Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the motion I have here today is protection of transboundary water and the rights of Northerners.
WHEREAS water is essential to ecosystems and communities of the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS water flows through interconnected watersheds that cross provincial and territorial borders, with Northwest Territories waters strongly affected by the conditions in neighbouring Alberta and British Columbia;
AND WHEREAS since 2023, hydrology updates confirm that many Northwest Territories rivers and lakes have experienced record low or wellbelow average water levels, reflecting severe and ongoing drought conditions;
AND WHEREAS upstream industrial development in Alberta's oil sands region relies on large volumes of water and uses extensive tailings pond systems;
AND WHEREAS in 2022-2023, tailings affected wastewater seeped at the Kearl oil sands mine in Alberta beyond the lease boundary and public notification was delayed for approximately nine months, prompting concerns among downstream users including communities in the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS Alberta's Water Amendment Act 2025 merges the Peace-Slave and Athabasca basins and introduces new low risk inter-basin transfer pathways, changes that environmental and Indigenous organizations have warned may reduce oversight and heighten ecological and downstream risks;.
AND WHEREAS Alberta's Water Amendment Act 2025 proposes to allow the treatment and release of oil sands tailings despite the methods for treatment not being fully established and insufficient scientific evidence demonstrating that such actions can be conducted safely, potentially impacting downstream waters and watersheds in the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada and several provinces have adopted a "one project, one review" approach to streamline environmental and impact assessments, including formal cooperation agreements with New Brunswick and Ontario, which aims to reduce duplication but also shift greater reliance onto provincial assessment processes;
AND WHEREAS Indigenous leaders in the Northwest Territories have publicly raised concerns about inadequate consultation regarding Alberta's Water Amendment Act 2025 and the potential severe impacts on watersheds and downstream users;
AND WHEREAS section 35 of the Canadian Constitution 1982 recognizes and affirms existing Indigenous and treaty rights, including those under Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, which guarantee Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Territories the right to continue their traditional livelihoods, such as hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering, which rely on the waters and ecosystems of the territory;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, second by the Member for Dehcho, that this Legislative Assembly calls on the Government of the Northwest Territories to formally oppose Alberta's Bill 7, Water Amendment Act 2025, and any upstream policies that could enable inter-basin transfers or basin mergers without robust science-based safeguards and full consideration of downstream impacts on the Northwest Territories;
AND FURTHER, that the Government of the Northwest Territories urge the Government of Canada to ensure that "one project, one review" agreements preserve strong, enforceable protections for water quality, aquatic ecosystems, and cumulative effects oversight, including in shared watersheds that affect the Northwest Territories;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories ensure its transboundary water agreements allow for transparent, timely, and proactive notification and information sharing from Alberta and federal regulators regarding any incidents or releases with potential transboundary effects consistent with best practices learned from the Kearl tailings seepage events;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories ensure that its transboundary water agreements allow for transparent, timely, and proactive notification and information sharing from Alberta and federal regulators regarding any proposed or actual treatment, discharge, or release of oil sands tailings with potential transboundary impacts;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories reaffirms that First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples must be meaningfully consulted and involved consistent with their rights on decisions affecting shared waters and watershed governance;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories strengthen and publicly communicate its ongoing hydrologic monitoring and drought reporting for the Northwest Territories, including clear summaries of conditions, drivers, and implications for communities and ecosystems;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories respond to this motion in 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. To the motion. Member from Dehcho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Water is life. This is something our elders have taught us for generations. It is something we know not just in our minds but in our hearts. Many of us grew up drinking directly from the Mackenzie River or any river in the North from the lakes, from the river and from the clear streams that nourished our families and sustained our communities. Some of our people still do today. That deep connection to the land and water is not a memory; it is a living part of who we are. It reminds us that we have a responsibility, a duty to protect our waters so the future generations can enjoy the same gifts we were given.
Mr. Speaker, every decision made in the upper Mackenzie River basin, whether in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan or the Yukon, flows down to us. The GNWT has clearly acknowledged this reality. The NWT is the ultimate downstream jurisdiction directly impacted by upstream water management decisions. When large-scale industrial activities such as oil and gas development, pulp and paper operations, and hydroelectric projects occur upstream, it is our waters, our ecosystems, and our people that bear the consequences.
Because of this, Mr. Speaker, we can't rely on hope alone to protect the safety and purity of our water. We must take action. Over the many years, the Government of the Northwest Territories has done just that through the negotiations of transboundary water agreements with upstream jurisdictions.
These agreements are rooted in the 1997 Mackenzie River Basin Transboundary Waters Master Agreement between Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. This master agreement commits all parties to work cooperatively to protect the ecological integrity of the entire basin and to make decisions in a way that sustains the water resources for present and future generations.
Mr. Speaker, these agreements are not just technical documents. They are powerful tools, tools that affirm our right to clean water that recognize the importance of aquatic ecosystem health and that ensure upstream governments cannot unreasonably harm downstream jurisdictions like ours. Bilateral agreements with Alberta, British Columbia, and updated agreements with the Yukon set clear expectations for water quality.
Groundwater protection and ecosystem health, they require cooperation, information sharing, and joint stewardship. They give us a seat at the table so that decisions affecting our waters are not made without our knowledge or our voice. These agreements also recognize something fundamental, the central role of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge in protecting the land and water. The Mackenzie River Basin process and its bilateral agreements emphasize the importance of Indigenous participation, ensuring that traditional knowledge and community experience shape decisions that affect our shared waters. This is not only good practice; it is an expression of respect for the people who have cared for these lands since time immemorial.
Mr. Speaker, protecting our water is not just environmental policy. It is about the health of our families, the safety of our food source, the well-being of our communities, and the future of our culture. Water holds our stories, our history, and our responsibilities. It connects all of us, upstream and downstream alike. As legislators, we must continue strengthening our protections, holding upstream partners accountable, and ensuring that the commitments made in these important agreements are upheld. We must continue speaking for the water because the water cannot speak for itself, and we must always remember that the decisions we make today will shape the world our children and grandchildren inherit. For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I fully support this motion and its goal of protecting the waters and the rights of the people of the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Dehcho. To the motion. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the heart of this motion is the health of our people. My communities face alarming high rates of cancer, chronic illness, illnesses that are forced our people to face serious challenges at an even younger age and take our elders from us too soon.
In the past year alone, as the MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh I have contributed to over 20 funerals. And that is only a fraction of the loss our communities have endured. Countless others are battling cancer and serious illnesses, and my office works tirelessly to advocate for them and ensure their treaty rights to health are honoured. This is an experience I know I share with my colleagues who represents Indigenous communities because our people are far more likely to be affected by cancer and other serious illnesses.
These disparities in health and well-being of our people are stark examples of ongoing inequity of our community faces with Indigenous people experiencing these health risks at much higher rates than non-Indigenous populations. Our people spend much time on the land, sustaining ourselves directly from hunting, fishing, trapping, and we rely on these waters, on our ecosystems, which rely on these waters as well. When the land and water are sick, we are sick.
Here in Yellowknife, we live in the shadows of Giant Mine. The mine is a legacy of -- or, and painful reminder of how our authority, stewardship over land were taken from us, of how the government of the day gave industry a blank cheque to carelessly unleash harmful chemicals from arsenic to uranium, dumping them on our land and onto our waters and exposing our people to them for decades.
It is in our communities. We have lived on this land since time immemorial who bear the consequences. Undoing these policies, repairing the harm, and restoring the stewardship of the land is one of the greatest efforts of the reconciliation era.
I am proud to say that through our resilience, our advocacy, and our fight back, we are turning the tide. But there is still a long way to go. Through the advocacy of First Nations and Inuit, we are working to force government to uphold treaty rights and those treaties are promised, no interference in the mode of way of life.
Right now, there are transboundary agreements with Alberta to -- they monitor the water and uphold the interests of downstream communities. But, unfortunately, this agreement is without any co-management of our First Nation so instead our communities must rely on our government to protect us because we have no voice at this table. Unfortunately, this transboundary agreement is breaking down.
Most recently, an incident in Imperial Oil Kearl mine of north of Fort McMurray leaked contaminants, tailings, into surrounding watersheds and groundwater, at least 5.3 million litres of industrial wastewater that flowed into the forests, wetlands, and rivers, which feed directly into the Athabasca River. Despite this contamination being known by the company and Alberta energy regulators for months before it became public, neither the Government of the Northwest Territories nor affected Indigenous governments were formally notified as required.
Our government stated that they learned of the Kearl incident second hand from Indigenous governments or the media. Rather than our official Alberta notification, they described this as a serious failure to share information, a violation of the transboundary agreement communication provision which called for prompt and transparent exchange whenever shared waters could be affected. At the time, they also noted that the lack of transboundary around Kearl was not an isolated incident, pointing to a border -- ongoing pattern of information sharing issues with Alberta.
So what is our government doing about this given that the transboundary agreement has no teeth? So far, not enough.
The lack of consultation and the clear shortcoming in this agreement, no enforcement measurements to consequences is even more evident now that Alberta has introduced Bill 7 to amend the Water Act. This bill does two dangerous things.
First, it sets an objective to treat and release contaminated tailings ponds, ponds that in total are twice the size of the city of Vancouver. The science does not support the idea that these tailings can be treated safely. Once released, they will have immeasurable impacts on downstream communities, and Alberta has provided no clear explanation of how or why this will happen, only that panels will be appointed to get it done.
Second, the plan to merge water basins is in direct violation of our transboundary agreement. This will fundamentally alter the flow of balance of watersheds, affecting lakes, rivers, wetlands, and groundwater. It will degrade water quality and disrupt ecosystems that rely on seasonal flows, spawning cycles, temperature ranges, sediments levels, and oxygen levels.
All of this is being done without consultation with the Northwest Territories, without respecting our transboundary agreement, and with complete disregard for our treaty rights on health and our way of life.
When I speak of Alberta here, I am not talking about the people and certainly not the First Nation, many of whom are now taking the Alberta government to court. This decision are being made by the UCP government which has a long history of ignoring nation-to-nation relationships and giving industry unchecked power.
If we rewind the clock 20 years, when this transboundary agreement was being formed, the old PC government faced pressure from sectors of the oil industry that rejected the notion of consensus, accountability, environmental oversight, or Indigenous co-management. This led to the creation of the Wild Rose Party which spent a decade dismantling the PC regulations and calling for a radical degradation of the oil industry. Their leaders at the time, Daniel Smith, now Premier of Alberta, continues to prioritize her long-time donor, appointing them to oversight regulatory boards across the government. Now those donors want tailings ponds dumped immediately in violation of the agreement with water basins merge, and they are ignoring Alberta's bilateral commitments to our territory.
This is why, in this motion, I hope this Assembly speaks with one voice, sending a strong message that the government must uphold treaty rights, protect people and the ecosystem, defend the small, critical advances we made on environmental oversight, lead the way to national Indigenous co-management access across provincial and territorial jurisdictions.
At the federal level, big changes are happening. MOUs are being signed with Alberta. Regulatory processes are being streamlined and strategic industries expanded. Water, strategic resources, our rights are sacred. We need our government to speak up. Our government must protect our rights of our health and our waterways and ensure that we sit at the federal table as equal partners making our voices heard loud and clear. We must show leadership, uphold our treaty rights, and defend our people and our land. Alberta may have the rights to do what they want for their territory, but there's downstream communities. We have rights, and we need to make that clear. I hope my colleagues join me in sending this powerful message to Alberta and give our government the momentum they need to work harder. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. To the motion. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll be brief. I certainly can't find the words as eloquently as my colleagues have already illustrated, so I'm happy to stand here and support them and support the words that they've already shared. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. To the motion. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will also be brief. And I want to thank the mover and seconder of this motion. I spoke in depth to my feelings on this matter on February 26th, and I will let those comments stand, and I will support this motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. To the motion. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be brief too. You know, this fight has been going on for a long time. My Uncle Charlie Snowshoe, who has passed earlier, he is a great advocate of this protection of the water from Alberta and B.C. coming in downstream and would adversely affect our region way up in the northern part of Canada. So I too will be supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. To the motion. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was a very detailed, well thought out and passionate motion, Mr. Speaker. I can't imagine not supporting this. The fact is, in brief, could you imagine if you didn't have water to drink, what would you drink? We all know it's the essence of life. It sustains all our biodiversity, our ecosystems. It's simply down to the survival. It's hard to believe; it's that simple, the survival of who we are. The water has many meanings in many cultures, and I certainly think it has no less importance here in the Northwest Territories as it does anywhere else. But if you don't have water, you have nothing. So I'll be supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. To the motion. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to stand in support of my colleague's motion. You know, I'm -- when I worked at the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, you know, I walked into the Chief Drygeese Centre and saw the motto every day As Long as the Sun Shines, the River Flows and the Grass Grows, so will the Treaty and the land and the people be sustained. And water is life, land is life, and doing what we can to protect it and ensure that the rights -- the treaty rights of Indigenous people are intact, especially in government to government relationships, in this case with the government of Alberta, are very important and part of reconciliation, and I thank the Member for bringing this forward. This is an important issue. I've heard about it, certainly, from Indigenous leadership, and the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh is certainly someone I respect as a leader for these concerns in the Northwest Territories. And, again, I thank him for bringing it forward, and I will support it. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. To the motion. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will stand in support to this motion. As our elders have always said, and as previous speakers mentioned, water is life and water brings stability and health and goodwill to our communities. And I can't say any more than what was already said, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. To the motion. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, this is important for NWT and the people. And like my colleague from Dehcho said, water is life, and we have heard many times from our elders, they said water is our father and it is important for our survival. So I will support this motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. To the motion. Member from Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, as this motion makes a recommendation to government, Cabinet will be abstaining from the motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Thebacha. To the motion.
Question.
Question is called. Does the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh wish to close debate.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'd like to thank my colleagues on this very important issue. And, Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote. Thank you.
