have on those 11 people and their interests, Aboriginal or 12 otherwise. 13 MR. BAKER: Thank you. For your 14 information, the First Nations existed in this 15 country before Canada was created, and with all 16 due respect, and as is stated in the AFN 17 resolution, we did not need the Government of 18 Canada to recognize us to know that we exist. 19 What we need Canada's recognition for is, A, for 20 fulfillment of treaty promises; and B, a return to 21 direct relationship between the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin 22 Cree Nation and Canada that will in turn be 23 respected by Manitoba Government and Manitoba 24 Hydro. When this occurs, we will once again be in 25 a position to determine our own Cree Nation 4806 1 destiny and look after our own best interests. 2 Most of the following question are for 3 you, Mr. Osler. Page 8-273, community 4 organization and governance. This section is part 5 of 5.2, which deals with the local region, but 6 seems to be predominantly about Nelson House; is 7 that right, sir? 8 MR. OSLER: Sorry, was there a 9 question? 10 MR. BAKER: Yes, there was. 11 MR. OSLER: We were having documents 12 distributed in front of us. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Would you repeat your 14 question, please? 15 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 16 Page 8-273, community organizations 17 and governance, this section is part of 5.2, which 18 deals with the local region but seems to be 19 predominantly about Nelson House; is that right, 20 sir? 21 MR. OSLER: It is correct that this 22 section deals with the local region, and the 23 focus -- the local region was defined to be the 24 area where there were direct effects of the 25 project on the people, particularly of NCN and 4807 1 Aboriginal people living in the adjacent Northern 2 Affairs community. The reason for extending the 3 connection and the definition of the local region 4 to include the people of South Indian Lake was 5 solely and exclusively due to the current 6 understanding that they are still members of NCN 7 and that as such they voted on the Agreement in 8 Principle. And until the new First Nation is 9 formed, I have operated on the assumption that 10 they would be involved in the voting on the PDA. 11 Because of that connection and the involvement in 12 the training and other activities as members of 13 NCN, and only for that reason, South Indian Lake 14 residents and members of NCN living there were 15 included in the local region as NCN members. 16 Now, this section of the document is 17 very NCN focused in terms of community 18 organization and governance. And it is a summary 19 review, overview, and it doesn't get into 20 extensive -- any particular information, to the 21 best of my knowledge, on details at South Indian 22 Lake, you are right. It does mention, though, the 23 same point that was mentioned earlier at page 24 8-273, that the members of South Indian Lake had 25 for some time been actively working to establish 4808 1 their own reserve and Cree Nation. 2 MR. BAKER: I have a few questions 3 which are intended to ensure that we have a common 4 baseline regarding the governance and 5 organizational structure existing in this local 6 region. 7 Do you know that the Chief or headman 8 of South Indian Lake was recognized by Canada and 9 NCN as a Councillor of the Nelson House band until 10 the time of the CRD relocation? 11 MR. OSLER: Do I personally know it? 12 No. 13 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Do you know 14 that prior to the CRD, the 1970 Northern Affairs 15 Act, an Act that imposed an alien mayor and 16 council electoral system on our Cree customs. 17 Indian Affairs, Indian agents came into our 18 community regularly to hold band meetings, 19 distribute Treaty, finance all normal programs, 20 and to deal directly with our leaders on all 21 issues, and not through the Chief and Council at 22 Nelson House. 23 MR. OSLER: Do I know that 24 personally -- no, I don't. 25 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Do you know 4809 1 that our communities municipal servicing and 2 development budget and our local school budget is 3 financed primarily through the Provincial 4 Government, Aboriginal and Northern Affairs 5 Department? 6 MR. OSLER: I don't know that in the 7 sense that I haven't researched it, but I would 8 have assumed that. 9 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Do you agree 10 that the community financing is an important 11 aspect of governance and organization? 12 MR. OSLER: Yes. 13 MR. BAKER: Thank you. In fact, it 14 establishes the relationship between the 15 Government and the funding agency, doesn't it? 16 MR. OSLER: It reflects them, the 17 financing that you receive from Government or 18 agencies reflects the arrangements amongst 19 yourselves. 20 MR. BAKER: But that still does 21 reflect the relationship, thank you. It is 22 especially important in communities that require 23 transfer payments, isn't it? 24 MR. OSLER: Sources of funding is very 25 important to a community, yes. 4810 1 MR. BAKER: Isn't it true that South 2 Indian Lake and Nelson House have access to 3 financing from different sources? 4 MR. OSLER: Now you get into the level 5 of detail that I don't have a great deal of 6 knowledge about, in terms of the ways in which 7 funding worked for NCN members at South Indian 8 Lake versus other people at South Indian Lake, and 9 all of the complexities of the current 10 arrangement. 11 MR. BAKER: Mr. Osler, you just 12 implied, or just agreed that it is important to 13 the previous question that I asked you. 14 MR. OSLER: I agree it is important, 15 but I thought you moved on to try and get me to 16 answer a question on the detail. All I am saying 17 is, I am not aware of the detail as to how those 18 arrangements currently exist or unfold. 19 MR. BAKER: Thank you. 20 MR. THOMAS: Mr. Chairman, if I may. 21 The line of questioning that is being put forward 22 here, these are related to governance issues that 23 are between NCN and South Indian Lake to a large 24 extent. And as a member of Chief and Council, I 25 cannot authorize Mr. Osler here to be speaking on 4811 1 behalf of Chief and Council when he provides 2 responses to questions that are related to the 3 separation issue. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Thomas, even though 5 the questioner asked Mr. Osler to respond, 6 Mr. Osler doesn't have to respond. And you may, 7 if you so wish. I can see where the questioner is 8 going at, and hopefully he will get there very 9 quickly. There is no need I think to go through 10 the preamble that he is going through at the 11 present time to get to the questions that you want 12 to ask. But I think you have established the base 13 for the questions that you wanted to ask -- unless 14 I am wrong. But if I see that you are not getting 15 to those questions, I will have to call them out 16 of order myself. 17 MR. BAKER: Thank you. 18 Are you aware that the people in 19 Nelson House live on Federal Crown land set apart 20 as Indian reserve, while the members of NCN and 21 members at South Indian Lake do not? 22 MR. OSLER: Could you repeat that one? 23 Am I aware that the members of Nelson House -- 24 MR. BAKER: The people at Nelson House 25 live on Federal Crown land that is set apart as 4812 1 Indian reserve, while the members of NCN and South 2 Indian do not? 3 MR. OSLER: I am aware that there is a 4 reserve land at Nelson House. There is also some 5 adjacent community that is on Crown land. The 6 land at South Indian Lake is not reserve land, it 7 is Crown land. 8 MR. BAKER: Thank you. You would 9 know, therefore, that the Nelson House Reserve is 10 operated pursuant to the laws laid out in the 11 Indian Act, while the lands at South Indian Lake 12 are not subject to the Indian Act? 13 MR. OSLER: I have assumed that that 14 is true, yes. 15 MR. BAKER: Do you know that currently 16 the NCN Chief and Council bylaws only apply at 17 Nelson House? 18 MR. OSLER: I do not know that 19 personally, no. 20 MR. BAKER: Would you agree then that 21 our history of governance, financing, 22 administration, and the laws applicable to each 23 community have been very distinct throughout our 24 history? 25 MR. OSLER: From what I personally 4813 1 know, there are many distinctions in the ways in 2 which the two communities are organized, and you 3 have described the difference between being on 4 Crown land versus reserve land, and all of the 5 implications that flow from that. I am not aware 6 in detail of the history and how all of that is 7 evolved. 8 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Finally, you 9 know that it is because the members resident in 10 South Indian Lake are legal interest holders in 11 the reserve lands, and because the resource 12 management area was established for the benefit of 13 all members of NCN, that we are entitled to vote 14 on the proposed future Hydro project known as 15 Wuskwatim? 16 MR. OSLER: I am sorry, could you 17 please read that one again? It seems to be fairly 18 carefully worded. 19 MR. BAKER: Finally, do you know that 20 it is because the members resident in South Indian 21 Lake are legal interest holders in the reserves 22 lands, and because the resource management area 23 was established for the benefit of all members of 24 NCN, that we are entitled to vote on the proposed 25 future hydro project known as Wuskwatim? 4814 1 MR. OSLER: No, I am not aware of 2 that. That seems to me a legal issue and it is 3 way beyond my level of competence. 4 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Would you 5 agree that these distinctions are important 6 distinctions to know when establishing the 7 baseline of the socioeconomic, environmental 8 component in the EIS? 9 MR. OSLER: Beyond what we have put 10 here, I don't think it is fruitful for the 11 baseline of EIS to try and get into the detail of 12 the current issues between NCN members in these 13 two locations. As I said, the only reason that we 14 included South Indian Lake in the local study area 15 was because at the current point in time NCN 16 members there are being treated, for the purposes 17 of voting on these matters and discussions on 18 these matters, as NCN members entitled to vote and 19 to deal with and discuss and to be involved in the 20 training program and all of the other things. If 21 all of the matters that you have raised had been 22 resolved between NCN and the members at the two 23 locations, a separate nation existed, I don't know 24 what the outcome of that would be, or whether 25 there would be any basis for us to have included 4815 1 South Indian Lake in the local study area. And to 2 speculate on that would just get us into trying to 3 write material on how the outcomes of the 4 negotiations in place are. So in the end, working 5 for Manitoba Hydro and NCN and taking advice from 6 NCN on this matter, you have the EIS as it is 7 written. 8 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Osler. But 9 what I am asking -- I am not asking about the 10 separation or anything in that detail, I am asking 11 about clearly a distinction between the two 12 communities. The existing -- 13 MR. OSLER: I think the details in the 14 EIS describe the differences between the two 15 communities in terms of one on Crown land, one on 16 reserve, NCN members in one location versus the 17 other. I think those types of details are 18 recognized in the EIS, and the fact that there is 19 a First Nation that is evolving, in terms of 20 official recognition at South Indian Lake, is 21 recognized at the places that you have drawn my 22 attention to. 23 MR. BAKER: So you agree there is a 24 distinction, there exists a distinction? 25 MR. OSLER: Between South Indian Lake 4816 1 and Nelson House -- yes, many distinctions, yes. 2 MR. BAKER: I am just curious, 3 Mr. Osler, if that is clear, why -- going to page 4 8-275, on this page you discuss specific plans for 5 the community of Nelson House and Nelson House 6 resource management area and beyond. Are you 7 aware of the 1995 memorandum of understanding in 8 which Canada, Manitoba, the Nisichawayasihk Cree 9 Nation committed to use their best efforts to 10 ensure the success of the process, being to form a 11 recognition by Canada of the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree 12 Nation in South Indian Lake? And the exhibit is 13 passed out. 14 MR. OSLER: I have heard of this 15 memorandum of understanding before. I never 16 actually put my eyes on it before. 17 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Why then isn't 18 this committed plan which will have profound 19 change on, A, the governing structures, B, the 20 distributions of reserve land, and C, the 21 membership of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, 22 included in this section? 23 MR. OSLER: The only answer that I can 24 give you is this section is labeled NCN goals and 25 plans, and the focus of this section is on that, 4817 1 and the matter that you are interested in was 2 recognized elsewhere in the document. That is the 3 only answer that I can provide you with. 4 MR. BAKER: On page 8-274 it says, 5 "NCN goals and plans." You state that the NCN 6 goals and plans will play a role in shaping the 7 future of the local region. By this do you mean 8 the Nelson House resource management area, or does 9 NCN have plans to shape our community and the 10 portion of the South Indian resource area that you 11 included within the local region? 12 MR. OSLER: The focus, as it says in 13 the balances of the sentence, is particularly for 14 members resident at the community of Nelson House. 15 The NCN goals and plans that we are dealing with 16 here, of course, we received from NCN. And they 17 are simply a summary of what we were provided 18 with. 19 The local region, as I described 20 earlier, because the members living at South 21 Indian Lake are still members of NCN officially, 22 South Indian Lake was included in the local 23 region, but I don't see anything in this section 24 that would suggest that plans and goals are being 25 set out specifically for that community as 4818 1 distinct from Nelson House, or members that are in 2 the long run expected to be members of NCN. 3 MR. BAKER: I must comment at this 4 time on the confusion we have encountered with 5 terms that appear to hold different meanings on 6 different pages. We will return to this 7 periodically throughout my cross-examination, and 8 hopefully we will finally understand why this 9 language has been used. 10 I would like now to ask a few 11 questions relating to the section of the 12 socioeconomic EIS relating to culture. Page 13 8-268, this section deals with the culture and 14 environment. You state that to understand the 15 status of the culture, key person interviews were 16 conducted. Now, are these key persons listed on 17 table 2.1 of page 4 of the socioeconomic baseline 18 setting appendix? 19 MR. OSLER: No is the short answer. 20 The baseline appendix dealt with issues other than 21 culture. 22 MR. BAKER: Who were they conducted 23 with? 24 MR. OSLER: As I said yesterday, they 25 were conducted with elders, including a workshop 4819 1 that involved five elders from South Indian Lake. 2 We have not been authorized to provide a listing 3 of the people, the conversations were sensitive, 4 but to date we have not provided a listing of 5 names of the elders that were involved either in 6 this particular set of discussions. I think I 7 went through the details of the different ways in 8 which interviews or workshops were held with 9 elders involved in physical heritage, cultural 10 heritage, or indeed in other issues yesterday. 11 MR. BAKER: How many currently live 12 there? 13 MR. OSLER: Excuse me? 14 MR. BAKER: How many currently live 15 there, of the five? 16 MR. OSLER: I am advised that all of 17 the five elders involved in the workshop were 18 brought down by community consultants from South 19 Indian Lake to Nelson House for the workshop. 20 MR. BAKER: Do you think this small 21 number out of approximately 1,000 people in South 22 Indian Lake is a large enough sample upon which to 23 draw a reliable conclusion? 24 MR. OSLER: It is not intended to be a 25 sampling exercise. The purpose of key person 4820 1 interviews is to involve people in a certain 2 group, in this case elders -- and not all of the 3 people living at South Indian Lake are elders -- 4 who are willing to be involved in such a process 5 to offer the perspectives and advice that they can 6 offer, in this case on culture. The number of 7 elders that were involved in the process at NCN's 8 TK project, for example, I think were eight 9 elders. So it is not a question of -- it is not a 10 survey. The opinion survey process involved 11 trying to get representative involvement from each 12 household, with a very heavy focus on involvement 13 of elders in both communities, and attempts to try 14 to make sure that, if possible, all of the elders 15 were interviewed for that purpose. In this 16 purpose, the focus was a bit different and we took 17 advice from the people, the community consultants 18 and from others as to who might want to be 19 involved, and we ultimately found out who could be 20 involved. 21 MR. BAKER: It is not reliable. While 22 the people of South Indian Lake and Nelson House 23 and many, many other communities in Northern 24 Manitoba have a Cree culture, in your professional 25 opinion, are these cultures -- distinctions 4821 1 between the various Cree communities, are there? 2 MR. OSLER: Sorry, what is the 3 question? 4 MR. BAKER: Are there distinctions 5 between the many, many northern Cree communities? 6 MR. OSLER: Yes. 7 MR. BAKER: Can you please describe a 8 few of these to us and explain why different Cree 9 communities might have cultural distinctions? 10 MR. OSLER: Well, we are talking 11 culture here in the sense of certain indicators 12 that are used to discuss culture among those 13 people that do cultural assessments, and nine of 14 them are listed here. So, if you look down the 15 nine, although there may be a sharing of language, 16 there could quite easily be differences in 17 traditional knowledge, cultural practices. Maybe 18 there is a lot of similarity in terms of the 19 issues with respect to health and wellness, but 20 there certainly can be differences. The specifics 21 of kinship may differ. You certainly have been 22 asking me a number of questions about the 23 differences in organization between two Cree 24 communities that are at least related historically 25 under the Indian Act, and called NCN. I presume 4822 1 there could be other differences relating to some 2 of the other elements of what we have just focused 3 on. I won't focus on leisure or law and order, 4 but certainly the specific sacred areas, 5 traditional areas of great importance, experiences 6 that affect culture could vary differently 7 between communities. 8 So when we are trying to assess some 9 aspects of cultural knowledge as to what is 10 important to different people, you have to talk to 11 the people of the community, you can't just talk 12 to some sample of Cree people from Northern 13 Manitoba. 14 It is not directly thrown into this in 15 an obvious heading, but the resource practices and 16 the resource experiences, traditional, commercial, 17 otherwise, may look similar from a distance, but 18 may be quite different for each individual 19 trapper, or each individual community. So there 20 could be a lot of reasons why there could be 21 differences in culture among different Cree 22 communities. In the case of the ones that you are 23 thinking of, even between the community experience 24 at South Indian Lake as distinct from the 25 community experience at Nelson House. I do want 4823 1 to focus on the point, though, that here we were 2 throughout the local area, local region, focusing 3 on NCN as it currently exists as the basis for 4 involving input from South Indian Lake. So we 5 weren't dwelling on the differences between South 6 Indian Lake and NCN for the purposes of this 7 assessment. The focus here was predominantly on 8 NCN. 9 MR. BAKER: On page 8-268, section 10 5.2.2.5, culture, this section started out stating 11 that it is an overview of the existing cultural 12 environment in the local region. Given what we 13 have just discussed, would it be more accurate to 14 describe these as cultural environment of Nelson 15 House? 16 MR. OSLER: In terms of its focus, it 17 would be -- that is certainly the focus of what is 18 here. It had input from NCN members at South 19 Indian Lake, but the focus of what is being 20 discussed here and the long term focus here 21 reflects NCN members at Nelson House in 22 particular, but not exclusively. 23 MR. BAKER: Thank you. You have 24 identified nine indicators as representative of 25 Cree culture. Perhaps we can take a moment and 4824 1 review these indicators. 2 Language, are you aware that each Cree 3 community in Northern Manitoba has a distinctive 4 dialect, and that Cree speakers can tell 5 immediately where a person is from when they 6 speak? Distinguishing between Nelson House and 7 South Indian Lake dialect is easy. 8 MR. OSLER: Am I personally aware of 9 the extent to which you just described it, no. Am 10 I surprised, no, that doesn't surprise me if you 11 tell me that is the case. 12 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Traditional 13 knowledge, with respect to traditional knowledge 14 of the land, do you think that the Cree people 15 from Ontario and Saskatchewan have knowledge of 16 the Nisichawayasihk Cree resource management area 17 as intensely as they do? 18 MR. OSLER: I would not expect them 19 to, no. 20 MR. BAKER: Do you think that the 21 Shamattawa Cree or the Nisichawayasihk Cree have 22 an intimate knowledge of our South Indian Lake 23 resource area or registered trapline as we do? 24 MR. OSLER: You said Shamattawa Cree 25 and -- 4825 1 MR. BAKER: Nisichawayasihk. 2 MR. OSLER: I would not expect them 3 to, no. 4 MR. BAKER: With respect to the 5 traditional relationship to the land, did you not 6 report that the people of South Indian Lake have 7 maintained their commercial and domestic resource 8 harvesting to a greater extent than the people 9 from Nelson House and that this is reflected in 10 the analysis of their economy? 11 MR. OSLER: Sorry, Councillor Thomas 12 was speaking to me in the middle of your question. 13 Would you please repeat it? 14 MR. BAKER: Certainly. With respect 15 to the two traditional relationships to the land, 16 did you not report that the people of South Indian 17 Lake have maintained their commercial and domestic 18 resource harvesting to a greater extent than the 19 people from Nelson House, and that this is 20 reflected in the analysis of their economy? 21 MR. OSLER: You are saying that in 22 here we reported that the people of South Indian 23 Lake maintained a greater involvement in their 24 traditional activities on the land than the people 25 at Nelson House; is that the question? 4826 1 MR. BAKER: Yes. 2 MR. OSLER: Do you have a reference 3 for me? 4 MR. BAKER: We will come to it later. 5 MR. OSLER: I don't recall doing that. 6 Maybe Mr. Davies dealt with it under resource use 7 or something, and it may well be there, but I 8 don't recall it at the moment. Mr. Davies tells 9 me he doesn't recall it either. If it is there, 10 you will come to it. 11 MR. BAKER: Thank you. 12 MR. OSLER: Thank you. 13 MR. BAKER: With respect to goals and 14 aspirations, would it be fair to say that the two 15 communities of Nelson House and South Indian Lake 16 maintain different goals and aspirations? 17 MR. OSLER: I would expect that that 18 would be the case, given everything that I am 19 being told in terms of the discussions about going 20 in two separate First Nations. 21 MR. BAKER: It wouldn't surprise you 22 to know that our number one goal of the 23 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation is to be formally 24 recognized by Canada. Do you know that all of the 25 community organizations in South Indian Lake 4827 1 adopted this as a common primary objective in a 2 document entitled "Reserve Establishment and 3 Service Agreement Principles"? 4 MR. OSLER: I am not aware myself of 5 that particular document, but I am certainly aware 6 from discussions with you and your colleagues that 7 the number one goal that you have at this time is 8 as you have described it, to be formally 9 recognized. 10 MR. BAKER: Do you believe that the 11 two communities have different outlooks on the 12 proposed generation and transmission projects, and 13 different views relating to acceptability? 14 MR. OSLER: Yes. And to the extent 15 that such things can be documented in a 16 representative way, the opinion surveys that are 17 attached to the EIS indicate the views of NCN 18 members at South Indian Lake and the views of NCN 19 members living at Nelson House, as well as the 20 views of other NCN members living in other 21 locations separately, and the differences can be 22 noted. 23 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Do you agree 24 that each community has a unique commercial and 25 domestic resource harvesting area? 4828 1 MR. OSLER: Repeat that please? 2 MR. BAKER: Do you agree that each 3 community has a unique commercial and domestic 4 resource harvesting area? 5 MR. OSLER: I believe that there are 6 material differences between the two, and I will 7 let Mr. Davies elaborate because he dealt more 8 directly with the resource use patterns. 9 MR. DAVIES: I agree with Cam, I think 10 there are material differences between them, but 11 there is some overlap, particularly in the 12 northern areas between the northern part of the 13 Nelson House resource management area and South 14 Indian Lake, specifically in regards to domestic 15 harvesting. 16 MR. BAKER: Thanks. With respect to 17 cultural practices, you stated that these are 18 customary conventions that reinforce one's 19 cultural identity. On page 8-61, you noted that 20 the commercial fishing and trapping are main 21 sources of employment in South Indian Lake, while 22 the Nelson House economy is based primarily on 23 providing goods and services to residents. Would 24 you say these customs, traditions, and practices 25 are integral components of distinctive cultures? 4829 1 MR. OSLER: I got sidetracked when you 2 were referring to another page. Do I think that 3 if there are different -- if you were working in 4 different lands in terms of your resource 5 harvesting, and you have different activities in 6 how you support and survive, would there be 7 differences between communities, is that the 8 essence of your question, in the sense of cultural 9 practice? 10 MR. BAKER: Yes. 11 MR. OSLER: Yes, I think that, among 12 other things and not exclusively, how people go 13 about dealing with sustenance, we would say in 14 today's world, dealing with earning a living and 15 making an economy, gathering goods, providing 16 services, these things are not divorced from 17 cultural practices and they do affect them. There 18 are other things that affect people that are not 19 necessarily tied to those things, of a spiritual, 20 or family, or other things that are talked about 21 here, historic nature. 22 MR. BAKER: Do you agree, Mr. Osler, 23 that these are two distinct cultural communities? 24 MR. OSLER: I don't have enough 25 knowledge to elaborate on their distinctions. I 4830 1 think that there is evidence that they see 2 themselves as having some, particularly the 3 residents at South Indian Lake, as having some 4 material differences, that include perhaps 5 cultural perspectives and practices, for all I 6 know, from the people residing at Nelson House. 7 But beyond that I can't give you information. 8 The point of these nine indicators, 9 just to make a point, is not that they -- they are 10 an analyst's tool for looking at culture. It 11 doesn't mean that every one of these statements 12 here would apply to all communities. It was 13 developed based on inputs from elders and people 14 at Nelson House, and in some cases, as I 15 elaborated, from South Indian Lake. It did not 16 attempt to differentiate the two communities in 17 terms of culture. 18 Elders, I am advised, discussed 19 similar things, the elders that came from each 20 communities, but they did recognize geographic 21 variations in terms of their experience in 22 relationship to the land and how they would 23 differ. We didn't dwell on all that here, but 24 there should not be a thought that this is trying 25 to portray under nine separate headings a mythical 4831 1 Cree community. This is addressing specifically 2 this community, at the moment involving NCN 3 members at South Indian Lake. 4 MR. BAKER: Is it fair to say that the 5 thought is that you are calling the local region 6 the same? 7 MR. OSLER: Could you repeat that one 8 again too, please? 9 MR. BAKER: The thought is that you 10 are calling the local region the same? 11 MR. OSLER: We are treating NCN 12 members here, in both communities, on the same 13 plain. We are not delving into their differences. 14 MR. BAKER: That is a mistake. 15 I will carry on. You have described 16 some ceremonial sites within the Nelson House 17 resource management area on page 8-270. Why did 18 you not reference any important cultural and 19 ceremonial sites in South Indian Lake in the 20 registered trapline? 21 MR. OSLER: In general, we didn't get 22 into the South Indian Lake registered trapline 23 area in terms of details because we did not 24 expect, or see any basis for overlaps of the 25 effects of the Wuskwatim project on anything 4832 1 within that trapline area. 2 MR. BAKER: Do you know that we have 3 our own ceremonial sites within our traditional 4 lands that are quite unique to the 5 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation? 6 MR. OSLER: I do not know that, but I 7 would expect that to be the case. 8 MR. BAKER: Do you know where burials 9 disturbed by hydro development at Nelson House are 10 buried? 11 MR. OSLER: Do I know where burial 12 sites disturbed from the CRD with respect to 13 Nelson House residents are? Is that the question? 14 MR. BAKER: The RMA, the resource 15 management area? 16 MR. OSLER: I don't have personal 17 knowledge of that. The documents under heritage 18 section, rather than socioeconomic section, do 19 address those types of matters, to the extent that 20 they are relevant to this project. 21 MR. BAKER: Do you know where the 22 burial of our people disturbed by hydro 23 development are reburied? 24 MR. OSLER: No, I do not. 25 MR. BAKER: In South Indian Lake -- 4833 1 now you know. 2 With respect to kinship, do you know 3 that the kinship patterns in South Indian Lake and 4 Nelson House are quite distinct, even though there 5 are family ties between the two communities? 6 MR. OSLER: As I suggested earlier, I 7 am not surprised that that is the case, but I am 8 not aware of the nature of those differences. 9 MR. BAKER: With respect to law and 10 order, do you know that the customary laws 11 practiced within South Indian Lake were separate 12 and distinct from those practiced in Nelson House? 13 MR. OSLER: I am not aware of that. 14 MR. BAKER: Do you know that the local 15 police force in Nelson House does not operate in 16 South Indian Lake? 17 MR. OSLER: I would have assumed that, 18 I haven't looked into it specifically myself, but 19 I would have assumed that. 20 MR. BAKER: And we have already 21 covered the fact that Nelson House Reserve is 22 Federal Crown land and covered by the Indian Act, 23 while South Indian Lake is not? 24 MR. OSLER: Correct. 25 MR. BAKER: With respect to cultural 4834 1 products, did you know that the bead work patterns 2 from South Indian in the work are distinct from 3 those at Nelson House? 4 MR. OSLER: I am not personally aware 5 of that or the nature of the differences, but it 6 does not surprise me. 7 MR. BAKER: Do you know the 8 clothing -- do you know that South Indian Lake was 9 once known for the people's beautiful caribou 10 clothing, which was the result of the large 11 caribou herds we have always enjoyed, and not all 12 Cree communities enjoyed this? 13 MR. OSLER: You are referring to the 14 sedentary type of herds, the ones that come down 15 in large numbers. I was aware of their relevance 16 to the history of the people of South Indian Lake, 17 I was not aware of the specific cultural products 18 that you are referring to. 19 MR. BAKER: Would you in your 20 professional opinion agree, sir, that these 21 differences are indicative of the distinctive Cree 22 cultures? 23 MR. OSLER: Without trying to get into 24 anything to do with the relationships of NCN 25 members in the two locations, these nine 4835 1 indicators are there to allow for meaningful 2 discussion of differences in culture between 3 different groups of people. To the extent that 4 there are differences in one or more of these 5 indicators, they indicate differences in culture. 6 MR. BAKER: To these nine indicators 7 that you have stated are representative culture, 8 we would add, occupation of the land area to the 9 exclusion of all others, a distinct commercial 10 fishing economy which results in different 11 economic outlooks and future perspectives, a 12 different history, and a society organized around 13 different norms and values. Page 8-78 -- 14 MR. OSLER: Sorry, the page number? 15 MR. BAKER: 8-78. 16 MR. OSLER: Okay. 17 MR. BAKER: Can you describe the 18 Country Foods Program for me, please? 19 MR. DAVIES: Are you referring to the 20 Country Foods Program at Nelson House? 21 MR. BAKER: That's right, the one on 22 page 78. 23 MR. OSLER: This material came from 24 the domestic -- the information on the resource 25 use material, so I will ask Mr. Davies to do it. 4836 1 MR. DAVIES: I won't look at the page 2 right now. I did assist NCN with initially 3 setting up the program probably 10, or over 10 4 years ago. The program came about as part of a 5 claim through the Northern Flood Agreement prior 6 to the 1996 agreement, and there was a number of 7 activities that were conducted. One of them was 8 the establishment of camps and resource harvesting 9 activities at Leftrook Lake, which included a 10 number of cabins and a large cedar teepee type 11 structure for bringing school children out to 12 teach them traditional ways. In addition to that, 13 some of the foods that were being harvested from 14 the Leftrook Lake area were being brought back to 15 town, and there was a Country Foods Store, Country 16 Foods building that was established as sort of a 17 distribution centre. And that has evolved in a 18 number of ways and is actually working quite well 19 for the community. It is a model that other NFA 20 communities have actually come up to take a look 21 at. 22 Right now, it is my understanding that 23 the various hunters and specialty hunters, and NCN 24 members are funded through the program and often 25 will go up north to get caribou and bring the meat 4837 1 back, and then the meat is distributed to the 2 elderly and people that aren't able to get it 3 themselves. And there is also a lot of berries 4 that are picked and brought to the distribution 5 centre, and that is also distributed to the elders 6 in the community. We did take a look at the foods 7 that are being distributed through the Country 8 Foods Store as part of the resource harvesting 9 study that was done for the EIS. 10 MR. BAKER: Thank you. Do you know if 11 there is a similar program that exists in South 12 Indian Lake? 13 MR. DAVIES: To the best of my 14 knowledge, I don't think there is, but I am not 15 sure. 16 MR. BAKER: I can confirm for you, 17 sir, that one does not exist in South Indian Lake. 18 Traditionally our hunters and fishermen provide 19 for the elders and then our families. Why is one 20 necessary in Nelson House and not in South Indian 21 Lake? Would you describe this as a cultural 22 difference? 23 MR. WOJCZYNSKI: Pardon me, I think we 24 are getting into an area of the agreements 25 Manitoba Hydro has with the various communities, 4838 1 and the negotiations came up with various 2 programs, and in a large part monies were provided 3 to the various communities for them to use as the 4 community saw fit. I don't think that it would be 5 appropriate and useful for us to go into that in 6 this hearing. 7 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Wojcznski. 8 Thank you very much. 9 I would now like to pass the intercom 10 over to Lloyd Graham, and he will lead you through 11 our next group of questions. When Lloyd is done, 12 I would like to finish the questions that I have 13 for the panel, if that is all right with you, 14 Mr. Chairman. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Proceed. 16 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. Thank 17 you, Mr. Chairman and Headman Baker. Good 18 afternoon panel. I would like to begin with a few 19 questions on the aspects of the analysis relating 20 to land. 21 Mr. Adams, last Thursday you 22 distributed a document in response to undertaking 23 55 entitled, "What Has Been Done, Addressing 24 Impacts of Hydroelectric Development at South 25 Indian Lake." The document has a Manitoba Hydro 4839 1 logo and references a commitment to provide 2 8,500 acres of Provincial Crown land for reserve 3 once the people of South Indian Lake have been 4 recognized as an independent First Nation. 5 Just to clarify, sir, that is a 6 commitment of Manitoba, as they are the owners of 7 the land; is that right? 8 MR. ADAMS: Yes, the agreement is 9 jointly negotiated between Hydro, Manitoba, and 10 South Indian Lake, but the land belongs to 11 Manitoba, and the 8,500 acres is a Provincial 12 commitment. 13 MR. GRAHAM: So the document includes 14 both undertakings by Hydro and the Province of 15 Manitoba? 16 MR. ADAMS: With respect to land, yes. 17 MR. GRAHAM: Has Manitoba Hydro 18 committed any of their land to the First Nation 19 peoples of South Indian? 20 MR. ADAMS: Manitoba Hydro doesn't 21 have any land. 22 MR. GRAHAM: That is what I thought. 23 Does Manitoba Hydro intend to count 24 the land below the severance line that is covered 25 by the Manitoba Hydro easement, and subject to 4840 1 flooding, towards the fulfillment of the 8,500 2 acre quantum for the land selection in the land 3 selection in the community of South Indian Lake? 4 MR. ADAMS: Mr. Chairman, we said on 5 Thursday we didn't intend to answer questions on 6 this particular topic, and this is one of those 7 questions that I declined to answer. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: The answer I just heard 9 was that the land component was provided by the 10 Province. 11 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. 12 Mr. Osler, I would like to return to 13 land questions with you. On page 8-175, titled 14 "NCN Land in the Nelson House RMA," are you aware 15 of NCN's commitment to share their TLE land with 16 OPCN upon formal recognition by Canada? 17 MR. OSLER: No, I am not aware of that 18 specific issue. 19 MR. GRAHAM: I guess that is why it is 20 not referenced there. In that document, around 21 that page, you said that NCN would be selecting 22 all of their TLE land within their resource 23 management area. Mr. Grewar is passing around a 24 couple of exhibits. They are two Nisichawayasihk 25 BCRs that pertain to the division of land, 4841 1 BCR313291, dated October 23, 1995, committed, 2 amongst other things, to divide the land and any 3 other benefits of the Treaty Land Entitlement 4 Agreement on a per capita basis. Can you find 5 that, sir? 6 MR. OSLER: I can find that you have 7 put this in front of me, and you have just told me 8 what it says. That is all, I haven't found the 9 language. Do I need to? 10 MR. GRAHAM: Not really. 11 The second BCR dated July 28, 2003, 12 confirmed Nisichawayasihk's agreement to divide 13 the lands from their Treaty Land Entitlement 14 Agreement, and their willingness to transfer 15 22.25 percent for the use and benefit of the 16 O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation? 17 MR. OSLER: Again, you have put it in 18 front of me and I can see the numbers. Do I have 19 to know any more than that? 20 MR. GRAHAM: Nisichawayasihk also 21 confirmed the OPCN TLE selections on their behalf 22 by way of that BCR. What I am surprised about, 23 sir, is yesterday we heard that once the studies 24 were finished, they were put forward to the 25 proponents for review. And it doesn't sound like 4842 1 they made you aware of these things, sir? 2 MR. OSLER: Well, if the people who 3 were reviewing it thought these were important 4 matters to be included, I presume they would have 5 included it. We are dealing here with a 6 background volume. I am sure that people were not 7 paying a lot of attention to the details in 8 background volumes, they were more of professional 9 items. In the main document, to some extent this 10 would be summarized. But I repeat, the overall 11 point is, at the moment, for the purposes of 12 writing this section of the EIS, the only reason 13 that we are talking about South Indian Lake at all 14 is because there are still a lot of people there 15 that are members of NCN. We did not get into at 16 all the issues that you are asking about as a part 17 of this EIS. That would have got us into another 18 layer of issues, and our analysis was that those 19 issues were not pertinent to the assessment of 20 effects from this project. 21 MR. GRAHAM: I was just commenting on 22 your statements in the EIS that all of those lands 23 are selected in the RMA. And these BCRs confirm 24 that they won't be, and in fact they haven't been. 25 And I am just surprised that the proponents didn't 4843 1 point that out to you. These lands selections 2 were circulated by Manitoba to Manitoba Hydro for 3 comment, so they too were aware that not all of 4 the land was not in the NCN RMA. 5 MR. OSLER: Your point is that some of 6 the TLE selections might be outside of the current 7 RMA? That is your sole point? 8 MR. GRAHAM: Knowing the importance of 9 land to First Nations, sir, I have to point these 10 things out because they are misleading to a 11 substantial number of the membership, and that is 12 my point. And I am wondering why that respect 13 that First Nation people have for land wasn't 14 respected in turn by the analysis and included 15 therein? 16 MR. OSLER: If there is a factual 17 error in the sense that some of the lands are 18 outside of the RMA, it is simply an error that was 19 made in good faith and didn't get caught by 20 people, if that is your point. It is not done out 21 of disrespect, it is simply that in doing these 22 types of things, the potential for those types of 23 errors, if that is what this is -- and I don't 24 know whether that is what this is, I am not 25 dealing with the detail -- is always there. That 4844 1 is all that is involved there. 2 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. 3 On page 8-178, are you aware that 4 article 5 of the 1996 NCN/NFA Comprehensive 5 Implementation Agreement, inside there in article 6 5 the parties committed 2,000 acres of land to be 7 set apart as reserve for South Indian Lake First 8 Nation upon recognition? Why isn't it referenced 9 here? 10 MR. OSLER: Those are two separate 11 questions. Was I specifically aware, or were our 12 people specifically aware of that issue, I don't 13 think so. It wasn't referenced here for the very 14 reasons that I have given you all the way along, 15 our focus is not really on the details of the 16 issues involving NCN at South Indian Lake versus 17 Nelson House. Our ultimate focus is on effects 18 that could flow from the Wuskwatim project on 19 people, and the people of NCN at Nelson House are 20 the key focus in that regard. 21 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. I would 22 like to briefly jump to volume 7, as it deals in 23 part with lands as well. 24 MR. OSLER: Mr. Davies will deal with 25 that because that is the resource use section. 4845 1 MR. GRAHAM: On page 4-1 -- I am going 2 to be asking a few questions on section page 4-1 3 with respect to commercial trapping. 4 In section 4.3, you briefly discuss 5 the background of the registered trapline systems. 6 Did you know, sir, that the rationale behind 7 dividing most of the Province into relatively 8 large registered trapline districts was to 9 establish exclusive trapping areas for each 10 northern band? 11 MR. DAVIES: I think there was a 12 number of reasons. That was one of them. Other 13 reasons were to provide better management for 14 individual blocks within the overall larger 15 traplines, to allow the registered trapper that is 16 trapping one specific block to manage that better 17 than it was being managed prior to that. 18 MR. GRAHAM: Are you familiar, sir, 19 with the report on the trapline extension survey 20 that was completed in 1944 by H.E. Wells of the 21 Manitoba Games Branch and H.R. Cohn of the 22 Dominion Department of Indian Affairs. 23 MR. DAVIES: I think I have heard the 24 title, but if I read it, I have forgotten what was 25 in it. 4846 1 MR. GRAHAM: That report, sir, 2 recommended meetings to settle the disputed 3 overlapping areas of community trapping grounds. 4 You may not be aware then of the boundary 5 settlement meetings that were held in 1945, at 6 which time the Chiefs and Councils of the bands 7 concerned met, and by mutual agreement arrived at 8 definite boundaries. Are you aware of that, sir? 9 MR. DAVIES: I knew that definite 10 boundaries were arrived at and there was a 11 consultation process that took place, not by 12 today's standards, but that there was 13 consultation, yes. 14 MR. GRAHAM: Did you know that the 15 results of these meetings were that all of the 16 neighboring bands, including the Chief and Council 17 at Nelson House, recognized an exclusive use 18 registered trapline zone around the band living at 19 South Indian Lake? 20 MR. DAVIES: I was aware that there 21 was a specific area for South Indian Lake 22 commercial trapping, yes. 23 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. I raise 24 these points in order to better establish the 25 baseline, a baseline which is to include the 4847 1 cumulative historical effects, I think that is 2 what it is supposed to include, that is what I 3 have been hearing. 4 Could you confirm that please, 5 Mr. Osler, the baseline will include the 6 cumulative historical effects? 7 MR. OSLER: Where there is overlap of 8 effects from the project, and that is the point. 9 And the issue here ultimately is, where does that 10 exist? And our view is that aside from training 11 and other opportunities that residents of South 12 Indian Lake attain, in part because they are 13 currently members of NCN, there are not 14 overlapping effects from this project in the area 15 that you are describing, in the trapline area of 16 South Indian Lake and all of the other elements 17 that go with that. 18 MR. GRAHAM: Did you notice in your 19 analysis, Mr. Osler, any cumulative effects 20 relating to the membership in South Indian Lake 21 being repeatedly promised reserve land, and having 22 governments commit this reserve land, but then not 23 receiving the land? 24 MR. OSLER: That point was, to the 25 best of my knowledge, not commented on in the EIS. 4848 1 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. I think 2 this ends my questions on land. 3 I now have a couple of questions 4 pertaining to the population within the local 5 region. On page 8-168, based on the population 6 breakdown provided by Indian Affairs, which is in 7 turn based on data collected by the 8 Nisichawayasihk membership clerk, can you confirm 9 that approximately 30 percent of the 10 Nisichawayasihk population in the local region 11 lives in South Indian Lake? 12 MR. OSLER: Yes. 13 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. I now draw 14 your attention to page 8-170, figure 4.1. This 15 figure illustrates that the percentage of members 16 residing at South Indian Lake in relation to the 17 total in the local region, which includes the 18 reserve and the Northern Affairs communities of 19 Nelson House and South Indian Lake, has 20 consistently been approximately 30 percent between 21 1990 and 2000. Do you agree? 22 MR. OSLER: That is certainly what it 23 looks like. 24 MR. GRAHAM: Do you think it is 25 reasonable to assume that equal percentages of 4849 1 Nelson House and South Indian Lake people have 2 left their communities for Thompson, Brandon, and 3 Winnipeg? 4 MR. OSLER: Absent other information, 5 I wouldn't know what to assume. 6 MR. GRAHAM: My next question was what 7 you would base that answer on, sir, because I 8 couldn't find that? Perhaps you might feel that 9 more people have actually left South Indian Lake 10 due to the more severe impacts from the CRD? 11 Would you think so, sir? 12 MR. OSLER: I have not put my mind to 13 that type of an issue, and I wouldn't have an 14 opinion. 15 MR. GRAHAM: Can we agree that the 16 approximate 30 percent, 70 percent split in the 17 local region would also apply to the overall 18 percentages of Nisichawayasihk members who call 19 each respective community home? 20 MR. OSLER: Again, absent further 21 information, I don't know why I could agree with 22 you. There could be all sorts of other factors 23 involved in that type of thing. 24 MR. GRAHAM: Did you compute overall 25 Nisichawayasihk, Nelson House, and South Indian 4850 1 Lake community growth projections, based on the 2 sensitivity that the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin will be 3 formally recognized by Canada? 4 MR. OSLER: To the best of my 5 knowledge, that factor was not specifically built 6 into this analysis. I am advised that the 7 projections were done for the whole and not 8 getting into that type of detail. 9 MR. GRAHAM: I noticed that they were 10 done for the whole, but if 30 percent of the 11 people aren't there anymore, they would seem to be 12 wrong. What I am passing out as an exhibit, what 13 Mr. Grewar is passing out as an exhibit is, first 14 of all, a letter from Minister Nault, former 15 Indian Affairs Minister Nault. I am doing this 16 because I understand that projects that have been 17 applied for but not yet licenced were to be part 18 of cumulative effects, and I have included this 19 letter to illustrate the commitment from the 20 Minister of Indian Affairs, dated June 13, 2003, 21 as evidence that O-Pipon-Na-Piwin has submitted 22 their application, and that they have a commitment 23 from Canada. Minister Nault stated and I quote, 24 "First, let me reiterate my commitment 25 to formally recognize your community 4851 1 as a separate First Nation." 2 So why isn't the recognition of OPCN considered as 3 a cumulative effect with respect to population 4 projections, and why didn't the sensitivity get 5 done? 6 MR. OSLER: Those are different types 7 of questions. The way in which the separate First 8 Nation issues of OPN were recognized in the EIS, 9 we have already discussed. And all of the reasons 10 as to why we didn't go further, we have already 11 discussed, in terms of that matter. 12 In terms of doing a baseline 13 projection -- if in fact this had been carried out 14 and we didn't have the problem in front of us of 15 the matter not being formally resolved, my 16 evidence is that South Indian Lake would have been 17 treated the same as other communities outside of 18 the local area. We wouldn't have even gotten into 19 this level of detail at all. But because that 20 hasn't been formally carried out, and because they 21 are still treated by the Indian Act as members of 22 NCN, and they still vote on these matters, in 23 dealings with the NCN population, we included 24 them. 25 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. 4852 1 MR. OSLER: The ability, if we had 2 thought about it, to do a sensitivity as to how 3 this would change at the point in time, whatever 4 date that would have to be assumed to be, when 5 they became OPN, would require a considerable 6 level of discussion and analysis before you would 7 start deviating from the overall types of numbers 8 that are put here, and that was not part of our 9 mandate to get into that type of issue at all. It 10 is not something that would be done easily, and it 11 is not something that would necessarily lead to a 12 conclusion that the numbers would automatically 13 change quickly from what is here, or that they 14 would necessarily change at all. You have to get 15 into a whole separate level of thinking, which I 16 am sure you are absorbed in, but we certainly 17 weren't. 18 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. I would like 19 to now turn my attention to the local region, and 20 you just referenced that again in your answer. 21 South Indian Lake, as you know, is part of the 22 local region. Now that we've established some 23 clarification on the organization and governance 24 of Nelson House and South Indian Lake communities, 25 as well as the cultural differences, the relative 4853 1 population sizes, I would like to ask you some 2 additional questions pertaining to this term 3 "local region." I have to admit up front, I found 4 it very confusing to move through the document 5 following the definitions of these terms. 6 I handed out as an exhibit a map 7 illustrating the boundaries of the local region, 8 in fact all of the regions. And you can see that 9 the local region is comprised of essentially the 10 resource management area of Nisichawayasihk, with 11 a bit of a loop going around South Indian Lake. 12 How did you define that line that 13 formed the end of the local region, sir? 14 MR. OSLER: For map purposes, it 15 wasn't -- a lot of time and effort wasn't spent 16 thinking about the outside edges of the South 17 Indian Lake area line. The point was that the 18 community and people at South Indian Lake were 19 included, for the reasons we have gone through 20 several times, in the local region. We were not 21 getting into a geographic area, because the 22 project will not affect the geography in that 23 area, and the boundaries were not part and parcel 24 of what we were focused on. We were focused on 25 people and the community, not on the land, for the 4854 1 purposes of this project impact assessment. 2 MR. GRAHAM: That's what we are 3 talking about today, sir, the socioeconomic 4 component, the people component, and the local 5 region is defined in the socioeconomic component. 6 But when you analyze data within the local region, 7 you often did not include the entire area, but 8 limited yourself to the Nisichawayasihk RMA. If 9 you were going to limit your analysis of data 10 within the local region to a subset, why didn't 11 you just make the local region smaller? 12 MR. OSLER: Why didn't we just exclude 13 South Indian Lake is the essence of your question? 14 Is that the question? 15 MR. GRAHAM: Why didn't you limit it 16 to the Nelson House RMA? 17 MR. OSLER: Why didn't we exclude the 18 South Indian Lake community then, that is your 19 question? 20 MR. GRAHAM: Yes. 21 MR. OSLER: The reasons I have given 22 several times, because 80, 90 percent of the 23 people living at South Indian Lake are currently 24 known as NCN members. They vote on these matters 25 and they were involved through NCN in 4855 1 consultations on these matters. And for those 2 reasons, they would have direct interest in a way 3 that wouldn't apply in other communities to 4 training, employment, and potentially business 5 opportunities. So we could not sever -- 6 MR. GRAHAM: Sorry, could you repeat 7 that last sentence, please? 8 MR. OSLER: Because of those factors, 9 the membership today in NCN, and all that that 10 implies, they were involved in consultations with 11 respect to the project and the agreements relating 12 to it, the training issues with respect to the 13 project, employment opportunities and business 14 opportunities with respect to the project, in a 15 way that was not applicable for other communities 16 who were not predominantly at this point in time 17 constituted and composed of members of NCN. There 18 are also members of NCN living in Thompson, but we 19 did not include the community of Thompson. 20 I suppose technically we could have 21 adopted an approach for this map of simply showing 22 the RMA Nelson House, and technically have said in 23 the text that we were including NCN members 24 wherever they resided. We could have taken that 25 approach. The ultimate impact of doing it that 4856 1 way might have been clearer, and it would not have 2 been substantively different from the type of 3 analysis that we are doing. So for whatever 4 reasons we decided to portray it this way, if it 5 is confusing, I apologize. 6 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. 7 I am going to flip my question upside 8 down now. Given its significance as a resource 9 area for the people who are categorized by Canada, 10 Manitoba, and Manitoba Hydro, as members of 11 Nisichawayasihk, why did you not include the RTL 12 resource area of the South Indian Lake community 13 in the local region? 14 MR. OSLER: Predominantly because that 15 resource area is identified by all parties as 16 being clear and distinct from the Nelson House 17 RMA. And based on all of the evidence that we 18 have, that resource area as such would not be 19 affected in any way by this project that we were 20 asked to examine. 21 MR. GRAHAM: Sir, I am going to move 22 on to section 3.1.4, on estimating the effects on 23 the resource economy, on page 8-59. It states 24 here -- 25 MR. OSLER: Just a second. 4857 1 MR. GRAHAM: It states here that the 2 resource economies potentially affected by the 3 project are limited to the commercial and domestic 4 resource harvesting economies of the local region, 5 and that one reason for this is the changed 6 lifestyle among residents in the local region as a 7 result of participating in project employment. 8 If South Indian Lake residents who are 9 in the local region secure training and 10 employment, their commercial and domestic resource 11 economy may also change. Would you agree? 12 MR. OSLER: Potentially, it could. 13 MR. GRAHAM: But the OPCN traditional 14 area and commercial and domestic resource 15 harvesting analysis has been left out of the local 16 region, and I can't find it in the project region 17 either. 18 MR. OSLER: Well -- 19 MR. GRAHAM: How do you measure the 20 impact from residents at South Indian Lake 21 securing training and employment on their 22 commercial and domestic resource economy? 23 MR. OSLER: I don't think that 24 anywhere in this analysis, even with respect to 25 Nelson House residents, have we purported to be 4858 1 able to carry out an analysis to the extent to 2 which resource activities would actually be 3 changed because of employment opportunities on the 4 project. The issue that you raise though is 5 there, and was part of the history of South Indian 6 Lake at the time of the construction of the 7 Churchill River Diversion when a number of 8 commercial fishermen worked on the project and 9 didn't commercially fish for a few years. So I 10 can understand that South Indian Lake, in 11 particular, given its history, would have some 12 interest in this area. But we did not get into 13 that. 14 The issue would apply also to 15 Tataskweyak Cree Nation or other Cree Nations 16 whose members are successful in getting employment 17 opportunities on the project. The majority -- 18 there would be lots of other people who would be 19 potentially affected to the extent that a resource 20 harvester, fisher, trapper, whatever, curtailed 21 their resource activities for a period of time in 22 order to work on the project. We have not been 23 able to find any basis for analyzing that, as I 24 repeat, even at Nelson House, so there is no way 25 in which South Indian Lake was treated any 4859 1 differently in that regard. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Graham, is that the 3 last of the particulars on that same issue? 4 MR. GRAHAM: No, sir, but if you 5 wanted to take a break -- 6 THE CHAIRMAN: We will take a break at 7 this time, a lot of people are signaling the need, 8 and our recorder too. 9 (PROCEEDINGS RECESSED AT 3:25 P.M. 10 AND RECONVENED AT 3:45 P.M.) 11 12 THE CHAIRMAN: I think we can begin, 13 Mr. Graham. 14 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. At the 15 break we were discussing the section called 16 estimating the effects on the resource economy on 17 page 8-59. And on that page it states that the 18 resource economies potentially affected by the 19 project are limited to the commercial and domestic 20 resource harvesting economies of the local region. 21 I could be wrong, but correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. 22 Osler, you were saying that that was actually an 23 analysis of the Nelson House RMA, not the local 24 region? 25 MR. OSLER: The focus of our analysis 4860 1 in this study was on the resource effects that 2 could potentially overlap with the project which 3 are all within the Nelson House RMA, none of which 4 were in the SIL trapline area. 5 MR. GRAHAM: That is where I get 6 confused when I go through the report. Because 7 you mean Nelson House RMA, but you say local 8 region, and I look on the map, it includes parts 9 of the South Indian Lake RTL and I just want to 10 comment on that because it comes up again and 11 again. 12 I think you commented also that it 13 might have been an oversight to not look at the 14 effects on the resource area of the membership 15 living in South Indian Lake given the severe 16 impacts on their resources from the CRD. Did you 17 say that, sir? 18 MR. OSLER: I didn't say it was an 19 oversight. What I said was that the issue exists 20 in any community where employees, people who would 21 otherwise have been engaged in resource activity 22 become employees in the project and in some way or 23 another that affects their resource activities. 24 The way in which we have been able to treat that 25 hasn't really differed among the communities 4861 1 because we haven't come up with any particular 2 method of analysis that would enable us to isolate 3 that factor. The second thing that I said, as I 4 understand the people of South Indian Lake might 5 have a particular interest in this issue given the 6 history of the CRD and the fact that several 7 people from South Indian Lake opted for employment 8 opportunities during construction of CRD, and if I 9 recall correctly, that lead to some declines in, 10 among other things, domestic and other fishing 11 during that period of time. They are two separate 12 points. 13 MR. GRAHAM: But this isn't any other 14 community, Mr. Osler, this community is comprised 15 80 to 90 percent of Nisichawayasihk members. It 16 isn't like the other communities like Split Lake 17 or the other ones that you mentioned. So I still 18 don't understand why it was left out. This is a 19 community that is 80 to 90 percent Nisichawayasihk 20 members by Canada, Manitoba and Hydro's 21 interpretation of membership, and the effects of, 22 the physical effects of the water may not go past 23 Early Morning Rapids, but there is preference 24 given to these people for training and employment 25 which may impact how they deal with their 4862 1 commercial and domestic resource harvesting, and 2 it is not inside the RMA. 3 MR. OSLER: Essentially we focused on 4 the resource use activities that could be affected 5 by the project. The resource use studies which 6 were reported in volume 7, looked in the Nelson 7 House RMA, they did all of their work on that. 8 The socioeconomic analysis built on that. We 9 didn't see a reason to extend that analysis beyond 10 what had been done for those purposes when dealing 11 with South Indian Lake. And indeed there will be 12 similar issues with other communities that are not 13 NCN members but will have the same preference if 14 the assumptions that we used for hiring are 15 consummated in the final BNA as negotiated. 16 And finally just to make the point, 17 even though extensive resource use analysis was 18 done in the Nelson House RMA, we did not come up 19 with any ability to take that analysis and predict 20 that specific resource users would in any material 21 way change their activities as a result of 22 employment opportunities on the project. It 23 doesn't mean that it wouldn't occur. It just 24 means that we didn't come up with any method to 25 predict it. Even if there was resource use 4863 1 information available to us for South Indian Lake 2 for whatever reason, I don't think it would have 3 lead to any change in our effects analysis as 4 carried out here. 5 MR. GRAHAM: Why did you bother to 6 analyze it then throughout the Nelson House RMA if 7 you can't determine anything from that? 8 MR. OSLER: We were looking at the 9 economy to do with Nelson House. I have said over 10 and over again we focused on the NCN members at 11 Nelson House and the resource use is an important 12 element of that economy, and the information was 13 readily available. 14 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. This 15 doesn't mean, therefore, that the South Indian 16 Lake members are not anticipated to get work on 17 the project and, therefore, the effects on their 18 resource harvesting is negligible? 19 MR. OSLER: There is nothing in what I 20 have said to suggest that NCN members, other 21 Aboriginals living at South Indian Lake would not 22 get opportunities for employment on the project, 23 true. And in the event that such people get 24 employment and change their resource use 25 activities, there would be an effect, whether it 4864 1 is at South Indian Lake, Nelson House or 2 Tataskweyak or Waboden. 3 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. With respect 4 to the existing economy in section 3.2.2 on page 5 8-61 the first sentence states, 6 "The economy of the local region is 7 based primarily on providing goods and 8 services to the resident population of 9 Nelson House and to other communities 10 in the region." 11 Does this pertain to the economy of 12 Nelson House rather than the local region? 13 MR. OSLER: Well, South Indian Lake is 14 referred to in the fourth line, so -- 15 MR. GRAHAM: I'm not talking about 16 that line, sir. 17 MR. OSLER: I know you are not but I'm 18 talking about the paragraph, and the sentence 19 understood in the context of the paragraph clearly 20 includes South Indian Lake. 21 MR. GRAHAM: What goods and services 22 does Nelson House provide to South Indian Lake? 23 MR. OSLER: Sorry, the sentence reads, 24 that you quoted me, the economy of the local 25 region is based primarily on providing goods and 4865 1 services to the resident population of Nelson 2 House and to other communities in the region. 3 MR. GRAHAM: The local region? 4 MR. OSLER: That is what it says, yes. 5 MR. GRAHAM: That is my question, what 6 goods and services does Nelson House provide to 7 South Indian Lake? 8 MR. OSLER: Well, I don't know. I 9 mean what level of activities occur from people 10 resident at Nelson House, to what extent does the 11 fact that members at Nelson House, at South Indian 12 Lake are members of the band of NCN, and therefore 13 there is activity back and forth related to that, 14 I don't know. I don't know. There will be some. 15 To what extent the communities have a significant 16 degree of persons born in one community and lives 17 in the other community, there is intermarriage. 18 For all of the discussion about differences, there 19 are also an awful lot of transfers back and forth 20 between the two of services, of people, et cetera. 21 MR. GRAHAM: But you are not aware of 22 these services? 23 MR. OSLER: I'm not aware of the 24 details. 25 MR. GRAHAM: I don't know is fine. On 4866 1 page 8-64 you note that 25 percent of the 2 employment in South Indian Lake is based on 3 fishing and trapping. Would it be important, 4 therefore, to analyze the seasonal availability of 5 these people for employment opportunities at 6 Wuskwatim that I understand are predominantly 7 summer jobs? 8 MR. OSLER: In general it is important 9 to, and was paid attention to by the people doing 10 the analysis to consider the availability and 11 capability of people to take up the job 12 opportunities related to the project. 13 MR. GRAHAM: I think we are in 14 agreement that the economies of Nelson House and 15 South Indian Lake are substantially different, are 16 we, sir? 17 MR. OSLER: We certainly agree there 18 are differences. I haven't attempted to analyze 19 all of them, but certainly the commercial fishing 20 element that you identified. 21 MR. GRAHAM: That was my next 22 question. Would you describe the participation 23 rate in the commercial and domestic traditional 24 resource harvesting as substantially different? 25 MR. OSLER: I leave it to Mr. Davies 4867 1 to get into the details of that, but I wouldn't be 2 surprised if there is some differences. 3 MR. DAVIES: Could you repeat the 4 question please? 5 MR. GRAHAM: Would you describe the 6 participation rate in the commercial and domestic 7 traditional resource harvesting between Nelson 8 House and South Indian Lake as substantially 9 different? 10 MR. DAVIES: Yes, I would. 11 MR. GRAHAM: And did you collect the 12 South Indian Lake RTL data on trapping, commercial 13 fishing and domestic resource harvesting in order 14 to make that determination? 15 MR. DAVIES: We looked at -- we didn't 16 look at either the commercial harvesting 17 information as part of this project because it was 18 deemed to be outside of the zone of influence of 19 the project. But I am aware of the South Indian 20 Lake fishery and other fisheries that occur in the 21 South Indian Lake RMA, and also the fact that some 22 of the these South Indian Lake fishermen fish some 23 of the lakes in the northern part of the Nelson 24 House RMA. And looking at the overall value of 25 the commercial fishery in South Indian Lake which 4868 1 is substantially larger than all of the lakes 2 combined in the Nelson House RMA. 3 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. Mr. 4 Grewar. Mr. Grewar is helping us distribute a 5 couple of more exhibits that we brought and they 6 follow-up just on what you said, Mr. Davies, that 7 the quotas that are available for commercial 8 fishing and that are held by Nisichawayasihk 9 members living in South Indian Lake are 10 substantially larger, and the income that is 11 derived, I'm not sure, I'm going to ask you a 12 question about that. 13 I guess I don't think that you have 14 studied this, so maybe I will skip that question 15 about how much community income in South Indian 16 Lake is derived from commercial fishing. 17 MR. DAVIES: I don't have that number, 18 but I do know it is one, if not the primary, 19 economy in South Indian Lake. 20 MR. GRAHAM: On that exhibit that we 21 passed out it provides the commercial fishing 22 income in South Indian Lake for the past eight 23 years, so you wouldn't be surprised, sir, that is 24 just under half a million dollars annually. 25 MR. DAVIES: Actually I thought the 4869 1 total value of the South Indian Lake fishery was 2 over half a million dollars annually. 3 MR. GRAHAM: It used to be. 4 MR. DAVIES: I believe around 1993 or 5 1994 it was approximately one million dollars. 6 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. How does 7 this compare to the average annual income derived 8 from commercial fishing in the Nelson House RMA? 9 MR. DAVIES: The Nelson House RMA 10 average annual commercial fishing is about 11 $235,000 a year in today's dollars. A portion of 12 that, though, is harvested by fishermen from South 13 Indian Lake, as I said, are fishing in the 14 northern portion of the Nelson House resource 15 management area. 16 MR. GRAHAM: Would you consider the 17 South Indian Lake commercial fishery to be a low, 18 medium or high income Northern Manitoba industry? 19 MR. DAVIES: Sorry, I'm only familiar 20 with the fisheries, not the mines and those types 21 of things, but it is one of the larger commercial 22 fisheries in Northern Manitoba. 23 MR. GRAHAM: In fact, sir, on page 24 3-1, I believe of volume 7, you state that 25 northern lakes contribute 24 percent of the total 4870 1 Provincial production of 11.6 million kilograms or 2 approximately 2.7 million kilograms. And from 3 table 3.1, Nelson House has a quota of 4 220,700 kilograms or 7.9 percent of this northern 5 production, if it was fully utilized. In relative 6 terms, the South Indian Lake RTL commercial 7 fishery has a quota of just under 8 700,000 kilograms or 25 percent of the northern 9 production, if fully utilized. And it is three 10 times bigger than the quota in the Nelson House 11 RMA. Given the significance of this commercial 12 fishing resource and the fact that most quotas are 13 held by NCN members resident in South Indian Lake, 14 can you explain, please explain again why the 15 effects on this fishery from training and 16 employment at Wuskwatim were not analyzed? 17 MR. DAVIES: I will refer that to Mr. 18 Osler. 19 MR. OSLER: Essentially because when 20 dealing with all of the resource use activities, 21 whether they are commercial fishing for South 22 Indian Lake or trapping or hunting or gathering or 23 domestic fishing, the ability to predict at this 24 stage the extent, if any, that these participants 25 will get involved in the training, and other 4871 1 preparatory activities, as well as all of the 2 stages of dedication required to become employed 3 on the generation project, we just don't have a 4 basis for getting into that level of assessment. 5 And it would exist, I repeat, throughout the 6 project, the whole project region, all of the 7 communities that have the opportunity for 8 employment as a first preference on the project, 9 the issue exists. The better way to deal with it 10 is to assess ways to respond to the issues as they 11 may arise, if people from those types of 12 occupations or those types of activities today get 13 involved in the project and how the communities 14 respectively would see that as a concern or not as 15 a concern, and how they would like to address 16 dealing with it. 17 So, each community has things that are 18 very important to them that may or may not be 19 affected, but our ability to analyze that would 20 require knowing who is going to get what jobs at a 21 level of detail that just isn't known at this 22 stage in terms of community by community. 23 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. Mr. Davies, 24 in volume 7 on page 3-15 you state that an 25 increase in the wage economy during construction 4872 1 may cause a short term decrease in the number of 2 individuals interested in commercial fishing. 3 Fishers may be required to choose between 4 commercial fishing and project employment as the 5 majority of jobs provided to Nelson House 6 residents will occur during existing commercial 7 fishing seasons. Did you specify Nelson House and 8 not South Indian Lake because you were only 9 looking at the RMA? 10 MR. DAVIES: As Mr. Osler said, we 11 looked at the area that would be impacted by the 12 project and I do realize that South Indian Lake 13 NCN members will also have opportunities to have 14 jobs the same as TCN and other communities that 15 Mr. Osler mentioned. And there is not that level 16 of detail to look at all of the First Nations 17 communities in the north that would have access to 18 those jobs. 19 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. You state on 20 page 3-1 of volume 7 that commercial fishing is 21 one of the few sectors of the cash economy in 22 which Aboriginals can participate while 23 maintaining their traditional subsistent 24 lifestyle. Would you agree that with the much 25 larger quotas available to a much smaller 4873 1 community, maintaining a traditional subsistent 2 lifestyle is much more possible within the South 3 Indian Lake resource area than the Nelson House 4 RMA? 5 MR. DAVIES: It is a difficult 6 question to answer. If we take the total number 7 of commercial fishermen, I don't have the number 8 at the top of my head, but I believe it varies 9 quite a bit, but probably 50 to 60 individuals for 10 South Indian Lake and of course they have their 11 families that they support. But the total number 12 of fishers out of the entire community would be a 13 relatively small percent. And there are people 14 that do fish in the Nelson House resource 15 management area, and there are a number of elders 16 and a lot of people that still do have fairly high 17 levels of subsistent harvesting and do practice 18 traditional lifestyles. To do a comparison 19 between the two and say which one has more of a 20 traditional lifestyle would be very difficult. 21 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. I would like 22 to leave commercial fishing and move on to country 23 food. Mr. Osler, on page 8-69 it states here that 24 non-monetary sources for country food are an 25 important source of income and that these are 4874 1 discussed separately in 3.2.2.2. But when I turn 2 to 3.2.2.2 on page 8-73 I find it is only an 3 analysis of the Nelson House RMA again. While 4 South Indian Lake is discussed in the labour force 5 characteristics in 3.2.2.1 it is noticeably absent 6 in this section. It is not important to look at 7 the country food harvested in the South Indian 8 Lake resource area? 9 MR. OSLER: This is the same question 10 we discussed before when you went through why was 11 the detailed resource use information assessed in 12 the Nelson House RMA and not with respect to the 13 South Indian Lake trapline area. It is 14 essentially the same type of issue. 15 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. 16 MR. OSLER: It is not that it is 17 unimportant and there is no way this implies that 18 it would be unimportant. 19 MR. GRAHAM: It just seems funny that 20 one is looked at and one is not. And people are 21 going to get preferential jobs and training 22 opportunities from both places. On page 8-73 at 23 the bottom you state that there has been a 24 decrease in the revenues generated by the local 25 resource economy in terms of their relative 4875 1 importance to the overall NCN economy. I take it 2 you mean the Nelson House economy? 3 MR. OSLER: The analysis here is 4 certainly focusing on the Nelson House RMA, as it 5 is stated. And in that sense it is focusing on 6 the Nelson House economy in this instance. 7 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. I would like 8 to now turn more directly to the economy. In 9 section 2.1.1 of page 8-10 it states . 10 "The economy considers effects on 11 economic activities including 12 employment, business, resource economy 13 and resource use, and in the case of 14 NCN, ownership participation." 15 Are the members resident in South 16 Indian Lake included in this? 17 MR. OSLER: Sorry you said 8-10? 18 MR. GRAHAM: Yes, 8-10, I believe, in 19 section 2.1.1 called type of effect, number 1, 20 economy. 21 MR. OSLER: Okay. We are starting off 22 here, we are talking about the entire section, not 23 just the local region in the geographic area. And 24 the table that you referred the Commission to is a 25 couple of pages further on. So all that is being 4876 1 said here is that one of the areas that we were 2 asked to examine in the guidelines is something 3 called economy. And that will consider effects on 4 economic activities including employment, business 5 resource use, resource economy, and in the case of 6 NCN, ownership participation. We only dealt with 7 that in the context of NCN, the First Nation, and 8 its agreement with Manitoba Hydro to have the 9 opportunity for ownership participation. 10 MR. GRAHAM: So that is all members, 11 is that right, sir? 12 MR. OSLER: I'm not going to go beyond 13 what I just said. 14 MR. GRAHAM: You don't know, sir? 15 MR. OSLER: That is not what I said. 16 I said there was an agreement with NCN, the First 17 Nation, with Manitoba Hydro for the right of that 18 First Nation to have an ownership interest in the 19 project. If you have other questions to do with 20 that, you will have to direct them to the First 21 Nation. 22 MR. GRAHAM: Mr. Thomas, does NCN in 23 that sentence, in that page, include all of the 24 members? I understand you reviewed the report. 25 MR. THOMAS: It includes NCN members. 4877 1 MR. GRAHAM: All of them? 2 MR. THOMAS: I gave you my answer. 3 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. On page 8-58, 4 3.1.2, my question in this section relates to what 5 is meant by a NCN business. Are these businesses 6 based in Nelson House or South Indian Lake or 7 both? 8 MR. OSLER: For the purposes of 9 studying things in detail in this area, we tended 10 to focus on businesses at Nelson House or band 11 businesses. Although I suspect that in the detail 12 there may be some information on existing 13 businesses at South Indian, but I don't know that. 14 Beyond saying that, to the extent that there are 15 opportunities for specific businesses in the 16 project, that would get into the project 17 development agreement, and the terms and 18 conditions of that, and again that would be a 19 question to NCN. 20 MR. GRAHAM: I note on page -- sorry, 21 sir, did you have more to say? 22 MR. OSLER: Or Manitoba Hydro. 23 MR. GRAHAM: Maybe I will come back to 24 them. I note on page 8-62 in your report that 25 businesses in South Indian Lake have not been 4878 1 included because they are not expected to 2 experience effects from the generation project. 3 Can you please confirm that the beneficial effects 4 that we just referenced on 8-58 are for Nelson 5 House based NCN businesses only? 6 MR. OSLER: That is the expectation, 7 yes. But that doesn't mean that is a statement of 8 any legal proportions or that it will necessarily 9 be the case. Just for the purposes of preparing 10 this -- 11 MR. GRAHAM: It was your professional 12 opinion after analysis? 13 MR. OSLER: It was an assumption for 14 the purposes of analysis. 15 MR. GRAHAM: An assumption. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Kinew. 17 MS. AVERY KINEW: Sorry, I just 18 wondered, I don't have that binder. Is there a 19 definition of an NCN business? 20 MR. THOMAS: Yes, we have -- we've got 21 it in our summary of understandings that we had 22 filed. And in it NCN business means any business 23 or corporation or other entity, legally or 24 beneficially owned, operated or controlled by NCN, 25 or any corporation or entity that is legally or 4879 1 beneficially owned by or controlled by or related 2 to or associated with, as those terms are defined 3 by the Income Tax Act of Canada, such business, 4 corporation or entity referred to in section 7 5 business opportunities during construction. We 6 focused our energies on trying to acquire some 7 business opportunities, and our focus has been, as 8 has been stated throughout these lines of 9 questioning, that we have had an NCN focus. And 10 an NCN focus means that we are including the 11 community members of NCN who reside in South 12 Indian Lake. I'm kind of interested, you want to 13 separate but you want some of the benefits as 14 well. I don't know, I find it kind of strange. 15 MS. AVERY KINEW: Simply put, a NCN 16 business is a business owned by a NCN member or 17 First Nation? 18 MR. THOMAS: We kept all of our 19 options open with respect to negotiating this kind 20 of a situation where we didn't want to 21 unnecessarily restrict ourselves. We do have some 22 NCN entities that are businesses that we wanted to 23 include, but at the same time we wanted to make 24 room for new business ventures, and that may be 25 from individuals or it may be from a group of 4880 1 individuals that come together for a particular 2 purpose. And so we've kept our options open. It 3 could be that an NCN member from South Indian Lake 4 may want to join forces with a NCN person from 5 Nelson House and start up a business that might be 6 able to satisfy a need for this particular 7 project, and we would certainly look at that. I 8 can't guarantee there would be business there but 9 certainly we would look at it. And some of the 10 things that we look at is whether or not there is 11 a capacity to be able to meet the need that is 12 there within the constraints that they have to 13 operate under. 14 MS. AVERY KINEW: Thank you. 15 MR. OSLER: Could I make one 16 observation too? The summary of understandings 17 that allows you to discuss today some of these 18 matters in a little more detail was not available 19 until well after the EIS, so we had to make 20 assumptions on this and a number of other matters. 21 And frankly even the summary of understandings is 22 still a document to guide the finalization of 23 whatever the final agreements will be. 24 MR. GRAHAM: I believe I read 25 somewhere in your paper, maybe that is not the 4881 1 right word, your report, Mr. Osler, that you 2 didn't find any South Indian Lake businesses when 3 you did your analysis, and that is how you reached 4 the conclusion, any business that were large 5 enough to participate, and it wasn't an 6 assumption, it was after reviewing the existing 7 status quo of the businesses that existed, you 8 reached the conclusion that the businesses in 9 South Indian Lake would not benefit, or your words 10 were they would not experience effects from the 11 generation station project. 12 MR. OSLER: That is the quote that you 13 just read me. But, you know, the rationale for 14 that quote would reflect -- and I'm saying it is 15 an assumption from the point of view of a 16 statement at the beginning of an exercise where 17 you are going to go through the existing 18 environment. And the existing environment, 19 according to the guidelines, you just don't go and 20 look at everything, you look at the areas where 21 you expect there will be an overlap of effects. 22 On a preliminary basis the information was 23 available and the assumptions that we thought 24 would be reasonable to work with, perhaps taking 25 into account the nature of the businesses at South 4882 1 Indian Lake, but I'm not sure that that was 2 necessarily the dominant factor. Taking into 3 account some of the requirements for businesses to 4 be involved in this project and the NCN focus, 5 that even that definition still has, very much so, 6 that it would seem that it would be a reasonable 7 assumption to make at this stage in the analysis 8 that the businesses and types of opportunities we 9 would be talking about for either direct 10 involvement in the project in the sense that this 11 SOU anticipates, or for peripheral involvement 12 just because of economic activity in the area. 13 South Indian Lake is relatively speaking a good 14 distance away from Nelson House and from the 15 project. There is no particular reason, aside 16 from people spending money, getting employed or 17 being directly involved in an NCN business 18 pursuant to that definition, that businesses at 19 South Indian Lake would see much direct benefit 20 from this project, given its geographic location 21 and a bunch of other things. So aside from the 22 NCN rights and privileges pursuant to an agreement 23 with Manitoba Hydro and NCN businesses as will be 24 defined in that agreement, it is hard to see that 25 there will be an overlap of effects with respect 4883 1 to business. And that has all gone under that 2 assumption that lead, therefore, to not doing a 3 detailed analysis of an existing environment of 4 South Indian Lake businesses. 5 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. On page 8-100 6 you stated that the local region economic effects 7 experienced during operations are expected to 8 result mainly from potential ownership investment 9 in the project by NCN, which seems to imply all of 10 the members, and that is what I heard Councillor 11 Thomas say as well. However, on page 8-279, the 12 study changes the definition of local region to 13 only include the Nisichawayasihk members who are 14 living on reserve and in the northern affairs 15 community of Nelson House. That is, you delete 16 the members of Nisichawayasihk living in South 17 Indian Lake from the local region, is that true, 18 sir? 19 MR. OSLER: Well, 8-279 is part of 20 personal planning and community life, where the 21 focus is very much on effects that would be felt 22 by people living at Nelson House, and in the 23 Nelson House area, including the Northern Affairs 24 community. So that is the focus throughout that 25 entire section for the reasons that I laid out 4884 1 there. Now, I don't know particularly what 2 element you are focusing on in terms of language 3 here on this page. 4 MR. GRAHAM: I'm focusing on your 5 definition of local region. 6 MR. OSLER: Give me what sentence you 7 want me to look at? 8 MR. GRAHAM: The first one. 9 "The project is expected to have both 10 positive and negative effects on 11 people in the local region 12 (Nisichawayasihk, including members 13 living at Nelson House and the Nelson 14 House Northern Affairs Community). 15 The project would have the most 16 pronounced effect on these people by 17 virtue of their proximity to the 18 project, their continued traditional 19 use of the area around Wuskwatim Lake, 20 and their participation in the project 21 as a potential partner (Including 22 employment and business activities). 23 Effects at South Indian Lake are 24 expected to be limited to employment 25 and business opportunities." 4885 1 It seems very clear that you have 2 taken South Indian Lake out of the local region 3 and you have identified benefits that exclude 4 project partner equity. And I'm wondering how you 5 reached that conclusion, sir, and why you took 6 them out of the local region? 7 MR. OSLER: They are not taken out of 8 the local region. What the statement says is the 9 effects of South Indian Lake, so therefore they 10 are still in the local region, are expected to be 11 limited to employment and business opportunities. 12 The underlying question that you are asking is why 13 didn't we include ownership. That's your 14 question. And the answer to that question is 15 because we have no basis for any analysis as to 16 how NCN and South Indian Lake will work together 17 to deal with it. So we just dealt with ownership 18 as NCN generally. We did not get into trying to 19 parse it. 20 MR. THOMAS: It is a bit of a 21 difficult issue to answer in as clear a kind of 22 fashion as you would like there, Mr. Graham. We, 23 as NCN Chief and Council, have taken the position 24 that we are going to focus on NCN as the 25 beneficiaries for whatever we do. However, in all 4886 1 of the different areas that have been identified 2 where NCN members are, we have people that live in 3 Winnipeg and Thompson and Brandon and elsewhere. 4 Those people are not desiring to separate from 5 NCN, whereas there is a very fundamental 6 distinction between NCN members in South Indian 7 Lake because there is a desire there for 8 separation. And as much as we try to share in the 9 benefits that are coming about from the potential 10 of this project, those issues the Chief and 11 Council have decided would be subject to 12 negotiation when it comes to discussions about the 13 division of assets. 14 MR. GRAHAM: Mr. Osler. 15 MR. THOMAS: And to get into the 16 details of those things in this forum is, as I 17 stated before, inappropriate. This is a matter 18 that should be between NCN and also South Indian 19 Lake. 20 MR. GRAHAM: Mr. Osler, you seemed to 21 make the assumption that the South Indian Lake 22 people, the Nisichawayasihk members in South 23 Indian Lake, wouldn't benefit from a project 24 equity position, but you didn't do the same for 25 the members that don't -- well, you also did the 4887 1 same for the members that live in Winnipeg and 2 Brandon. In that statement you limited that 3 comment to the members of the local region, why 4 was that, sir? 5 MR. OSLER: I think you are 6 stretching. All it says is the project would have 7 the most pronounced effect on these people by 8 virtue of, and it goes through a bunch of things. 9 It doesn't exclude -- it doesn't say if you don't 10 live there you won't see any benefits through 11 ownership if you are a NCN member, it never says 12 that, whether you are in Brandon, Thompson, South 13 Indian Lake or Winnipeg, whatever. The issues 14 that you are asking me to get into go to the trust 15 arrangements of the existing '96 agreement, the 16 issue of how that trust will or will not be 17 duplicated for this agreement, the arrangements 18 between the parties on all of those matters and 19 what interest, if any, the people at South Indian 20 Lake who want a separate entity will have, and I'm 21 not going there. 22 MR. GRAHAM: Should the definition of 23 local region on page 8-100 be changed? On there 24 you state. 25 "Assuming that NCN invests in the 4888 1 project, significant project effects 2 on the local region economy will be 3 felt during the project's operation 4 phase when NCN begins to realize the 5 stream of revenue stemming from this 6 ownership investment." 7 Is this local region, like as you have 8 described it, or is this Nelson House and the RMA? 9 MR. OSLER: The local region is 10 defined the same way throughout the document. 11 There is nothing in that issue. What you are 12 asking me to comment on is how different elements 13 inside of that area will be affected and I'm not 14 going to go there. I'm not going to exclude you 15 and I am not going to include you in a 16 mathematical way as to how it will flow. If you 17 want to give an agreement that says none of the 18 benefits will flow there and for that purpose it 19 should be excluded, that is a different issue, but 20 I have no basis for that. The ownership issue is 21 fundamentally dealt with under economy in terms of 22 an agreement between Manitoba Hydro and NCN and 23 the benefits that would flow to NCN if that option 24 is exercised. Dealing with personal, family and 25 community life, the focus is on how NCN would deal 4889 1 with that increased income. And at the moment, if 2 you had to get into analyzing it, you would look 3 at the trust arrangements that have been there in 4 the past and what the agreement would be in the 5 future. Neither of which we wanted to get into 6 for the purposes of doing this EIS. 7 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. On page 8-62 8 you state that you do not expect business in South 9 Indian Lake to experience effects from the 10 project. So how did you conclude on page 8-279 11 that the effects at South Indian Lake are expected 12 to include business opportunities? 13 MR. OSLER: All it says is including 14 employment and business opportunities, to the 15 extent that there are no business activities that 16 emerge it is not relevant. Again, we are talking 17 about a background volume. We are dealing with 18 the opening to a section on effects and 19 mitigation. To the extent that our assumption 20 earlier on is wrong, and in fact there is some 21 business activity occurring at South Indian Lake 22 under the economy, there will be some potential 23 implications to personal, family and community 24 life. That is why the sentence is written that 25 way. It is not an inconsistency, it is allowing 4890 1 for the possibility. 2 MR. GRAHAM: Don't you think this 3 amalgamation of results from distinctive groupings 4 of people tend to mask the distinctive situations 5 of each and blur the projected beneficial effects 6 of Wuskwatim which are anticipated to be unique to 7 each community? 8 MR. OSLER: The analysis certainly 9 does not purport to or provide an assessment in 10 any detail of the effects on South Indian Lake as 11 a separate group of people, how many people would 12 be employed there, how much business activity 13 would occur there, if any, or any attempts to 14 fathom other issues. It really focuses, as I said 15 many times, on NCN. And because the members of 16 NCN are 80 to 90 percent of the members at South 17 Indian Lake, for the purposes of trying to do this 18 it was thought useful to include it. And also 19 because NCN members at South Indian Lake were 20 actively involved with community consultants and 21 other members, other activities in the agreement 22 process, and they are a large number of people. 23 For all of those reasons it was thought it would 24 be helpful rather than not helpful to include them 25 as we did. If the agreements -- if the OPN issue 4891 1 is formally resolved, we would not have included 2 them. 3 MR. GRAHAM: On page 8-98 at the 4 bottom of this page you forecast or -- 5 MR. OSLER: Sorry, the number? 6 MR. GRAHAM: 8-98. At the bottom of 7 this page you forecast the potential increase on 8 domestic and recreational fishing pressure on 9 Wuskwatim Lake and elsewhere within the Nelson 10 House RMA, from the 540 workers, many who will 11 come with Treaty fishing rights. 12 Would this forecast apply equally 13 throughout the local region? You have limited 14 your comments there to the Nelson House RMA. 15 MR. OSLER: This is a section dealing 16 with resource economy effects, summarizing and 17 dealing with commercial trapping, commercial 18 fishing, et cetera. I think it probably reflects 19 material that was in the resource use section. 20 But the work force at Wuskwatim in total, is what 21 it is saying, has the potential to increase 22 domestic and recreational fishing pressure on the 23 lake and elsewhere within the RMA. During peak 24 construction, this isn't -- the project is in the 25 local region, so the project, with all of the 4892 1 workers working at it, including those that come 2 from within the local region, but also including 3 all of those who come from wherever else they come 4 from, and that is workers who are hired through 5 the job process, not those who are out of scope, 6 as described earlier, there could be up to 540 7 workers on the site, including many with Treaty 8 fishing rights. That is not just NCN members, it 9 could be Tataskweyak members, it could be Cross 10 Lake members, it could be Pimicikamak, it could be 11 anybody that has got Treaty or Aboriginal fishing 12 rights that could potentially fish the lake. That 13 is what that sentence is saying, if that helps 14 you. 15 MR. GRAHAM: I read the sentence, sir. 16 It says you expect this increased pressure on 17 Wuskwatim Lake and throughout the RMA. 18 MR. OSLER: It is talked about as a 19 potential. 20 MR. GRAHAM: A potential effect, and 21 my question again, sir, is, do you also expect 22 potential pressure in the local region that is 23 outside of the RMA, which is road accessible, 24 while a lot of the RMA is not? 25 MR. OSLER: No. 4893 1 MR. GRAHAM: You don't anticipate 2 pressure? 3 MR. OSLER: We are talking about 4 pressure around Wuskwatim Lake and around the 5 access road and the need for access road 6 management. We are not talking about effects and 7 pressure in other parts, even in the Nelson House 8 RMA. And maybe Mr. Davies could elaborate this 9 because he discussed this at some length in 10 section 7. 11 MR. DAVIES: I think the focus of 12 those comments were specifically for the Wuskwatim 13 Lake area. We do expect that there is a potential 14 for increased harvesting, particularly in regards 15 to the fisheries resource. What we have found out 16 though from other projects like from the Limestone 17 experience is that Aboriginal people generally 18 respect the boundaries and harvesting areas of 19 other Aboriginal people. In Limestone there was 20 only one occurrence where there actually was an 21 issue, and that was an individual that was 22 trapping on another individual's trapline. And 23 when he found out that it was someone else's 24 trapline, he stopped and apologized for it. 25 In regards to fishing, we feel that 4894 1 that there may be a potential for increased sport 2 fishing on Wuskwatim Lake itself, and we have 3 discussed that with Manitoba Conservation who is 4 responsible for the management of that. They 5 stated that they will monitor that and, if needed, 6 they would put restrictions on it. 7 MR. GRAHAM: You don't anticipate that 8 the 540 workers will jump in their four wheelers 9 and go down the road to another lake? 10 MR. DAVIES: There is not that much 11 actually in the Wuskwatim area. If you look at 12 the downstream areas like Opegano Lake and 13 Birchtree Lake, first of all, they are very poor 14 in regards to fishing, but it is also an extremely 15 dangerous area to access. Even the experienced 16 NCN members from Nelson House who are familiar 17 with the area don't harvest there. Both of the 18 lakes have very small commercially fisheries, and 19 neither of the lakes are fished commercially, 20 again because of the nature of the lake and also 21 because of the access problems. 22 Going upstream, Wuskwatim Lake itself 23 is quite large, which includes Cranberry Lake and 24 Sesep Lake, which is part of the study area. You 25 have to go quite a ways upstream and then you have 4895 1 to start doing portages. It is a very difficult 2 area to move in. 3 MR. GRAHAM: I think I will leave 4 that. We just looked at the quotas and the 5 available fishing resource that is just down the 6 road, and if I were a fisherman, I would go where 7 the fish were. 8 MR. DAVIES: Are you referring to 9 fishing Opegano Lake and Birchtree Lake? 10 MR. GRAHAM: No, down the road to 11 South Indian Lake where there is a million pound 12 quota. 13 MR. DAVIES: You have to be a 14 registered licence holder to fish commercially on 15 South Indian Lake. 16 MR. GRAHAM: We are talking domestic 17 fishing I thought. 18 MR. DAVIES: I mean, any individual 19 that is going there now that is Aboriginal has a 20 right to fish domestically in the lake, but I 21 don't think that is normally a problem -- unless 22 the person is invited up there. Again, I think 23 most of the First Nations people do respect the 24 boundaries of others. 25 MR. GRAHAM: So the 540 fishermen, we 4896 1 are not worried about that? We are not expecting 2 that to be an effect? 3 MR. DAVIES: We are worried about it 4 in terms of the effect on Wuskwatim Lake itself. 5 We do feel that the sport fishery would probably 6 have an insignificant effect, but, again, Manitoba 7 Conservation is going to monitor that to make sure 8 that if there is increased fishing pressure to the 9 point where it could affect the domestic or 10 commercial fisheries, they may take action if 11 required. 12 MR. MAYER: Mr. Davies, Birchtree Lake 13 is now road accessible; right? 14 MR. DAVIES: No, Birchtree Lake isn't. 15 MR. MAYER: Yes, it is, sir. 16 MR. DAVIES: I wasn't aware that it 17 was. 18 MR. MAYER: If you go across either of 19 the two causeways between Thompson and the Gillam 20 road, you are right on Birchtree Lake, sir. 21 MR. DAVIES: I wasn't aware of that. 22 MR. MAYER: PR 391 gives access in two 23 places to Birchtree Lake. 24 MR. DAVIES: I wasn't aware of that. 25 I knew that going downstream was very difficult 4897 1 because that is where the NCN members normally 2 travel. 3 MR. OSLER: Just to make one other 4 point, you are talking about the workers, we are 5 talking about a nine hour day, six days a week, 6 which somewhat limits your opportunity to go 7 running around the area doing fishing or hauling 8 fish, et cetera. So, I mean, the focus was very 9 much on the workers at the camp and the extent to 10 which they could cause an issue for the commercial 11 fishing, which is really -- the comments are all 12 in that section, if they went into the lake and 13 they were fishing, they might disrupt in the 14 longer term the commercial fishery. So, I don't 15 think -- I think there is a reason why it is 16 focused that way and why you don't need to go 17 further than what is said here. 18 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. 19 Mr. Osler, when you conducted, I 20 believe it was your firm that conducted a survey 21 in South Indian Lake in 2001? 22 MR. OSLER: Sorry, NCN conducted all 23 of the surveys. We provided support but we did 24 not do the survey, it was done by NCN and by the 25 community consultants and the people of NCN. 4898 1 MR. GRAHAM: Did you assist in 2 reviewing the results? 3 MR. OSLER: Yes. 4 MR. GRAHAM: And I want to draw your 5 attention to one of the questions relating to the 6 importance of Nisichawayasihk ownership in the 7 project. It appears that when the survey was 8 conducted, you received a mixed response in that 9 some members felt that this was very important, 10 based on being Nisichawayasihk members and 11 presumably enjoying the benefits of ownership, 12 while there was another group who felt it was not 13 important, because Nelson House would benefit and 14 South Indian Lake would not. Whoever analyzed the 15 results and wrote up the conclusions referenced 16 the stark contrast between these two very 17 different perspectives. Are you aware of that, 18 sir? 19 MR. OSLER: I am generally aware of 20 it, but it is a long time ago. Do you want to 21 draw my question to the specific question -- the 22 specific question in the survey? The survey is 23 attached to the volume that you are drawing our 24 attention to as an appendix. I have it in front 25 of me. Is there a particular question or section 4899 1 of the survey results that you wanted me to look 2 at, because I don't remember them by heart? 3 MR. MAYER: While we are waiting -- 4 back to Mr. Davies -- I am looking at figure 5 4.3-2, which is a map which very clearly shows the 6 access to Birchtree Lake. And I know from the 7 time I was on Thompson City Council that Hydro 8 actually built a boat ramp there. I take it you 9 weren't aware of that? 10 MR. DAVIES: I wasn't aware of it, but 11 the biologist who did the resource survey was 12 aware of it and it is in the document. I just 13 missed it. 14 MR. OSLER: I have got page 32 of the 15 document, and there is question 19. 16 MR. GRAHAM: Actually, it is on page 17 33, sir, the reasons for project ownership 18 importance. 19 MR. OSLER: Okay. 20 MR. GRAHAM: The last line says, 21 "This response stands in contrast to 22 the reasoning of those who favour 23 ownership." 24 So there was this stark contrast between members 25 of the community, one thinking one way and one 4900 1 thinking the other way. 2 In your professional opinion, wouldn't 3 this survey result tell you that clarification and 4 increased information was required so that these 5 people had a better understanding of what to 6 expect from the project? 7 MR. OSLER: Information is always a 8 good thing. And I think, as you had an exchange 9 earlier with Councillor Thomas, this survey also 10 asked people how they would like to be informed 11 and included in public meetings, and we haven't 12 been able to have any public meetings on these 13 subjects. This is really a subject that goes more 14 to NCN members than it does to the EIS. But 15 having said all of those things, this occurred 16 after the AIP vote where, as it is a matter of 17 record, NCN members of South Indian Lake voted 18 heavily against the agreement. So this survey was 19 put together with that knowledge in mind. And 20 other parts asked people what some of the reasons 21 were for that vote, if I am not mistaken, near the 22 end of survey. 23 So the question on page 33 relates to 24 break outs of information from what is the 25 question on page 32, and obviously to the extent 4901 1 that people could have dialogue, discussion, 2 meetings, and information to address the concerns 3 or the interest would be a good idea. 4 MR. GRAHAM: This question was 5 specific to a difference of opinion on the 6 expected benefits of Nisichawayasihk having an 7 ownership position. And I am wondering, after 8 conducting the survey, what steps were taken to 9 clarify for those members that live in South 10 Indian Lake what the state of affairs was with 11 respect to the ownership position so that they 12 would be more informed? 13 MR. OSLER: That clearly is a question 14 for Councillor Thomas and not for me. 15 MR. THOMAS: Obviously, when we found 16 out that the people of South Indian Lake who are 17 NCN members wanted to know more information, we 18 tried to schedule meetings. And as indicated 19 previously in the questioning by Mr. Dysart, he 20 cancelled or postponed meetings, and as a result, 21 we couldn't have any. So there is your answer. 22 MR. GRAHAM: This isn't like an 23 overall general look at the project, this question 24 is related to the equity position and how it would 25 benefit the members living in South Indian Lake. 4902 1 And there was a clear response that half the 2 people thought each way. 3 So I looked to the EIS summary, the 4 AIP, the SOU, the SOU guidebook which recently 5 came out. None of those sources clarified that 6 for me or probably for the people that live there, 7 and I am wondering why that is? 8 MR. THOMAS: I am not quite sure I 9 follow where you are coming from with respect to 10 the assertion that half thought one way and half 11 thought the other way. The results of the vote 12 showed that South Indian Lake was heavily against 13 what we were trying to accomplish. 14 MR. GRAHAM: I was referring to the 15 question, sir, in the survey that is reported on 16 page 33. And the people that analyzed these 17 results referenced that there was a large 18 percentage who felt that this was a good idea, 19 presumably because they would enjoy benefits of 20 ownership, while there was a large portion on the 21 other side of the ledger who stated clearly that 22 the reason offered most frequently was that Nelson 23 House will benefit while South Indian Lake will 24 not, 29 percent. And the commentary is, this 25 response stands in stark contrast to the other 4903 1 view. And I am wondering why it wasn't clarified 2 in any of these documents that are put out to 3 clarify and inform? 4 MR. THOMAS: I will let Cam answer 5 that one. 6 MR. OSLER: You can look at page 62 of 7 the same document which says, why do you think the 8 majority of NCN members living in South Indian 9 Lake voted this way? Nothing in it for them was 10 26 percent, the largest single identified item. 11 That gets back to the discussions that go on 12 between NCN and some of the people that you 13 represent. As I think I have said in other 14 situations, and this is as far as I will go, as 15 long as everybody keeps telling each other that 16 there is a problem, there will be a problem, and 17 it won't get solved by having cross-examination at 18 this hearing. 19 MR. GRAHAM: I am just looking for 20 information, sir, not to solve problems. 21 MR. OSLER: That is apparent. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: I know that this is 23 getting lengthy and it is a long session. I hope 24 everybody will hold on to their patience. 25 MR. GRAHAM: Just to confirm, sir, 4904 1 Mr. Osler, you didn't analyze the anticipated 2 breakdown between employment for residents by 3 community. I think that is what you said? 4 MR. OSLER: Yes, I said that a long 5 time ago, we did not break it down, beyond saying 6 how many people from the local region in general, 7 NCN members versus other northern Aboriginal 8 residents in the project region, we made that type 9 of broad breakdown, but we did not try to get into 10 saying how many would come from specific 11 communities. 12 MR. GRAHAM: On page 8-111 you 13 reference, you discuss monitoring and follow-up. 14 And you state that in terms of local region 15 employment, monitoring will be undertaken to 16 measure and evaluate levels of local region 17 project employment. Will this monitoring 18 differentiate the relative effectiveness in Nelson 19 House and South Indian Lake after the fact? 20 MR. OSLER: We are talking here about 21 economy, I hope? 22 MR. GRAHAM: We are talking about 23 employment monitoring, to see how effective the 24 training and job placement preference program was, 25 I believe. 4905 1 MR. OSLER: I am just getting my mind 2 focused. The information on monitoring is 3 envisaged that it would look at the community of 4 residents as a matter of information, as well as 5 other things, so that you would be able to answer 6 that question, yes. 7 MR. GRAHAM: On page 8-107, and I 8 don't know if you have to turn there, because you 9 have said this many times, but you state there 10 that there are no significant adverse effects. 11 And I want to ask you a question on -- when the 12 members in South Indian Lake, the Nisichawayasihk 13 members in South Indian Lake who have been asked 14 to vote on the Northern Flood Agreement only to be 15 advised that the benefits aren't for their 16 benefit, the Nisichawayasihk '96 comprehensive 17 implementation agreement, only to be advised that 18 the benefits are not for their benefit, the 19 Wuskwatim AIP and PDA, and we are not sure what 20 the benefits are, in your opinion, does this 21 create a significant cumulative socioeconomic 22 adverse effect? 23 MR. OSLER: Without being facetious, 24 what does the word "this" mean in that question? 25 MR. GRAHAM: Continually experiencing 4906 1 a pattern of voting for a compensation package of 2 benefits or a business deal, and then when you are 3 finished voting, not receiving any output, that is 4 what I mean by this. 5 MR. OSLER: You are having a good 6 time -- there are a number of people pointing out 7 to me that I am getting way beyond the issues of 8 this situation -- both from a Hydro perspective, 9 in light of the agreements that have been 10 negotiated in good faith with representatives from 11 the community of South Indian Lake, at their 12 request and their desire, and from the NCN point 13 of view in terms of the comments that the Chief 14 made I think in one of the meetings up north, the 15 history, without question, the past affects the 16 present in the context of human beings and other 17 things. And whatever the issues are that lead you 18 to have the concerns that you have expressed, they 19 obviously are important, and it is not up to me to 20 go any further at the moment on trying to deal 21 with it. 22 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you very much, 23 Mr. Osler. I am now finished with my portion of 24 the questioning for the panel, and I thank you 25 very much for the information that you have shared 4907 1 with us today, even when you have gone beyond the 2 call of duty, Mr. Osler. 3 If it pleases the Chair, I would like 4 to now turn the mike over to Headman Baker so he 5 can now complete his questions. 6 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Lloyd. 7 MR. THOMAS: Mr. Chairman, with regard 8 to the questions that you are putting forward, Mr. 9 Graham, just for my own enlightenment, I suppose, 10 as a member of Chief and Council, I am trying to 11 understand what the line of questions that you are 12 putting forward, where you are trying to go on 13 this. Are you asking that there be, that all 14 benefits from Wuskwatim be shared with all NCN 15 members in South Indian Lake? Is that what you 16 are getting at? 17 I have to make reference to the fact 18 that NCN members who are resident in South Indian 19 Lake, from what I am advised by others, including 20 my colleagues, is that they wanted to negotiate 21 their own separate agreement with Manitoba Hydro 22 and they did in fact do so. That resulted in the 23 settlement of $18 million settlement package, and 24 there was no sharing of any benefits of that. 25 South Indian Lake decided that it wanted to do its 4908 1 own thing and wanted to receive the benefits on 2 its own. And I am trying to figure out, why do 3 you want to keep things to yourselves in one 4 context and want to share in another context? I 5 am not quite sure I follow your thinking. 6 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you for that 7 question, sir. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: That was a question, 9 not a response. So it was actually out of line 10 but -- 11 MR. THOMAS: Was it? I am sorry. 12 MR. GRAHAM: I don't mind answering 13 that question. If I own a house and I also own a 14 third interest in a cottage -- 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Is this a question now? 16 MR. GRAHAM: I am answering Mr. 17 Thomas' question. 18 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Baker. 19 MR. GRAHAM: I have a question. You 20 realize, sir, that the only Treaty lands ever 21 received by the people of South Indian Lake and 22 their ancestors are those surveyed at Nelson 23 House. When these Treaty lands were impacted by 24 hydro development, does it not make sense that the 25 compensation should be shared with all people who 4909 1 enjoy a legal interest in the reserve lands that 2 were impacted? 3 THE CHAIRMAN: The answer to that has 4 now been provided. And so now Mr. Baker -- you 5 have put your question on the record, now the 6 answer has been provided before the question -- 7 so, Mr. Baker, would you proceed with your 8 questions? 9 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 10 We have covered a lot of ground, so what I would 11 like to do is summarize what you have confirmed 12 for us so that my people will be very clear, very 13 clearly understand the positive and negative 14 effects they can expect from the Wuskwatim, and 15 make informed decisions. 16 If I have understood you correctly, 17 the South Indian Lake resource area registered 18 trapline has not been studied and we do not know 19 the effects that will be caused by the training 20 and employment taking South Indian Lake people 21 away from their traditional commercial and 22 domestic resources harvesting. Given the 23 continuous heavy involvement of my people in our 24 traditional pursuits, and a special relationship 25 that the activities have on our unique culture, 4910 1 these effects are not clearly understood either 2 because they were not considered by you. Do you 3 agree, Mr. Osler? 4 MR. OSLER: The employment effects on 5 your resource use were not specifically 6 quantified. The extent to which people who are 7 involved in your commercial fishing would want to, 8 elect, choose, to forego commercial fishing during 9 the period of construction to work on this project 10 has not been assessed. We have no basis for 11 knowing, for you or for any other community, the 12 extent to which that effect will flow, but we have 13 noted it. And to the extent that a community is 14 interested in it as a matter for its community, we 15 would certainly encourage further discussion as 16 the employment opportunities move towards the 17 intensive construction phase when opportunities 18 would go beyond direct business opportunities, 19 namely the last four years of the project. 20 Beyond that, we have involved elders 21 from South Indian Lake who are NCN members, elders 22 who reside at South Indian Lake in the process. 23 We have sought their wisdom. They gave it 24 freely -- thank you -- and in many respects 25 focused I am told on the same issues as the elders 4911 1 residing at Nelson House, with the differences in 2 geographic interest that you would expect. 3 The process of conducting this project 4 is not expected in our judgment to have any 5 effects on the trapline area, South Indian Lake 6 trapline area, or the cultural, special cultural 7 features and interests within it. 8 We did not look at other areas even 9 within the Nelson House resource management area 10 that we did not think would have effects from this 11 project in the same way. The focus of our 12 attention in terms of that type of analysis was on 13 the area that would be affected by the road, by 14 the water regime changes specific to this project, 15 or by the transmission line specific to this 16 project, all of which are in the Wuskwatim area or 17 further south. 18 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Osler. 19 While we make up 30 percent of the NCN 20 membership in the local region, there are no 21 guarantees that we will obtain 30 percent of the 22 training or employment positions that are 23 forecasted for the local region. Do you agree? 24 MR. OSLER: I agree there are no 25 guarantees that any community will get any 4912 1 specific percentage of employment or business 2 opportunities. 3 MR. BAKER: Thank you. With respect 4 to business, we are not anticipated to benefit at 5 all; do you agree? 6 MR. OSLER: I agree that this analysis 7 assumed, and did not find any basis to change its 8 assumption, that you would benefit in terms of the 9 businesses. It doesn't mean that that won't be 10 one of our predictions that is proven wrong. 11 MR. THOMAS: While he may agree, I 12 disagree. I have indicated already that we do 13 have all NCN members in mind when we talk about 14 business opportunities. 15 MR. BAKER: Thank you. With respect 16 to the project equity and the flow of future 17 revenues, this is questionable and not part of the 18 EIS; do you agree? 19 MR. OSLER: Sorry, the question again, 20 with respect to ownership -- 21 MR. BAKER: -- with the project equity 22 and flow of future revenues, this is questionable 23 and not part of the EIS? 24 MR. OSLER: You say this is 25 questionable that there will be equity, yes. NCN 4913 1 may not elect to take up the option. That may or 2 may not occur -- 3 MR. BAKER: For South Indian Lake. 4 MR. OSLER: The analysis does not 5 address that matter which is subject to a 6 negotiation. 7 MR. BAKER: Thank you. You did say on 8 page 8-2, socioeconomic effects are experienced 9 different for individuals, families, communities, 10 and varies with the degree to which people are 11 connected to the direct or indirect pathways of 12 change from the project. Socioeconomic effects 13 can also be affected by personal, family, and 14 community perspectives about their current 15 situations, their goals and their aspirations, and 16 how the project affects their vision for the 17 future. Would you agree, sir? 18 MR. OSLER: With that -- very 19 strongly. This is an opening comment to the 20 socioeconomic section. When we are dealing with 21 environmental assessments where all of these 22 things are brought together, it is very important 23 to realize that people -- I have actually once had 24 to give a presentation on this subject -- are not 25 the same as fish. People have perspectives, 4914 1 people have goals, people have values, and these 2 are very, very important to the effects that -- 3 how they get affected by a project, and they lead 4 to quite different perspectives. And often people 5 talk about the baseline being okay in the physical 6 environment when somebody hasn't been around. I 7 very rarely have walked into northern communities 8 when we were having a project discussion and found 9 people saying please, please, don't give me 10 opportunities for jobs or changes. People are 11 looking for changes that they would like to be 12 able to meet their own goals and objectives on. 13 So this is a very important thought. 14 MR. BAKER: Then would you also agree 15 that the two main communities located within the 16 local region will experience the effects 17 differently? 18 MR. OSLER: The effects of the 19 project, the pathways of effects will be 20 different. And certainly from everything that we 21 have heard, the people at South Indian Lake are 22 looking at the situation in many instances 23 differently than other people look at it. That 24 will affect and is affecting their concerns and 25 issues that are arising in discussion. And that 4915 1 arises from their personal objectives to have a 2 separate entity, and their personal perspectives 3 on their history, and very much reflects the type 4 of thing that we are talking about here. 5 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Osler. 6 Finally, I have questions on ratification vote. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: I will consider 8 carefully where you go with this, because this is 9 not a question that has a bearing on this panel's 10 decisions per se. So, I will watch for how this 11 relates to the EIS. 12 MR. BAKER: I appreciate that, 13 Mr. Chairman, and I will just go forward. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: It needs to be restated 15 that the CEC panel has a mandate that is specific, 16 and negotiations between Hydro and the NCN are not 17 part of that mandate. 18 I haven't read the documents per se, 19 but I have on the other hand no reason to believe 20 at first look that there is anything pertinent to 21 what we are presently doing, and therefore I will 22 await your question and see how you put that. 23 MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 24 Councillor Thomas, you testified on 25 March 2nd, transcript pages 378 and 379, that you, 4916 1 based on past referendum practices by NCN, you 2 would be following the Indian Act legislation and 3 that you would require a double majority of voting 4 system whereby 51 percent of all eligible voters 5 must cast ballots, and in addition 51 percent of 6 those casting ballots must vote in favour of the 7 proposal in order for it to be approved. The 8 reason I am asking you to confirm this, Councillor 9 Thomas, is that we have been undertaking some 10 research on NCN's past agreement ratification 11 process and referendum votes and have found that 12 NCN has not always considered a double majority to 13 be the minimum threshold. 14 Given your testimony, which we 15 accepted as your best understanding, would you 16 like to hear what NCN practices have been? 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes? 18 MR. LEVEN: Elliot Leven for the 19 monitor. I was waiting to see if the Chair or the 20 Commission was going to jump in at this point. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: That is what I was 22 exactly going to do. 23 MR. LEVEN: Perhaps I will defer to 24 your comment, Mr. Chair. I was about to suggest 25 that the question was out of scope, and what NCN 4917 1 may have or not done in previous years in respect 2 of previous votes on different issues is by 3 definition outside of the scope of these hearings. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 5 Mr. Baker, you've answered the 6 question, as you have asked it. The part of the 7 question, the introductory part of your question 8 is out of order. The answer that you are seeking 9 is the one that you quoted on page 378 to 379. 10 MR. BAKER: Thank you, sir. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Any more questions? 12 MR. BAKER: Those are all of the 13 questions, Mr. Chairman. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: I appreciate your time 15 and I thank you for those questions. 16 MR. BAKER: Thank you for bearing with 17 me through a process that is very different from 18 any that I am used to. Thank you for clarifying 19 the effects of the post Wuskwatim project for the 20 people of the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you again. 22 Mr. Mayer. 23 MR. MAYER: Mr. Chairman, I have a 24 couple of questions that obviously arise out of 25 this. I think Mr. Graham has made his point that 4918 1 the environmental assessment certainly has some 2 inconsistencies in so far as it relates to 3 definitions in its application to South Indian 4 Lake. And I think it has been answered by 5 Mr. Osler and Mr. Thomas by pointing out that the 6 stage at which the two communities are at in their 7 negotiations makes it virtually impossible to 8 predict what may happen. So I have just a couple 9 of questions to see if I can clarify this in my 10 own mind. 11 As I understand it from all of the 12 documents that I now have before me, the only 13 thing outstanding before OPCN becomes a recognized 14 reserve in its own right, and its members cease to 15 be members of NCN, is formal recognition by Canada 16 and a transfer of the relevant Treaty land to the 17 Minister of, I guess it is Indian and Northern 18 Affairs, in trust for the new reserve. Am I 19 correct? 20 THE CHAIRMAN: I think you are asking 21 for a legal opinion, Mr. Mayer. 22 MR. MAYER: I was afraid of that. 23 Then I won't ask Mr. Thomas to give me a legal 24 opinion, and we will hope that maybe one of his 25 Council might take it as an undertaking. 4919 1 Assuming for a moment that I am close 2 to correct, and that that is all that is 3 necessary, I know there have been a number of 4 those requests outstanding in other communities. 5 The one that comes immediately to mind is Lynn 6 Lake. Mr. Thomas, can you, and if not, can you 7 through your counsel seek to advise how long this 8 process might take from this point forward? 9 MR. THOMAS: It has been an issue, or 10 an undertaking on both NCN and South Indian Lake's 11 part for many, many years, decades even. And 12 exactly when things will come to a head and a 13 formal recognition be given to South Indian Lake 14 is dependent on a number of factors. Without 15 wanting to give a legal opinion on it, which I am 16 not able to -- yes, the Minister has to do the 17 necessary work to recognize South Indian Lake, but 18 there are a number of other issues that have to be 19 dealt with between the First Nation and South 20 Indian Lake before we can progress to that point 21 where the Minister can do that thing. Many of 22 those items are still under discussion, 23 negotiation, and at this point in time it would be 24 premature for me to put that forward. So I can't 25 really give you a time frame. Mr. Baker would 4920 1 hope that the separation issue could be dealt with 2 tomorrow, if that was possible. We, on the other 3 hand, have to make sure that everything has been 4 properly done and has been properly addressed, and 5 we have to make sure that we have done our due 6 diligence as well, so we don't open the door for 7 anyone to come back later on and question the 8 validity of what has been done. 9 MR. MAYER: Mr. Thomas, I find that an 10 interesting comment in light of the fact that we 11 are looking at a number of resolutions and a 12 number of agreements where it appeared at least 13 that you had settled most of your issues with your 14 members who reside in South Indian Lake and who 15 seek to become a separate community or separate 16 reserve. 17 That being the case then, I am 18 assuming, or I think I can assume that it is 19 unlikely that this matter will be resolved before 20 you have told us you will be putting the 21 development agreement before your people, which as 22 I understand it would be September of this year? 23 MR. THOMAS: That might be true. I 24 can't say for sure this is when the separation 25 will occur, but we are definitely working towards 4921 1 an August, September ratification vote for the 2 PDA. And we have already included South Indian 3 Lake during our AIP referendum process, and they 4 voted heavily against it, and if they do likewise 5 again this time around, they will have been given 6 an opportunity to participate in the vote. 7 MR. MAYER: So we will assume then 8 that your members at South Indian Lake will be 9 voting on the project development agreement? That 10 appears to be a given? 11 MR. THOMAS: If the separation issue 12 has not been formalized yet, then, yes, they will 13 be participating in the vote. 14 MR. MAYER: And judging from what you 15 said just moments ago, it is highly unlikely that 16 that will be resolved before September. So then 17 the community members of South Indian Lake, your 18 members at South Indian Lake will then have the 19 opportunity to vote on the project development 20 agreement. 21 I then understand the next relevant 22 step is the issue of whether or not the community 23 actually invests the money. It seems to me that 24 right up to 2010 you can make that decision? 25 MR. THOMAS: Yes. 4922 1 MR. MAYER: Would that be the subject 2 of another referendum? 3 MR. THOMAS: No. 4 MR. MAYER: So then, as I understand 5 the EIS, that the benefits from -- if you take the 6 equity, the benefits will start to flow as the dam 7 starts generating income some time post 2010. And 8 I believe I am correct in assuming that if for 9 some unknown reason or other the separation still 10 hasn't occurred, and I understand that five or six 11 years is not necessarily an outside range for what 12 is left to happen, then under those circumstances, 13 your members who reside in South Indian Lake would 14 share in the benefits of whatever dividends would 15 flow, I take it? 16 MR. THOMAS: I hesitate to venture 17 into that unknown terrain at this point in time, 18 Mr. Mayer, or Commissioner Mayer. It is still 19 subject to discussion, and Chief and Council would 20 have to give me and -- well, all of the rest of 21 Council have to give direction on that issue. 22 If, hypothetically speaking, such were 23 to be true, you would definitely have to share in 24 the risks and the rewards of such an equity 25 participation. So, if you invest in 33 percent, 4923 1 then you will assume the risks that go with it as 2 well. 3 MR. MAYER: I understand that, 4 Mr. Thomas, but so long as those NCN members that 5 reside in South Indian Lake remain NCN members, 6 that decision will be made by Chief and Council of 7 NCN; right? 8 MR. THOMAS: Sorry, I didn't follow 9 the question? 10 MR. MAYER: As long as the residents 11 in South Indian Lake who are NCN members remain 12 NCN members, the decision on who participates in 13 the equity will be made by the Chief and Council 14 of NCN; right? 15 MR. THOMAS: Yes, such will be the 16 case, but in terms of any benefits that will arise 17 from the proceeds, or the dividends that will be 18 paid into the trust that will be set up, there 19 will be trust conditions that would have to be 20 followed, and processes put in place for how 21 monies will be allocated for particular purposes 22 or areas. But that still has yet to be talked 23 about and set up. 24 MR. MAYER: And those trust agreements 25 would be negotiated by the Chief and Council of 4924 1 NCN, who still would have authority over those 2 members of NCN who reside at South Indian Lake, 3 provided we haven't solved the other problem? 4 MR. THOMAS: Yes. 5 MR. MAYER: Thank you. I can now see 6 how Mr. Osler would have a great deal of 7 difficulty being able to account for all of those 8 differences or unknowns in trying to determine the 9 economic results of the project. Thank you very 10 much. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Mayer. 12 Thank you very much once again. 13 While Ms. Gaile Whalen Enns 14 approaches, maybe Mr. Grewar would like to file 15 some of the documents. 16 MR. GREWAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 17 I am seeking some direction, because what we have 18 is a fairly large number of documents, I count 14, 19 and I don't know whether it would be the 20 Commission's desire to simply have them entered as 21 cross-reference material, something to that 22 effect, or whether there needs to be direction on 23 assigning numbers to individuals documents. It 24 seems to me that some were referenced, others may 25 not have been, during the course of the 4925 1 cross-examination. So I am not really comfortable 2 with entering them as a package. I don't know if 3 there is any concerns on the part of Hydro or 4 other participants. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Maybe, Mr. Grewar, we 6 will hold off on this and do it tomorrow. 7 MR. GREWAR: Okay, Mr. Chairman, then 8 one we can enter, which I think is fairly straight 9 forward, would just be the slide presentation of 10 Mr. Schaefer this morning on Woodland caribou, it 11 will be entered as BFN-1004, the slide 12 presentation from this morning's presentation. 13 14 (EXHIBIT BFN-1004: Slide presentation 15 by Mr. Schaefer on Woodland caribou) 16 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 18 Just before you begin, Ms. Whelan 19 Enns, I think that it is timely that we review a 20 few outstanding issues in terms of some of your 21 presenters, and I will review a list of names 22 here. Mr. Bayne. 23 MS. WHELAN ENNS: My apologies, I 24 realized that I needed something to write on. 25 Dr. Bayne has -- 4926 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask you a 2 question. Is it your wish to re-examine this 3 gentleman who presented via phone conversation? 4 MS. WHELAN ENNS: We don't 5 specifically require to re-examine him. We do 6 have a corresponding question because of the 7 exchange with Dr. Bayne about him potentially 8 presenting again. The day he was here there was 9 some discussion -- 10 THE CHAIRMAN: He wasn't here, was he? 11 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Sorry, the day that 12 he presented, there was an exchange in terms of a 13 query to him about his availability to further 14 present. So just identifying both questions, and 15 to answer yours, we do not have a specific need to 16 in fact cross-examine him. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Does Manitoba Hydro/NCN 18 wish to cross-examine? 19 MR. BEDFORD: No, Mr. Chairman, we 20 don't need to have him back. I think, however, I 21 don't think that Mr. Byron Williams is here with 22 us this afternoon, I know he wanted an undertaking 23 answered, and we don't have to have Dr. Bayne back 24 for him to do that. He could simply put it in 25 written form and send it. I must confess, I don't 4927 1 recall, there were two undertakings and I don't 2 recall offhand what the two of them were. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Gaile Whelan Enns, 4 do you have those questions from Mr. Williams? 5 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Again, my apologies, 6 I assumed that was your first question. The first 7 of Dr. Bayne's undertakings popped up in an E-mail 8 at about 6 or 7 o'clock this morning. I have not 9 yet looked at it, so the aim is to get it to the 10 parties, to these hearings tomorrow. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 12 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I can't remember 13 what the second one is at this precise moment. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: So we will await upon 15 Mr. Byron Williams for that. 16 Now, in terms of -- so we have agreed 17 that Mr. Bayne will not be required to either 18 appear or be on a telephone extension to be 19 further questioned in regards to his presentation? 20 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Yes. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: In regards to 22 Mr. Kulchyski -- 23 MS. WHELAN ENNS: You mean Peter 24 Kulchyski from the University of Manitoba? 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes -- who made a 4928 1 presentation, I don't recall whether 2 cross-examination had been completed. It was. 3 Mr. Kulchyski sent a document of his presentation, 4 which is substantially different than his 5 presentation. Is it the wish, your wish that this 6 document be filed? And is there objections to 7 that? 8 MS. WHELAN ENNS: My recall is that 9 Dr. Kulchyski identified the draft document as 10 waiting the stages of review, and asked the 11 Commission to be able to file it. The second 12 observation I guess I would be inclined to make is 13 that pieces of documentation or evidence during 14 these hearings have been in addition to or 15 different from the specific contents of a 16 presentation in the transcript. I believe also 17 that there was a request during the hearing days 18 in Thompson for this, again I believe the same 19 document to be entered into evidence, but I was 20 not in the room in Thompson. So the short answer 21 to your question is that it would be appreciated 22 if Dr. Kulchyski's paper that was discussed in 23 terms of it being in draft form would be accepted 24 as evidence. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: I haven't read 4929 1 Dr. Kulchyski's document, and I haven't re-read 2 his presentation which is on the record, and that 3 is on the record. I am told there are substantial 4 modifications. And if I hear objections, we will 5 have I think two options to consider. Either that 6 we call upon Dr. Kulchyski to be cross-examined 7 again, or else we disallow the written 8 presentation. And I look upon Mr. Bedford for 9 some enlightenment? 10 MR. BEDFORD: I reiterate the 11 objection that I have made twice before to this 12 paper being accepted, and the logical distinction 13 that I have continually made is this paper has 14 come in after the expert's testified, and not just 15 immediately following his testimony, as we had on 16 a couple of occasions, but several days later. I 17 repeat, I object to it being tendered and accepted 18 as an exhibit. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: Would you be prepared 20 to have that document filed if Dr. Kulchyski came 21 back to be questioned? 22 MR. BEDFORD: No. In this case, I 23 object to it being filed, and frankly I don't 24 think to have him back is an acceptable process 25 for us to follow. If we make that exception for 4930 1 Dr. Kulchyski, we leave ourselves open to doing it 2 for everyone else who testified who decides that 3 he or she wishes to revise his evidence later. I 4 am also very conscious, which was one of the 5 motivations in my saying not to have Dr. Bayne 6 back, because his testimony certainly was 7 relevant, and I didn't have an opportunity to 8 question him, but I am conscious that we are using 9 up a lot of time in this hearing, more than was 10 originally projected in February. I am anxious to 11 see us get the work done. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: All right. One last 13 word from you, Ms. Whelan Enns? 14 MR. LEVEN: Elliot Leven for the 15 record. I agree with Mr. Bedford's comments, and 16 in addition I would point out that, as we all are 17 painfully aware, time is short and the task is 18 great, and we all want to try to avoid unnecessary 19 delays whenever possible. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms. Whelan 21 Enns. 22 MS. WHELAN ENNS: If I may make a 23 comment from the point of view of being a public 24 participant, on the first day with the first 25 presenter that we had registered to participate in 4931 1 these hearings, it is, from my perspective, quite 2 obvious that the fault in terms of the 3 availability of this document lies with myself and 4 my understanding of issues of timing. So we have 5 made efforts in terms of our capacity to improve 6 on our understanding of procedure and our aim to 7 make documents available ahead of time since then. 8 I am just basically identifying who is at fault 9 here I believe. My conversations with 10 Dr. Kulchyski were understandable, in terms of his 11 professional concern, because there was some peer 12 review going on. My instinct or inclination was 13 to in fact provide that paper that morning, and I 14 made the wrong assessment, no pun meant, in terms 15 of he in fact being the first of our presenters in 16 these hearings. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The 18 Commission will take your comments into 19 consideration and we will advise at a later date. 20 Now, in regards to Mr. Gilmore, who I 21 believe was not, at least I believe the 22 cross-examination had begun but had not been 23 completed. I know that the counsel for NCN had 24 questions that she wished to ask. And Mr. Gilmore 25 was here in person to testify. Is it the wish of 4932 1 the counsel for NCN that he be brought back again 2 to complete that cross-examination? 3 MR. LEVEN: Elliot Leven again for the 4 record. Mr. Chairman, you have correctly pointed 5 out that Ms. Matthews Lemieux was in the middle of 6 her cross-examination when Mr. Gilmore had to 7 leave. However, in the interests of saving time, 8 which as I pointed out is short, if all other 9 parties are in agreement that there is no need to 10 bring him back, we will waive our desire to finish 11 the cross-examination and end it at that point. 12 However, if other parties insist on his returning, 13 then we reserve our right to finish our 14 cross-examination. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Is it your 16 wish, Ms. Whelan Enns, that Mr. Gilmore be brought 17 back? 18 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I have not spoken to 19 Mr. Gilmore about this, so I will do my best to 20 answer your question. We were preparing the 21 final, the re-cross during his presentation time. 22 We had some variables that affect all of us in 23 this room in terms of scheduling impacting the 24 day, including that Mr. Gilmore had been here for 25 two days in terms of the expectation to speak. 4933 1 And we are not at this point able to continue to 2 carry the additional travel costs and flight costs 3 when we are at a two day point. We have had two 4 or three times where we have had that cost. And 5 again, if there is a fault here in the decision 6 making that day, it is with myself, not 7 Mr. Gilmore, because that was an overriding 8 concern. Otherwise, my answer to you is yes, 9 because we consider the re-cross questions are 10 fairly important. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: I will take this back 12 to the panel, but I will advise you, Ms. Whelan 13 Enns, that you chose to introduce or to have 14 Mr. Gilmore present as your last presenter that 15 day, when he was one of those who had travelled 16 here. So I wish to advise you that we will take 17 that into consideration as well. 18 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Certainly, that is 19 completely reasonable, Mr. Chair. In hindsight, 20 and again my watch broke the day before, so I have 21 definitely identified mistakes that I made that 22 morning. And the concern I guess is that we ran 23 out of time in terms of the previous afternoon 24 and the intent for Mr. Gilmore to participate, and 25 then knew we had a very tight 10 to 12 noontime 4934 1 slot the following morning, and that may not have 2 been communicated well enough by ourselves. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Mayer. 4 MR. MAYER: Ms. Whelan Enns, assuming 5 for a moment that if you want Mr. Gilmore back, he 6 is on your nickel, do you want him back? 7 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Yes, I would have to 8 figure out a way to do that. I appreciate the 9 question. There is perhaps an obvious question 10 from my perspective too, and I am sorry that I 11 have not consistently been able to be in the room. 12 My understanding is that should Mr. Gilmore be 13 back in the hearings, that it has to be in person 14 and not by phone? 15 MR. MAYER: That's correct. So you 16 are prepared to pay to have him brought back. 17 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I would have to find 18 a way to do that, yes. What I did say in the 19 first place though is that I have not yet spoken 20 to Mr. Gilmore about the questions that we are 21 discussing right now, and he is far -- and this is 22 his reference in his presentation time, to having 23 only had a week -- he was referring to the amount 24 of work time and allocation of fees for him to be 25 able to prepare. So I obviously have to have a 4935 1 conversation with him. 2 MR. MAYER: Ms. Whelan Enns, you can 3 understand that this Commission cannot wait 4 forever to make this decision. We are feeling 5 pressed, as well as Hydro and NCN's counsel is 6 feeling pressed. We are way behind what we 7 thought we would be. When can you have this 8 information for us? 9 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I can have a 10 conversation with him ideally this evening, if I 11 can find him at home in Wisconsin. Otherwise what 12 I would do is attempt to find him during the day 13 tomorrow. 14 MR. MAYER: We can't wait any longer. 15 I don't believe we can wait any longer than 16 adjournment time tomorrow in order to have those 17 answers. 18 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Yes. Makes sense -- 19 sorry for the interruption -- that makes sense. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: All right, Ms. Whelan 21 Enns. Is there -- are there a few questions that 22 you can -- we are getting close to adjournment 23 time, but in order to make maximum use of the 24 time, I think perhaps it is timely that you begin 25 with your -- 4936 1 MS. WHELAN ENNS: If I may Mr. Chair, 2 I am concerned about scheduling and our EIS 3 questions, so I have a couple of pieces of 4 information and a query then of the Commission in 5 terms of the starting on our EIS questions. 6 There are four of us prepared in terms 7 of different areas of the EIS to ask questions. 8 The technical scope and mandate for our work in 9 this regard, as the only environmental and 10 conservation organization involved in the EIS 11 review, means that the amount of time that this 12 will involve is greater than there is available in 13 the shorter scheduled day tomorrow. I understand 14 that we would adjourn at 4:30 tomorrow. So we are 15 concerned about the potential disruption in the 16 process in terms of our EIS questions, and wanted 17 to basically make that statement before we begin. 18 There are some options, and I am not 19 prescribing here at all, but rather posing a 20 question that affects everybody in the room and 21 all of the parties. The options include for -- 22 and again it is the breaking up by a month's gap, 23 if you will, or almost a month's gap that is a 24 concern to us, so the options include hearing time 25 on Friday, which we recognize as being highly 4937 1 unlikely. We would though then, given how 2 unlikely that is, ask for a confirmation in terms 3 of the ability to resume the EIS cross questions 4 when the hearings begin again in May. And we have 5 a concern on everybody's part in that regard, 6 because the break then means that there is a 7 certain amount on our part obviously of 8 re-preparation and re-start time, and there is 9 also potentially time in the hearing process 10 itself in terms of just context and confirmation 11 of what we are asking. I have also had a look at 12 my schedule in May, and the reason we are asking 13 for -- 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Before you continue, 15 let me ask you questions. What are the parts of 16 your cross-examination, and who are the people who 17 are going to carry forth these portions? 18 MS. WHELAN ENNS: The consultant who 19 works with us in respect to these matters, Bryan 20 Hart, who has some JNFAAT questions on 21 cross-examination, who has in fact been in the 22 hearing; Mr. Dan Soprovich, who has been working 23 on the technical aspects of the review with us 24 since last fall; Kristin Bingeman, who is a former 25 employee and associate with us, who has been with 4938 1 us for about four years; and myself. The reason 2 that I am making this information available and 3 this query now is because two of those four people 4 are here from out of town. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: What we propose, 6 Ms. Whelan Enns, because we have some slated 7 presentations, we thought that we could be 8 starting on this earlier this afternoon -- so the 9 morning is not available. So what we will do is 10 keep as much as possible of the afternoon, where 11 you can begin the segments that you wish to begin 12 of your cross-examination starting after lunch 13 tomorrow. 14 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I appreciate the 15 information and, again, had to ask out of 16 consideration for our associates who in fact are 17 here from out of town. Is it acceptable to ask 18 when there will be an answer to the other part of 19 our concern in terms of the beginning of the 20 schedule in May? 21 THE CHAIRMAN: We will discuss that 22 and Mr. Grewar will get back to you as quickly as 23 possible. 24 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Absolutely, and it 25 is worth then identifying that I am not available 4939 1 at all on the 14th of May, and not available after 2 3:00 o'clock on the 13th. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: As I said, Mr. Grewar, 4 will get in touch with you and get all of these 5 details. 6 MS. WHELAN ENNS: Thank you very much. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Leven. 8 MR. LEVEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 9 Just for the record, NCN would like to express its 10 concern about further delays. Ms. Whelan Enns has 11 just indicated that she will not be available on 12 various times at various places. We have had many 13 hearing days over a space of several months, and 14 frankly, Mr. Chairman, we have serious concerns 15 about the pattern of delays and changes to 16 schedule that both the Canadian Nature Federation 17 and -- 18 THE CHAIRMAN: I wish to assure 19 everyone that we will make every effort not to 20 lose any time. We will arrange for dates that 21 Ms. Whelan Enns is here. I believe that we come 22 back on the -- 23 MR. GREWAR: 11th of May. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: And you haven't taken 25 that out as a day that you are not here, so we 4940 1 will try to make it on that very same day, and if 2 at all possible, to complete the cross on that 3 day. 4 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I appreciate that 5 very much, and we have been here and ready and 6 able to start on the EIS questions for the last 7 two days. Thank you. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Are there 9 any other individuals in the room -- we have some 10 time -- who have planned to raise questions on the 11 EIS? I am talking about people who are -- as a 12 follow-up from yesterday, or you weren't on yet? 13 Come on, Mr. Miller. 14 MR. MAYER: He was really hoping you 15 weren't going to come up. 16 MR. MILLER: Sorry to disappoint. As 17 you know, my questions tend to be focused on an 18 issue rather than covering the spectrum, and there 19 is an issue on transmission that I would like to 20 pursue, that was sparked by the presentation 21 earlier. 22 So I guess my questions are to 23 Mr. Hicks. First of all, in the ordinary course 24 of events, whenever Hydro produces, builds a 25 transmission line, do they also construct a road 4941 1 to enable the construction of the transmission 2 line? 3 MR. HICKS: Normal practice in recent 4 years, in my experience, has been that 5 transmission lines are generally constructed in 6 the winter, and the necessary access is provided 7 by a winter access trail down the right-of-way. 8 There would be no permanent road construction, 9 there would be no alteration of local drainage 10 patterns, or grading, or anything other than the 11 normal use of ice bridges for extreme crossings, 12 and snow compaction on the right-of-way itself. 13 MR. MILLER: And what about 14 maintenance, is a road required? 15 MR. HICKS: No, the same routine. I 16 think we testified earlier that the maintenance is 17 governed in the first instance by regular patrols, 18 three to four a year, one of which is generally 19 ground based and occurs in late fall or early 20 winter. So the same winter access pattern would 21 prevail. 22 MR. MILLER: But you need a winter 23 access, so that handles wet ground, but what about 24 trees in the way and vegetation, do you have to 25 keep a line vegetation clear? 4942 1 MR. HICKS: The vegetation is managed 2 on a cyclical basis. The vegetation management 3 cycle length depends on the particular 4 circumstances, the vegetation, the regrowth rate, 5 et cetera, but it can range anywhere five years 6 and up. But from time to time, yes, there is a 7 return to the right-of-way and a clearing of 8 excess growth that might get in the way of 9 maintenance activity or down line access for the 10 purpose of inspections. 11 MR. MILLER: Would there be an 12 intention to maintain a permanent trail then along 13 a transmission line? 14 MR. HICKS: No. 15 MR. MILLER: Now, going to the siting 16 of the transmission associated with Wuskwatim, I 17 believe you indicated that was done in 18 consultation with the community? 19 MR. HICKS: It was. 20 MR. MILLER: Can you tell us what the 21 community considerations were for the preferred 22 option? What were the considerations that were 23 weighed in developing the preferred option from 24 the community? 25 MR. HICKS: It varied from community 4943 1 to community, Mr. Miller. I did provide on the 2 record earlier in the sessions a description of 3 how each community had offered comments that had 4 lead us to adjust the route. In the case of NCN, 5 for example, access was a concern, protection of 6 sacred and cultural sites was a concern, avoidance 7 of traditional knowledge that suggested -- rather 8 based on traditional knowledge, avoidance of 9 significant caribou areas was a concern. In the 10 case of Snow Lake, the concerns had more to do 11 with trying to ensure that there was no damage 12 done to future recreation and tourism potential in 13 the vicinity of the community. To a degree there 14 was also some concern expressed to us about 15 caribou activity west of PR 392, I believe it is, 16 the road from 39 up to Snow Lake. And there was 17 some concern expressed to us by outfitters and 18 tourism operators with respect to the crossing of 19 the Grass River. 20 MR. MILLER: Let me pursue one of 21 those. When you say access concerns, I believe I 22 heard you earlier say that it was a concern not to 23 prevent access, but to create access for NCN in 24 certain parts of their -- 25 MR. HICKS: In the case of NCN, there 4944 1 are some trapline areas south of the Burntwood 2 River that are very difficult to access. In fact, 3 some of those traplines have been inactive in 4 recent years. And the various members of NCN 5 indicated to us that they would like to see the 6 transmission lines oriented in such a way that it 7 would assist them in gaining access to those 8 areas. At the same time, there was a very real 9 concern that the access not invite outside access 10 by people who might not be, in the view of NCN 11 members, as careful or cautious as they ought to 12 be with respect to protection of land and 13 resources. 14 MR. MILLER: How will access be 15 created if it is not the policy to maintain a 16 trail along the transmission route? 17 MR. HICKS: To the extent that the 18 transmission line rights-of-way improve access, if 19 you will, or increase the opportunity for access, 20 it is principally the removal of the vegetation. 21 There is no alteration of the terrain, so in that 22 sense all that really happens is that you do make 23 it easier for someone to move down the 24 transmission line because the heavier forest 25 growth has been removed. Now, clearly that 4945 1 applies only in the areas where the forest growth 2 is such that it would impede access. 3 MR. MILLER: Now, presumably it would 4 be maintained between de-brushing cycles by 5 traffic, by use? 6 MR. HICKS: If a trapper saw an 7 advantage to do so, I expect that would be the 8 case, yes. 9 MR. MILLER: I want to connect that 10 with the testimony that we heard this morning on 11 the caribou consideration, because, if basically 12 you are opening up a larger section of the 13 resource management area to access, and that is 14 part of the intention in the siting of it, rather 15 than going someone else that might cluster it with 16 other corridors that exist, it seems to me that 17 that would be an endangerment of whatever wildlife 18 are there, I think it is the caribou in 19 particular? 20 MR. HICKS: I think it is a question 21 of perspective, Mr. Miller. First of all, the 22 opportunity for access is realistically only 23 increased in the winter months, under frozen 24 conditions. The access is very limited during 25 spring and summer and fall for the same reason it 4946 1 would be now, regardless of the condition of the 2 right-of-way, just because of wetness or whatever. 3 During the winter months there is, as 4 we have said, some prospect of increased access, 5 but the notion is that that will be managed to a 6 degree or controlled to a degree. For example, if 7 someone from NCN wished, as part of the agreement 8 between NCN and Hydro, to be afforded better 9 access to traplines south of the river, one of the 10 ways to do that would be crossing at the dam site. 11 That crossing can be controlled very positively 12 through gating and locks or whatever. It doesn't 13 necessarily affect anyone else's opportunity to 14 gain access to that same point. 15 MR. MILLER: Is that in fact the 16 strategy that you plan to do to control -- because 17 that is where I was going, how do you control 18 other access? 19 MR. HICKS: We are at a very early 20 point in developing that strategy, but it is one 21 consideration, yes. 22 Other considerations have been the 23 fact that there are open water areas on a number 24 of the lines which would limit access, even in the 25 winter months, because they remain unfrozen year 4947 1 round; the Burntwood, for example, the Grass 2 River, for example. These don't necessarily 3 eliminate access for portions of the transmission 4 lines, but they would tend to significantly 5 restrict access from points outside the NCN RMA, 6 or the Nelson House RMA. 7 MR. MAYER: You are not crossing the 8 Grass River at any place that stays open all year? 9 MR. HICKS: That is not my 10 understanding, sir. 11 MR. MAYER: We will deal with that 12 later I guess. 13 MR. HICKS: Again, I would have to go 14 back to my specialist and confirm that, but it is 15 my understanding that the Grass River is one of 16 about four streams or water courses along the 17 rights-of-way that typically is not frozen at the 18 points that we are proposing to cross. 19 MR. MAYER: Then you better change the 20 place where you are going to cross on the map that 21 I am looking at. 22 MR. MILLER: I've been active in the 23 Manitoba Model Forest, and one of the concerns is 24 access issues, and Tembec regularly reports that 25 whenever they put up a padlock gate, it is 4948 1 circumvented, you cut a short trail in the bush 2 around it. 3 MR. HICKS: I heard that same 4 anecdotal evidence with respect to gates on 5 roadways or rights-of-way, but in the case of 6 crossing over a dam, I think the control would be 7 considerably more positive. 8 MR. MILLER: Unless there is ice in 9 the vicinity? 10 MR. HICKS: Yes, that is possible. I 11 can't answer that. 12 MR. MILLER: I guess I've done what I 13 want to do, is to register a concern that the 14 policies on the siting of the transmission line, 15 accompanied by an intention to maintain access 16 along that, whether there is a point control or 17 not, seems to me to be an endangerment. And I am 18 wondering if your EIS team assessed that increase 19 in risk from that particular siting? 20 MR. HICKS: Again, I can only say that 21 the question of access management is one that's 22 under ongoing review, and I don't have complete 23 answers to the strategies or to the programs that 24 might be implemented to effect the management 25 control. I don't disagree with you, Mr. Miller, I 4949 1 agree that there is some risk there, that if you 2 are improving access for one group, that you would 3 have to be very careful that that doesn't have an 4 unwanted effect on the opposite side. 5 MR. MILLER: The effective means to 6 plow up the trail and replant or something, rather 7 than have a point control. 8 I think I have got the information 9 that I need. Thank you. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. 11 Yes, I was about to adjourn the meeting. 12 MS. WHELAN ENNS: I just wanted to ask 13 a quick question, and that is, what is the 14 presentation tomorrow morning? 15 MR. MAYER: Section 35 from Heather 16 Leonoff -- 17 MR. GREWAR: The presentation, as 18 Mr. Mayer points out, is Heather Leonoff who 19 represents, or who is coming from the Department 20 of Justice, the Constitutional Branch, to respond 21 to queries about First Nation and Aboriginal and 22 Metis consultations, and that is the first thing 23 at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. It is 25 Manitoba Justice. 4950 1 Thank you. All further questions can 2 wait, unless you have a motion that you want to 3 table at this time. 4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just have two 5 quick questions that pertain to the discussion 6 right now. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: No, tomorrow. We will 8 adjourn until tomorrow at 10:00. 9 10 (ADJOURNED AT 6:00 P.M.) 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25