NEW PROSPERITY GOLD COPPER MINE PROJECT

FEDERAL REVIEW PANEL

CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AGENCY

AGENCE CANADIENNE D'ÉVALUATION ENVIRONMENTALE

HEARING HELD AT

CARIBOO MEMORIAL RECREATION COMPLEX

GIBRALTAR ROOM,

525 Proctor Street

Williams Lake, British Columbia

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Volume 10

FEDERAL REVIEW PANEL

Bill Ross

Ron Smyth

George Kupfer

International Reporting Inc.

41-5450 Canotek Road,

Ottawa, Ontario

K1J 9G2

www.irri.net

1-800-899-0006 (ii)

TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIERES

PAGE

Opening remarks by Panel Chair 3

Presentation by Taseko Mines 20

Presentation by Carl Alleyne 68

Presentation by Transport Canada 102

Presentation by Dr. Marvin Shaffer 133

Presentation by John Lerner 174

Presentation by Patt Larcombe 191

Presentation by Dr. Jonaki Bhattacharyya 216

Presentation by Titi Kunkel 247

Proponent response to information presented 283 3

1 Williams Lake, British Columbia

2 --- Opening ceremonies

3 --- Upon commencing 8:14 a.m.

4 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Good

5 morning, everyone. Welcome to the final day of

6 the topic-specific sessions of the public hearing

7 regarding Taseko Mines proposed New Prosperity

8 Gold Mine.

9 I would like to thank the town

10 of Williams Lake and the members of the Secwepemc

11 First Nations within whose traditional territory

12 we are holding this hearing today.

13 The Panel would also like to

14 thank the Tsilhqot'in drummers for the opening

15 ceremony.

16 My name is Bill Ross. On my

17 right is George Kupfer, on my left is Ron Smyth.

18 Secretariat staff identified by

19 name tags will be able to assist you with logistic

20 or process-related questions you might have.

21 Housekeeping items. Please

22 use the south entrance on Seventh Avenue to the

23 Gibraltar room as the main access to the hearing.

24 The other doors are for emergencies and access to

25 washrooms only. 4

1 We need to keep all doorways

2 clear to comply with fire code regulations. In

3 the event of an emergency, lights above will flash

4 or I will make an announcement over the

5 microphone.

6 In the event of a fire, please

7 vacate the building in a calm manner. In the

8 event of a medical emergency, please let

9 Secretariat and staff from the complex here know

10 immediately.

11 First aid supplies and

12 attendants are available from the complex.

13 The overall purpose of the

14 topic-specific hearing session is to provide an

15 opportunity for experts who possess specialized

16 knowledge or expertise to present to the Panel the

17 results of their technical review of the potential

18 effects of the proposed project. Sessions are

19 also designed to allow an opportunity to assess

20 the technical aspects of the project and to

21 provide opportunities for Taseko to explain the

22 project and respond to concerns and questions

23 raised by other participants.

24 I would like to stress that,

25 although anyone may attend the topic-specific 5

1 hearing sessions and observe the proceedings, only

2 those presenting a technical review of the project

3 and who have registered in advance as an

4 interested party may present or ask questions at

5 these sessions.

6 Today our discussion will focus

7 on the human environment, navigation, human

8 health, current use of land and resources for

9 traditional purposes, physical and cultural

10 heritage, and accidents, and malfunctions.

11 We have quite a few interested

12 parties today. Please help us to permit

13 subsequent speakers to have a fair amount of time

14 and to present their views.

15 The presenters we have today

16 are Taseko, Health Canada, Transport Canada, Dr.

17 Marvin Shaffer for MiningWatch Canada, John

18 Learner for Friends of Nemaiah Valley, Pat Larkin

19 for the Tsilhqotìn National Government, Dr.

20 Bhattacharyya, Friends of Nemaiah Valley, and Dr.

21 Titi Kunkel.

22 The agenda may change depending

23 on how things unfold, but we will be pushing a

24 little harder today than we have been to squeeze

25 in the presenters in a fair manner. 6

1 Once we've heard from all of

2 the presenters, we will provide an opportunity for

3 Taseko to respond to any of the information

4 presented.

5 We plan to sit until

6 approximately noon with one break, an hour for

7 lunch, maybe a little less than an hour for lunch.

8 We'll resume at 1:00 and continue till about 5:00.

9 We will resume the public

10 hearing on Tuesday, August 6th, in Nemaiah Valley.

11 Please turn off the ringers on your cell phone and

12 pager. And filming and photography are only

13 allowed with my prior approval.

14 It's my understanding that

15 Environment Canada or someone has something to say

16 at this point. Please.

17 MS. HOBBY: Thank you,

18 Mr. Chairman and good morning. My name is for the

19 record is Beverly Hobby, B-E-V-E-R-L-Y, H-O-B-B-Y.

20 I'm counsel for the Government of Canada at these

21 hearings.

22 And I just thought that it

23 would be a good idea to put on the record the

24 arrangement that Mr. Gustafson and I made

25 yesterday regarding the questioning of 7

1 Dr. Praharaj. As you will recall, to accommodate

2 today's busy schedule, Dr. Praharaj gave his

3 presentation yesterday. And at that time Taseko's

4 experts were not available to question

5 Dr. Praharaj. And today Dr. Praharaj is on the

6 road.

7 So Mr. Gustafson and I made an

8 arrangement for the questioning Dr. Praharaj by

9 Taseko to take place by written questions and

10 written responses. And we thought that it would

11 be a good idea to have this arrangement reflected

12 on the record.

13 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

14 Ms. Hobby.

15 Mr. Gustafson?

16 MR. GUSTAFSON: Yes,

17 Mr. Chairman.

18 Just briefly, I thought I

19 should confirm that we had come to this

20 accomodation when we originally agreed to a change

21 in schedule. We did think we would have the

22 opportunity to ask our questions today. But given

23 the time constraints and Dr. Praharah's schedule,

24 it probably is best for all that we do this in

25 writing. And there may be a little bit of back 8

1 and forth in these questions depending on the

2 answers, but they will all be on the record.

3 I just want to make one point,

4 though, and that is I don't want this to be seen

5 as a precedent with respect to our reservation of

6 the right to directly cross examine Mr. McCrory.

7 He's in a different position than Dr. Praharaj.

8 He represents an agency of the Federal government.

9 Unlike other government

10 agencies, they are here to present their findings

11 in neutral way and not make recommendations or to

12 advocate a particular position.

13 So he's in a distinctly

14 different position. So I just wanted to make that

15 clear.

16 Thank you.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

18 duly noted.

19 And as Mr. Gustafson

20 indicated, the exchanges will be on the registry.

21 Before we turn to presentations

22 today, I would like to give the Panel's ruling on

23 the issue that arose near the close of yesterday's

24 session.

25 Mr. Nelson, on behalf of the 9

1 TNG, Tsilhqot'in National Government, advised the

2 Panel that TNG had filed with -- filed on the

3 registry an expert report on community health

4 issues. He requested the Panel allow TNG to

5 present that report during a community hearing

6 sessions, specifically in Nemaiah on August the

7 8th, next Thursday. TNG explained that the

8 subject matter is of particular to the community.

9 That community interest underlies TNG's request.

10 Mr. Gustafson, on behalf of

11 Taseko, objected to TNG's request. He argued that

12 the accomodation would be unfair to Taseko. He

13 expressed concern about the timing of this filing

14 and TNG's proposal to present the report during a

15 community hearing sessions. He suggested that the

16 proper time and place for TNG to present the

17 report is during the topic-specific hearing

18 sessions.

19 After considering this matter

20 carefully, the Panel has decided to grant TNG's

21 request. The Panel will accept TNG's report on

22 the review record and will allow the author of the

23 report to present it in Nemaiah on August the 8th.

24 The Panel believes it is

25 reasonable and fair to accommodate the communities 10

1 interest in this subject matter. The subject

2 matter fits within the scope of community hearing

3 sessions, the locations of which are in closer

4 proximity to the project than other hearing

5 locations.

6 This accomodation also fits

7 within the Panel's mandate under the terms of

8 reference and the Canadian Environmental

9 Assessment Act 2012, as it relates to considering

10 aboriginal community interests and "holding

11 hearings in a manner that offers the public and

12 aboriginal groups an opportunity to participate in

13 the assessment."

14 Section 3-D of the Panel's

15 terms of reference.

16 Further, the hear procedures

17 for the community hearing session state,

18 presentations may -- and I quote, "Presentations

19 may be on any aspect within the scope of the

20 review as established by the terms of reference."

21 Section 2.3 of the community

22 hearing sessions found in Attachment A to the

23 hearing procedures.

24 We handed down from the

25 discussion yesterday that the report was filed and 11

1 placed on the registry yesterday, July 31st. We

2 ask that TNG ensure that Taseko has a copy of the

3 report and any related filings to allow sufficient

4 time to review the report before the presentation

5 on August the 8th.

6 Taseko and others will have an

7 opportunity to ask questions of TNG's experts at

8 the community hearing session in Nemaiah.

9 Based on the discussion

10 yesterday, I understand from Mr. Nelson that TNG

11 will make arrangements to allow participation by

12 phone if Taseko is unable to have its expert

13 advisers attend in person.

14 I will now move on to another

15 matter first.

16 Yesterday, the Panel received a

17 letter from the TNG. For the TNG, the Panel has

18 received your letter July 31st in which you

19 request a close of the record for project

20 information. Since your request affects Taseko

21 and other participants in the review, the Panel

22 will invite comment from others before responding

23 on the issue.

24 We note that this letter was

25 not copied to Taseko. Since we are in the hearing 12

1 phase, it is difficult for Taseko and other

2 interested parties to follow the filings on the

3 registry and the hearing procedures at the same

4 time.

5 It is important that parties

6 who are affected by any request, such as this one,

7 be given notice of the request. For future

8 correspondence that deals with issues that affect

9 Taseko, please send a copy directly to them so

10 they are aware of their request.

11 Alternatively, you may raise

12 the issue in the hearing so that all parties are

13 aware of the request.

14 At this time, if you wish to

15 raise that matter, I would appreciate you raise it

16 and explain it here and then we will proceed.

17 Mr. Nelson.

18 MR. NELSON: Certainly there is

19 no intention to delay Taseko receiving that

20 application.

21 The basis of the concern is set

22 out in our letter. And that is, as you've noted,

23 we're in the midst of the public hearings now and

24 they're intensive for everybody participating, and

25 it's difficult to review and respond to new 13

1 information as it comes on the record.

2 TNG's concern is that I think

3 it's become obvious over the last few days of

4 hearings that there is substantial and important

5 information that's missing from the environmental

6 impact statement that should have been in the

7 environmental impact statement.

8 And we're referring in

9 particular in this example to the basis for the

10 water quality modeling that's used to predict the

11 impacts of the likely water quality in Fish Lake,

12 which is perhaps one of the most central issues

13 before the Panel. And TNG has been requesting

14 that information since at least May, and the Panel

15 has requested that information.

16 Our concern is that we still

17 don't have that information. And Taseko's

18 undertaken to provide that and other information

19 about the project that really should have been

20 available for all parties during the discussion

21 that's taken place over the last few days on the

22 technical issues.

23 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Could we

24 stick to the issue rather than lobbying?

25 MR. NELSON: I understand. 14

1 It's a fine line when you're a lawyer.

2 Our concern is there is

3 substantial outstanding information that we're

4 concerned is coming at a time when technical

5 reviewers aren't in a position to be able to

6 meaningfully consider it and advise the Panel and.

7 It's coming at a time after the technical hearing.

8 So what we're asking for is a

9 close of the record for new project information so

10 we can have some certainty about what we're all

11 talking about here, and some finality in the

12 interests of fairness to all parties.

13 I understand the Panel may have

14 specific information requests to the Proponent and

15 that might arise as we go along. But I think as a

16 general rule there should be an expectation that

17 by now at the end of the topic-specific sessions

18 that we should have all the technical information

19 that the Proponent is relying on in support of its

20 project.

21 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Was there a

23 specific date proposed in the letter? I think

24 there was.

25 MR. NELSON: I believe it was 15

1 August 5th.

2 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: So I will

3 invite others, and especially Taseko, to offer

4 advice to the Panel before we make our ruling on

5 that request.

6 Mr. Gustafson?

7 MR. GUSTAFSON: Perhaps I

8 should defer until we have anybody else wishing to

9 speak.

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That would

11 be fine.

12 Does anyone else wish to offer

13 us advice?

14 Seeing none, please proceed

15 Mr. Gustafson.

16 MR. GUSTAFSON: Mr. Chairman, I

17 think the first and most fundamental point to note

18 --

19 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I'm sorry,

20 there appears to be someone else. I'm sorry,

21 ma'am, I've forgotten your name. Please identify

22 yourself.

23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

24 (Unintelligible) Tsilhqot'in National Congress.

25 I'm kind of in a déjà vu. I 16

1 believe when I entered what I have done to the

2 Panel, the first time and the second time, and

3 this is the third time, I believe Taseko has to

4 come up with those requests as soon as they can.

5 I believe we've been in here but more than two

6 weeks. That's my comment.

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

8 Mr. Gustafson?

9 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you,

10 Mr. Chairman.

11 As I was going to say, I think

12 the fundamental point to note first is that this

13 panel has already ruled that the environmental

14 impact statement was sufficient to proceed with

15 this particular hearing. And so it's on that

16 basis that we're here and considering evidence

17 related to that statement.

18 As is the case in any

19 environmental assessment questions, new questions

20 arise and questions of clarification arise that

21 require undertakings and further filings, and that

22 has happened here. And we are working on

23 providing the responses to the outstanding

24 information requests as quickly as we can.

25 But as will be apparent and 17

1 thus a comment was just made, we've been in the

2 hearing for weeks. And it is virtually impossible

3 for the appropriate people to attend to the

4 preparation of those responses while they are

5 sitting here in the hearings.

6 So we are doing the best we can

7 and you will, very soon, start to see those

8 responses come in.

9 Mr. Nelson made specific

10 reference to the modeling request. And that was

11 an item that took a little bit of time for Taseko

12 to consider for a couple of reasons.

13 One, was that the work

14 required to rerun that particular model. And

15 let's be clear, I believe it was one particular

16 model and rerunning one test, will require a

17 substantial amount of work; I understand about 40

18 hours worth of work.

19 The individuals or at least

20 some of the resources required to complete that

21 work were also tied up in the hearing. And so a

22 complete assessment of just how long that work

23 would take and when it could be done, whether the

24 other resources would be available, took a little

25 bit of time to come to a conclusion. 18

1 As well, Taseko was really not

2 of the view, and may still not be of the view that

3 the results of that particular exercise will be

4 all that helpful to the panel. Nevertheless, the

5 Panel made it clear it was interested in having

6 that information. So Taseko has agreed to do

7 that. But it will take that time to produce the

8 results. So we are working on that, and it will

9 be provided just as quickly as it can be.

10 The next point I wish to make

11 is that Mr. Nelson has referred to -- and you

12 Mr. Chairman, referred to a letter of July 31st.

13 There is a second letter also directed to the

14 Panel, also not copied to Taseko and not raised on

15 the record, in which substantive submissions are

16 made. And we would wish to have the opportunity

17 to respond to that as well.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

19 Mr. Gustafson.

20 Mr. Nelson.

21 MR. NELSON: Mr. Chairman, I

22 just wanted to make one quick point of

23 clarification.

24 Mr. Gustafson referred to the

25 fact the Panel made a ruling about sufficiency of 19

1 the information to proceed to hearings. I just

2 wanted to note that ruling was subject to the

3 Proponent providing additional information five

4 days ahead of the hearings, which included the

5 information requested by TNG, which is -- was not

6 fully complied with, and that's why we're waiting

7 for more detail about the water quality model.

8 Thank you.

9 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

10 I'm not convinced that that

11 exchange was terribly helpful to the Panel in

12 terms of making a determination about closing the

13 record on -- in major information about the

14 project.

15 So Mr. Gustafson, if you

16 insist on responding to it, then do so succinctly,

17 please.

18 MR. GUSTAFSON: Mr. Chairman, I

19 just wanted to make the point that Taseko believes

20 that it has, in fact, provided sufficient

21 information with respect to the responses to allow

22 this proceeding to move forward, and we will

23 address all of these outstanding information

24 requests.

25 And I just think it's a 20

1 little -- I'm actually having a hard time

2 assimilating the information here with Mr. Nelson

3 having the ability to file an expert report at

4 this very late stage and then complaining about

5 unfairness in the process.

6 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: The Panel

7 will make a ruling on the TNG request later today.

8 Go ahead, Mr. LaPlante.

9 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you. I

10 promise to talk about better than simple terms.

11 I think it's important to

12 understand that if it takes 40 hours to simply to

13 provide the position of the methods and

14 assumptions, it will likely take just as long to

15 review those methods and provide an opinion to the

16 panel, if not more.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mr.

18 LaPlante, the panel will make a ruling on this

19 later today.

20 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you.

21 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Moving along

22 to the session today. The first presenter is, of

23 course, Taseko.

24 PRESENTATION BY TASEKO:

25 MR. GUSTAFSON: Mr. Chairman, 21

1 just by way of a very brief introduction. You've

2 heard from Ms. Gizikoff previously, as well as

3 Ms. Smith so I won't reintroduce them.

4 I thought I should just alert

5 the Panel to the fact that when questions arise

6 after there are three representatives of Stantec

7 Consulting with us today who might be called upon

8 to respond.

9 We have, at the far end of the

10 table, Dr. Bryan Leece, senior toxicologist at

11 Stantec in the human health risk assessment area.

12 In the centre of the table is Ryan Stady,

13 management unit leader archeological for Stantec.

14 And closest to me, Jonathan Hall, project manager

15 archeology for Stantec.

16 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

17 Mr. Gizikoff -- Mr. Gustavson.

18 MR. GUSTAFSON: I've given the

19 spellings of the names to the reporter.

20 MS. GIZIKOFF: Just to clarify,

21 Jonathan is at the far end and the doctor is at

22 this end of the table.

23 Thank you very much. Of course

24 everybody has record of my name, Catharine

25 Gizikoff. I also have brought with me, our 22

1 manager of aboriginal and community affairs,

2 Ms. Christy Smith.

3 As I mentioned to yesterday,

4 for those that were not here, I'm the director of

5 environmental and government affairs. I've been

6 with Taseko for six years here in Williams Lake.

7 I've been involved with Prosperity and New

8 Prosperity since joining the company. But I also

9 managed the Williams Lake office, which has grown

10 from 1, to a staff of 10 here in Williams Lake,

11 also focused on community and aboriginal affairs

12 and environment.

13 This morning I'll cover a

14 variety of topics under the umbrella of human

15 environment.

16 I was going to start very

17 quickly in considering the essence of time. Just

18 reviewing that Taseko's guided by a variety of

19 policies, including the health and safety policy,

20 to protect the work conditions for our employees.

21 The environmental policy to

22 ensure continued improvement in the protection of

23 human health and stewardship in the natural

24 environment. Our aboriginal policy to deliver on

25 the principles set out in our environment 23

1 policy -- aboriginal people, sorry. And our

2 commitment to the community. Commitment to

3 specifically the Cariboo to being a vital

4 contributor to the Cariboo communities and to

5 reflect the values important to its residents.

6 The previous panel found that

7 the project would have no significant adverse

8 affect on atmosphere and noise, archeological

9 resources, human and ecological health, community

10 services and resource users.

11 But it would have a significant

12 adverse affect navigation and on the Tsilhqot'in

13 Nation's current use of lands and resources for

14 traditional purposes and cultural heritage

15 resources.

16 The previous panel also found

17 that the project would have significant adverse

18 affect on potential or established rights and

19 title of the Tsilhqot'in and Secwepemc.

20 Since the Panel would report

21 on the potential impacts and mitigation and

22 accomodation measures, and government must

23 subsequently determine whether the Crown's duty to

24 consult and accommodate has been met regarding

25 aboriginal rights, as well as whether any 24

1 infringement on the proven rights is justified.

2 My presentation today will

3 speak to project effects in general with respect

4 to aboriginal interests rather than rights.

5 There's two brief slides for

6 review from yesterday, for those that were not

7 here. This image illustrates the mine development

8 area for the previously reviewed Prosperity

9 project, with Taseko river on the left, with Fish

10 Lake and Little Fish Lake areas evident within the

11 shaded area. The footprint was approximately 4400

12 hectares.

13 With the new Prosperity mine

14 design, the tailings storage facility is 2

15 kilometers upstream from Fish Lake. Overall

16 there's less fish habitat and land disturbed. The

17 mine development area is approximately 2600

18 hectares.

19 New Prosperity responds to the

20 2010 panel review concerns. Preserves Fish Lake,

21 provides access during operations, is a smaller

22 fingerprint, less land disturbance, and it has

23 enhanced its compensation and reclamation plans.

24 We followed the EIS guidelines, reviewed past and

25 recent consultation records, and particularly the 25

1 2010 panel hearing transcripts. And our EIS for

2 New Prosperity concludes no significant adverse

3 environmental effect.

4 Fish Lake. With regards to

5 navigation, in the previous review, the loss of

6 Fish Lake -- and the loss Fish Lake, there were

7 concerns about how the project would interfere

8 with navigation and the lack of suitable

9 mitigation to compensate for those losses.

10 Under the new project's

11 revised development plan Fish Lake is preserved

12 and protected, as is the island that Transport

13 Canada previously noted was an important site for

14 First Nations during their review. Boating and

15 fishing activities will remain available during

16 operations, as the well at closure.

17 At closure, the tailings

18 storage facility and Pit Lake will expand the

19 opportunity for public to exercise a right to

20 navigate within a Fish Lake watershed.

21 In addition, the key

22 mitigation measures include access roads and a

23 boat launch being maintained to provide passage

24 for First Nations and the public by vehicle to the

25 shores of Fish Lake. 26

1 As well as potentially to the

2 other lakes, like the TSF and the Pit Lakes

3 post-closure.

4 In addition, finally, the

5 habitat compensation plan remains open to

6 suggestions of other opportunities to improve

7 navigation in the region.

8 Based on these factors, the

9 EIS concludes that the new project will not have a

10 significant adverse affect on navigation.

11 During the general hearings, we

12 heard a few people being questioned as to whether

13 or not they would visit Fish Lake during the

14 operations of the mine.

15 While we recognize that during

16 operations the experience of navigation or

17 fishing, recreation may be altered from that that

18 existed prior to mining, and would be different

19 than it would be experienced after closure. There

20 are examples throughout B.C. where there is a

21 recreational opportunity, recreational sites used

22 very frequently in close proximity to mining.

23 This is an example here in the

24 region at Polley Lake, near Mount Polley. This is

25 the recreation site at that location. 27

1 This is Bose Lake at the very

2 base of the Bethlehem Dam. This picture is taken

3 from the forest service recreation site. And I

4 have been on the opposite end quite frequently

5 swimming, and enjoying lunch hours while working

6 at that area. And it's frequently used by local

7 people.

8 This is a view of Cuisson Lake

9 from our waste rock dumps at Gibraltar mine.

10 And the point that I'm really

11 trying to make is that while it is different for

12 some people to imagine recreating or navigating or

13 fishing in a close proximity to a mine, it is a

14 rather regular occurrence in the province.

15 A real unique one, too, is

16 Trojan Pond. And we're talking about navigating

17 and fishing at closure. Trojan is at highland

18 valley copper. And its fishing derbies in the

19 summer are very famous. And this is actually an

20 older photo; the vegetation has grown up since

21 then. But highland valley cover provides access

22 to this site for fishing experiences in accordance

23 with the health, safety and reclamation code of

24 B.C. for safety.

25 This is an image of a meadow 28

1 immediately upstream of Fish Lake that has been

2 preserved with the new mine design.

3 The previous panel concluded

4 that the Prosperity project would, at the local

5 level, have significant adverse affects on the

6 users of the meadows within the Fish Creek

7 watershed. On the Sunny (ph) trap lines

8 specifically and on Taseko Lake Outfitters.

9 Taseko is not clear on how

10 this determination was made in light of the

11 criteria generally considered for significant

12 adverse affects.

13 But in any case, I will speak

14 to them with regards to the new project design.

15 This is an image of the current

16 grazing tenure that overlaps with the New

17 Prosperity site. As a result of the new mine

18 design, more of the tenure area for grazing --

19 grazing licence is preserved. However, grazing of

20 horses or cattle would require fencing to enable

21 use. This grazing tenure is held by Taseko Lake

22 Outfitters.

23 While grazing in close

24 proximity is experienced at other mine locations,

25 and again this is Highland Valley Copper, it would 29

1 require some infrastructure to accommodate.

2 Taseko has committed to work

3 with the Ministry of Forests and Natural Resource

4 Operations, and the affected parties who use the

5 meadows in the Fish Creek watershed to assess

6 replacement forest elsewhere in the area or

7 discuss mitigation, compensation for lost

8 productivity if replacement opportunities are not

9 secured.

10 This image is Taseko Lake

11 Outfitters commercial recreation and guide

12 outfitting tenures areas. Boundaries are slightly

13 different between the two, but more or less the

14 same. It also shows the location of our proposed

15 mine development area.

16 The previous panel concluded

17 Taseko Lake Outfitters would likely not be able to

18 continue its eco-tours and business due to the

19 proximity of the mine site. Taseko has accepted

20 the previous panel's recommendation. And should

21 the project be approved, Taseko is prepared to

22 discuss compensation for losses with Taseko Lake

23 Outfitters.

24 While in general, the guide

25 outfitter area impacted by the mine development is 30

1 a small proportion to the overall licence area, I

2 did have the opportunity to tour through Taseko

3 Lake Outfitters tenure area that overlaps with the

4 mine last year, and do have an appreciation for

5 how the presence of the mine would impact his

6 current day rides that he does with his clients.

7 The mine development area also

8 overlaps with two registered trap lines. This is

9 the two boundaries here shown in red and the mine

10 development area. Once the mine is built, trap

11 line holders would experience a loss with respect

12 to the portion of their trap line which falls

13 within the mine development area. However, this

14 accounts for a small portion, between 1 to 4

15 percent, of their licence area.

16 As stated in the EIS, the

17 average annual harvest for licencees is below $500

18 a year. Subsequently, the economic loss of the

19 area associated with the mine development is

20 negligible, and would not represent a significant

21 loss of income. Regardless, Taseko remains open

22 to discussing compensation for verifiable losses.

23 In addition to the registered

24 trap lines, the Tsilhqot'in have established

25 aboriginal rights to hunt and trap throughout the 31

1 claim area. This image illustrates the claim

2 area -- or the rights area here, I'm not sure what

3 color that is -- and the location of the proposed

4 mine site. It also shows the entire asserted

5 territory for the Tsilhqot'in as identified in

6 their strategic engagement agreement with the

7 province.

8 The previous panel found the

9 project had significant adverse affects on the

10 Tsilhqot'in's current use of lands and resources

11 for traditional purposes.

12 The New Prosperity mine

13 development plan includes preservation of meadows

14 immediately adjacent to the lake and provides

15 access to areas through all -- access to this area

16 through all phases of the mine. While some

17 sensory disturbance, of course, is expected and

18 lands are still lost around Little Fish Lake,

19 through implementation of the habitat compensation

20 plan, there is opportunity to mitigate these

21 hunting and trapping losses.

22 This is titled "Gathering

23 Berries and Medicines." The slide doesn't show up

24 very well.

25 Land disturbance proposed for 32

1 the New Prosperity is less than proposed for the

2 previous project, resulting in less predicted loss

3 of old forest wetlands and riparian areas and

4 hence less loss of country foods than the previous

5 project. We have cross reference species of

6 interest to First Nations to ensure that they are

7 considered and included in the reclamation

8 planning.

9 I believe Natalie spoke briefly

10 yesterday about incorporating keystone cultural

11 species in land reclamation plans.

12 Further, Taseko has stated they

13 remain open to adding elements to both fish and

14 habitat compensation plans that may improve

15 opportunities for gathering or protecting areas of

16 harvesting -- areas for harvesting that are

17 currently impacted by humans or grazing.

18 In conclusion, with regard to

19 current use of land resources for traditional

20 purpose, there are less hectares disturbed, there

21 is reduced impact on wildlife habitat and reduced

22 impact where hunting is restricted. There is

23 increased access to Fish Lake in the vicinity.

24 And within our environmental management plans, the

25 reclamation plan to target species of interest has 33

1 been broadened and our fish compensation and

2 habitat compensation -- our fish compensation and

3 habitat compensation plans remain open for further

4 discussion and additions.

5 This illustration shows the key

6 receptors considered for air, noise and light

7 effects. What is new in New Prosperity is the

8 receptor in the vicinity of Fish Lake, now that

9 the Fish Lake is preserved and that there is

10 access to that location.

11 Concern in the previous

12 Prosperity project was expressed by the

13 Tsilhqot'in that noise and light will be seen and

14 heard from Nemaiah Valley. I might not have this

15 dot in the right place generally.

16 The previous panel concluded

17 that light pollution from the project would not

18 result in a significant adverse effect. The

19 changes with New Prosperity are mainly associated

20 with the locations of stockpiles and new tailings

21 location, with longer haul distance creating a

22 marginal change in vehicle traffic internally to

23 the mine. Therefore, the conclusions with respect

24 to vehicle traffic will not change from those in

25 the previous EA. 34

1 With regards to air quality,

2 because access is provided, there is now closer

3 proximity to Fish Lake and air quality and dust

4 deposition was of particular interest in this

5 vicinity.

6 Particulate matter, PN 2.5, PN

7 10, and total particulate matter dust fall are

8 predicted to exceed the applicable objectives and

9 standards at or very near -- at or very near the

10 mine disturbance boundary.

11 In each instance, the area

12 over which the regulatory objective exceedants

13 occur lie outside the mine disturbance boundary is

14 very small.

15 Metal accumulation in the soil

16 around Fish Lake has been predicted based on total

17 dust deposition, and it has been assumed that

18 metals will remain in the top 5 centimeters of the

19 horizon. And this is an overestimate of the metal

20 accumulations, and as a result, an overestimate of

21 metal accumulation in country foods and other

22 environmental media.

23 Even using this approach, the

24 assessment concluded that post-closure exposures

25 would be within acceptable limits, and thus metal 35

1 accumulation and soil associated with the project

2 would not be expected to be represent a concern

3 for human health.

4 There are natural mitigators of

5 dust, and these include rain and snow. The

6 reduction of dust emissions can also be engineered

7 into the project. This can be achieved by

8 building roads out of material that do not break

9 down and produce fine silty material, material

10 transfer points can be covered or protected from

11 wind. This slide shows one of the water trucks

12 employed at Gibraltar.

13 Recently 2 of these 45,000

14 gallon tanks was mounted to Terrifs (ph) MD 4400

15 haul truck. These replaced the old trucks and

16 hold approximately three times the capacity of the

17 older trucks.

18 As mining technology advances,

19 larger and larger equipment is being employed.

20 And this is just one example of this. These two

21 larger trucks will be able to mitigate dust at

22 Gibraltar six times as effectively as the old

23 trucks they are replacing, while burning less fuel

24 per gallon of water carried.

25 Common at all sites required by 36

1 our permits through the Ministry of Environment,

2 we have a variety of monitoring stations,

3 including air quality monitoring stations. These

4 locations, the frequency of sampling, and the

5 parameters are defined in our permits through

6 consultation with the company and First Nations,

7 and will be addressed at permitting the details --

8 worked out the permitting. This is a photograph

9 of sampling site at Gibraltar.

10 This is an image at a reclaimed

11 mine site taken during one of the TRCR's

12 reclamation symposium tours a number of years ago

13 now.

14 The previous panel concluded

15 that emissions of particulate matter from the

16 project would not result in significant adverse

17 effect. The Panel further concluded that the

18 project would not result in a significant adverse

19 effect on human health from consuming fish, moose

20 meat and drinking water.

21 For New Prosperity, the health

22 assessment includes toddlers, adults, and

23 sensitive members of the population, and focused

24 on the use of the lands around Fish Lake.

25 Based on consumption rates 37

1 used in the 2009 EIS plus more recently checked by

2 the First Nations food, nutrition and environment

3 study as recommended by Health Canada, shows that

4 with regards to human health, the changes in the

5 development plan for New Prosperity is not

6 expected to alter the conclusions of the human

7 health assessment and remains no significant

8 adverse effect.

9 If any post-closure activities

10 are required, they may include continuation of

11 environmental, soil, and vegetation monitoring for

12 a period of time.

13 This is a photograph of a

14 strawberry taken just the other day up at

15 Gibraltar mine, and naturally reestablishing. We

16 did not sample this. I think Ashley ate it, but

17 it will be -- it's only to demonstrate that as the

18 reclaimed mine areas develop and transform over

19 time, additional monitoring may occur to provide

20 certainty to the regulators and the public.

21 Taseko will be responsible for

22 all environmental monitoring and the reclamation

23 programs until all conditions of the mines act

24 reclamation code and permits have been fulfilled,

25 and Taseko has been released from its obligations 38

1 under the mines act.

2 A comprehensive archeological

3 impact assessment was conducted in 2006. The AIA

4 is considered to be particularly thorough by the

5 provincial regulators as they stated in a letter

6 from them in 2009, from the art branch.

7 The New Prosperity mine plan

8 will result in 84 percent reduction in the number

9 of archeological sites, potentially effected as

10 compared to the previously reviewed project.

11 These sites in dark blue around the lake now

12 preserved.

13 Special monitoring and

14 mitigation measures, such as the clear marking of

15 boundaries around known sites are included in the

16 cultural and heritage protection plan and will be

17 implemented to ensure that they will not be

18 disturbed throughout all phases of mine

19 development activity.

20 For the five sites within the

21 pit area that cannot be avoided, mitigation

22 measures as presented by the art branch in '99

23 will be implemented.

24 Further, a chance fine

25 procedure with mitigation measures to avoid or 39

1 minimize damage to archeological mines as

2 recommended by the previous review panel will be

3 implemented to ensure that any unexpected

4 archeological resources identified during the site

5 preparation and construction activities are

6 preserved.

7 Based on the intensity of work

8 conducted and in respect to First Nations'

9 requests, and the art branches recognition of the

10 work conducted was particularly thorough, it is of

11 low probability that any marked burial grounds or

12 sites within -- with existing physical evidence

13 were not identified. Taseko remains committed to

14 discussing any additional mitigation measures

15 First Nations may wish to discuss.

16 In conclusion with regards to

17 agricultural heritage, during the original review

18 of the previous project, the Tsilhqot'in stated

19 the Fish Lake area had substantial cultural value,

20 particularly the island.

21 The 2012 New Prosperity mine

22 development area preserves Fish Lake and the

23 island. 84 percent of the archeological resources

24 are now preserved, there is a cultural heritage

25 and protection plan and a commitment to adopt the 40

1 previous panel's recommendation for a chance fine

2 procedure, and Taseko remains open to discussing

3 with Tsilhqot'in or specifically the William

4 family options for the cabins at Little Fish Lake.

5 During the general hearings, we

6 heard some discussion with regards to the economic

7 benefits of this project, increase in GP 3,

8 increase in employment, increase in income, and

9 increase in government revenues.

10 I won't go into detail. I

11 think some of those statements are already on the

12 record, but I wanted to paint the picture

13 so-to-speak of what the forecast really does look

14 like going forward. This image, the green part of

15 this image, is in the midterm timber supply report

16 from 2012 produced by the province.

17 They also have data in there

18 and some other recent reports from the Ministry of

19 Forests and National Resource operations with

20 regards to the actual harvest. And that I have

21 drawn in red.

22 What this illustrates is that

23 pre-mountain pine beetles (unintelligible) the cut

24 was approximately 2.5 million cubic meters per

25 year. That was increased in the late 1980s. And 41

1 jumped significantly around, I guess 2000 -- 1990,

2 2000.

3 But what people forget is that

4 not only is that annual allowable cut expected to

5 drop, and purposes of the midterm timber supply

6 report to forecast that drop. But the actual

7 harvest that has occurred and is forecasted to

8 occur in the coming decades is much lower than is

9 expected. And this is just because of the

10 economics and the long haul and the now value of

11 the timber that's remaining out that there has

12 been impacted.

13 What's important to note in

14 this timber supply report, also, is that the

15 central Cariboo district, Tsilhqot'in district

16 rely on the forest sector for a significant

17 portion of their employment, between 26 and 32

18 percent of basic employment for those two

19 districts. And their forest vulnerable index is

20 around 40 to 50 percent. And that's really just

21 the index the forest sector uses to reflect the

22 reliance of those communities on the forest

23 sector.

24 This report states that in 2000

25 before the uplift or approximately 4600 person 42

1 years of employment were in the sector, and it

2 only reached around 4200 during its peek uplift in

3 the harvest. But it's expected to drop to 1800

4 after the year of 2020. And they say it's

5 expected to drop without mitigation. And one of

6 the mitigation items that they have in the report

7 speaks to Prosperity project.

8 The project has a potential to

9 significantly enhance the economic and viability

10 of the local communities through training and

11 employment.

12 What we may be able to see is

13 an increase in school enrollment, diverse and

14 enhanced economic viability of communities,

15 improvements to roads, parks and highways,

16 additional social support, and hospital upgrades.

17 And this is a major economic benefit during a

18 downturn in the forest sector.

19 Taseko regularly participates

20 in organizations in the community, exchanges

21 information with them, and financially supports a

22 variety of organizations. We regularly give back

23 to the communities through donations and community

24 events. Over $400,000 was donated by Taseko and

25 its employees over the last five years to the 43

1 United Way to support local communities. All that

2 money stays in the Cariboo. Combined, the list of

3 donations to charitable and community support

4 groups provided by Gibraltar mine and Taseko

5 totals over 1.3 million.

6 For the years 2006 through

7 2012, we made donations to community groups,

8 charitable organizations, local teams, sports team

9 educated related initiatives, heritage and

10 cultural societies, including First Nations and

11 the arts, health related wellness services, and

12 causes and private community support.

13 Taseko participates in various

14 events, such as Relay For Life, Big Bike Ride for

15 the Heart and Stroke Foundation. And on behalf of

16 Taseko, our employees sit as volunteers in

17 community contributors to a variety of

18 organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce,

19 Social Planning Council, Leaders Moving Forward,

20 as well as being coaches on many local teams, and

21 playing an active role in the community.

22 Specifically with regard to

23 what New Prosperity can do for First Nations,

24 mining is the largest private sector employer of

25 First Nations in Canada. New Prosperity offers 44

1 potential training and employment opportunities

2 for locals and long-term, good paying and direct

3 jobs.

4 In addition, the Province has

5 indicated their willingness to negotiate revenue

6 sharing, and economic development agreements

7 support the community's social socioeconomic

8 goals.

9 Taseko has a relationship and

10 engages regularly with the Thompson River

11 University, and the B.C. Aboriginal Mine Training

12 Association, Cariboo Tsilhqot'in Aboriginal

13 Employment Training Centre, and other training and

14 employment organizations. We participate in

15 working groups to develop curriculum and

16 strategize and forecast the need for upcoming

17 courses with TRU, that university, and BCAMTA.

18 In the summer of 2012, BCAMTA

19 established an office in Williams Lake to train

20 and build capacity of the local First Nations

21 individuals in the area. Training began in

22 September 2012. And we've supported BCAMTA in the

23 following ways, we've supported courses, we've

24 presented on various topics, provided tours of

25 Gibraltar, provided funding for a bus to reduce a 45

1 transportation barrier that many students may

2 have, and donated space for them to operate in

3 their Williams Lake office.

4 Since April 2013, Gibraltar has

5 hired eight BCAMTA applicants, and many other

6 applicants have been successfully interviewed and

7 are waiting for positions to open.

8 Taseko is committed to helping

9 potential candidates gain required standards and

10 qualifications to ensure local people have the

11 opportunity to be eligible for hiring and career

12 advancement.

13 We participate in local and

14 elementary and high schools, by providing speakers

15 and mine tours, as well as training programs in

16 the region, including planning 10 -- career

17 counseling, job shadowing at Gibraltar, Ace It, a

18 program which is a partnership with the Ministry

19 of Education and high school students, and Heavy

20 Metal Blocks, which is a four-day event to bring

21 together grade 11 and 12 students with equipment

22 operators.

23 With regards to contracting

24 opportunities, there will be a diverse array of

25 contracting opportunities associated with a 46

1 project such as New Prosperity that provides both

2 employment for local people, work experience, and

3 research and learning opportunities.

4 These opportunities are diverse

5 from pre-construction surveys that we spoke of

6 yesterday, to post-closure monitoring. They go

7 from construction through operations of the mine

8 and the camp, as well as post closure

9 decommissioning and maintenance.

10 Taseko is committed to

11 providing support to local people so that they can

12 build capacity and participate in copper --

13 contracting opportunities.

14 Over the years leading up to

15 the submission of this EIS, Taseko has engaged

16 with First Nations. The purpose has been to seek

17 to develop working relationships with them, to

18 identify potential opportunities for mutual

19 benefit, to identify concerns and consider options

20 to mitigate or accommodate those concerns.

21 Taseko intends to continue

22 those efforts during the environmental assessment

23 process and well beyond permitting, to

24 construction, operations and decommissioning.

25 In conclusion, the prosperity 47

1 project has redesigned the mine site layout to

2 address previous concerns.

3 There is no significant adverse

4 environmental effect on resource users,

5 navigation, current use for traditional purposes

6 and cultural heritage. And I'll leave it up to

7 the government to determine the affect and

8 infringement on aboriginal rights.

9 Positive effects on the

10 communities, regional and provincial economics are

11 provided.

12 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

13 Ms. Gizikoff. Are you done now?

14 MS. GIZIKOFF: I am now.

15 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I thought

16 that, but I wanted to be sure.

17 Do we have any questions from

18 the Government of Canada?

19 Sorry, you are welcome to

20 return to your table.

21 Any questions from Government

22 of Canada?

23 Any questions from First

24 Nations interested parties?

25 MS. BOYD: My name is Dorothy 48

1 Boyd, I'm with the Community of Tsilhqot'in tribe.

2 That's one thing, when we come

3 to the table, if any kind of (intelligible) the

4 tribe is not mentioned. There's no honor in First

5 Nations. Right there, just that word, is

6 disrespect of any communities or government

7 sector.

8 I used to work in the schools

9 of Tsilhqot'in language. It's alive. I'm with

10 Tsilhqot'in National Congress. That involved in

11 our community many years ago, elders in our tribe

12 were cautioning us that this day will come. Be

13 prepared.

14 I speak English and also my

15 language. Right at the beginning I said you would

16 be begging (ph) in the eye of the volcano. I have

17 not got my answer. That was a question. And

18 today culture come up. I still say no. Paperwork

19 is not going to replace me. School -- English

20 school is not going to replace what we're doing.

21 We have been taken my students away from me. I

22 say no to everything.

23 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

24 Ms. Boyd.

25 Mr. LaPlante? 49

1 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you,

2 Mr. Chairman.

3 I have a question about the

4 previous panel's findings. I would like to

5 confirm that the Proponent's understanding that

6 the previous panel found significant impacts to

7 Tsilhqot'in cultural values current and future use

8 and rights regardless of which alternative mine

9 development plan were chosen, including this one.

10 And my question, I guess, is:

11 Does the company have any studies which contradict

12 that conclusion?

13 MS. GIZIKOFF: I would like to

14 ask Mr. La Plante to provide me a page number in

15 the Panel report that he is quoting from.

16 MR. LA PLANTE: I could do

17 that. Take me a moment, but...

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That might

19 be helpful.

20 MR. LA PLANTE: Maybe if I

21 could follow-up with --

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Yes, I was

23 going to --

24 MR. LA PLANTE: -- questions,

25 and then when I sit down I can look for that page 50

1 number.

2 In your presentation, you

3 mentioned that the previous panel -- you

4 questioned the means in which the previous panel

5 found significant impacts and I would like -- can

6 you please explain what you meant by that?

7 MS. GIZIKOFF: Are you

8 referring to my comment with regards to local

9 resource users?

10 MR. LA PLANTE: I believe it

11 was on cultural impacts, is what you referred to.

12 That was my understanding, anyway. You can

13 correct me if you didn't say that.

14 MS. GIZIKOFF: I believe you

15 are referring to my comment with regards to the

16 local resource users.

17 MR. LA PLANTE: Okay. And you

18 questioned the findings of significance, and

19 that's what I'm getting at. I'd like to know. I

20 think that's important for everyone here to

21 understand what the company's view is about how,

22 like, are you questioning the previous panel's

23 findings of significance.

24 MS. GIZIKOFF: My comment was

25 related to the determination of the effects on the 51

1 local users. And it was not clear to Taseko how

2 CEAA's policy with regards to the factors to

3 consider, including geographical extent, was

4 considered in that determination for the previous

5 project, not for New Prosperity.

6 MR. LA PLANTE: I don't fully

7 understand, but I'll go back to my previous one.

8 I believe that I can read into

9 the record, the previous panel found:

10

11 "High magnitude, long-term, irreversible

12 effect on the Tsilhqot'in."

13

14 And that:

15

16 "The loss of the area for practicing

17 their current use, spiritual and

18 cultural activities would be significant

19 and unmitigable."

20

21 That's the page 111, and page

22 203.

23 So it's in the executive

24 summary, and page 203. And it went on. It says:

25 52

1 "The proximity of the open pit and

2 associated mining facilities would be

3 close enough to Tahltan, Fish Lake to

4 eliminate the intrinsic value of the

5 area of First Nations even if another

6 alternative were chosen."

7

8 They assess this mine

9 development plan number two, and that was page 50.

10 So my question is: If you

11 conducted any studies that contradict that

12 finding?

13 MS. GIZIKOFF: Mr. LaPlante, I

14 believe the Panel report also states that the

15 Tsilhqot'in did not provide comment on the other

16 alternatives for the panel to consider, and that

17 was not captured in your quotes. And that was

18 with regards to the previous project.

19 With regards to conducting any

20 studies, it's on our consultation record,

21 engagement record with the Tsilhqot'in is on the

22 record, and documents our inability to meet.

23 MR. LA PLANTE: Yeah. Just a

24 point of clarification. That's incorrect. The

25 previous panel noted that none of the alternatives 53

1 presented were acceptable. And I believe that's

2 in the report. I don't have that page number, but

3 I could produce that if you require.

4 I have a follow-up question.

5 And it's -- whether your human health and

6 ecological risk assessment incorporated

7 potentially higher or more degraded water quality

8 in Fish Lake.

9 So we've heard there is a high

10 risk of poorer water quality in Fish Lake and in

11 the sediments. I would like to know if those --

12 what values were used, what predicted values were

13 used in your risk assessment.

14 MS. GIZIKOFF: My team has

15 confirmed those values are presented in the EIS,

16 Mr. LaPlante.

17 MR. LA PLANTE: And my

18 follow-up, I would like to know the rationale for

19 why you used different methodology, which ended up

20 resulting in predictions of copper concentrations.

21 I believe in order of magnitude less than your

22 2009 EIS.

23 And I would like to know the

24 rationale for why you would use different methods

25 this time around considering that the results are 54

1 so far apart.

2 MS. GIZIKOFF: Mr. LaPlante, I

3 believe that was addressed in one of our IR's.

4 Would you like us to find that for you?

5 MR. LA PLANTE: Can you explain

6 it in layman's terms right now?

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Either a

8 very succinct response or a reference to the IR or

9 SIRs would be sufficient, I think.

10 MS. GIZIKOFF: We'll report

11 back just momentarily on which IR it is. If you

12 would like to continue, Mr. Chairman.

13 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

15 Any other -- Mr. Nelson?

16 MR. NELSON: Thank you,

17 Mr. Chairman. I'll be very brief because I know

18 we have a packed schedule. And I'll try and cut

19 to the chase. Obviously we disagree with a lot of

20 the conclusions on the impacts.

21 Yesterday we heard from

22 Dr. Nancy Turner, she suggested there was much

23 more significance, and it was based on largely the

24 deep cultural connection to this area, the

25 spiritual connection, and an array of factors that 55

1 she felt gave this area uniqueness or specialness

2 that amplified the impacts of changing the

3 landscape there.

4 I'm wondering, maybe for

5 explanation of what criteria Taseko used to

6 determine significance, and if it encompasses

7 those types of considerations of cultural and

8 spiritual importance, depth of connection to a

9 particular area.

10 MS. GIZIKOFF: With regards to

11 the connection to the land and spirituality, there

12 are no clear guidelines for incorporating that

13 into the assessment, but we did consider that, did

14 consider that as the values. And I'm sure we'll

15 be hearing more about that in our community

16 hearing coming forward in the next few weeks. And

17 we did review that information, the previous panel

18 transcripts, with regard to the Prosperity project

19 and did consider that.

20 MR. NELSON: I just want to be

21 clear for the record because I had a different

22 impression from the questioning of Dr. Turner

23 yesterday.

24 So Taseko's position is that

25 the cultural importance of a particular area, 56

1 spiritual importance of an area is directly

2 relevant to determining the magnitude of the

3 impact or the significance of the impact?

4 MS. GIZIKOFF: Sorry, was that

5 actually a question or a statement?

6 MR. NELSON: I believe it was a

7 question. I was asking for confirmation that

8 Taseko's position is that the cultural connection

9 to an area, depth of cultural connection,

10 spiritual connection, those are all directly

11 relevant to determining the significance of impact

12 from the project.

13 MS. GIZIKOFF: I'm afraid my

14 answer doesn't change much. There are no clear

15 guidelines. We interpreted it as best we could

16 according to the act.

17 MR. NELSON: And so I'm trying

18 to understand how you interpreted it. You

19 interpreted in a manner you believe you have to

20 take into consideration the cultural impacts and

21 spiritual impacts. I appreciate your position

22 there is no clear guidance. I might disagree.

23 I'm wondering what it is Taseko has taken into

24 consideration.

25 If I may, Mr. Nelson is asking 57

1 this panel to provide legal opinion as to

2 interpretation of the act and specific criteria

3 under the act. I think the witness has answered

4 the question as best she can, that there are no

5 clear guidelines. And we'll have to leave

6 questions of how the guidelines under the act are

7 to be interpreted for legal submissions at a later

8 stage in the proceeding.

9 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: It's my

10 understanding that the question was how Taseko

11 determines significance, and did it include the

12 cultural issues in its determination that you

13 presented to us in the EIS, and just a half an

14 hour ago.

15 MR. GUSTAFSON: And I think the

16 answer is that Taseko did consider factors that

17 are listed in the guidelines with respect to

18 cultural heritage and current uses of the land for

19 traditional purposes, and so on, as part of their

20 environmental impact study.

21 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Asked and

22 answered. Can we move on, Mr. Nelson.

23 MR. NELSON: That does answer

24 my question. I'll leave it at that, in the

25 interests of moving along. Thank you. 58

1 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Any other

2 First Nations interested parties?

3 Any interested party

4 organizations?

5 MS. HORNBY: Good morning,

6 Chris Hornby, Williams Lake B.C., Council of

7 Canadians.

8 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Ms. Hornby,

9 go ahead, please.

10 Ms. HORNBY: My question to

11 you, Catherine, is in your presentation you gave

12 examples of -- like your example number two, I

13 believe, on Polley mines. With the recreation,

14 how it's restored.

15 My question to you is: At

16 Polley Lake where people go now, and you said it's

17 very well used, the recreational site there at

18 Polley Lake, do you know that when they were

19 building that mine --

20 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Could you

21 get to the question.

22 MS. HORNBY: -- did they take

23 into consideration anything on -- in that

24 particular area? Because that's one of your

25 examples, as a cultural keystone place. 59

1 Did any of that come in to

2 consideration for the building of that mine that

3 you used as your second example?

4 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you.

5 Just to clarify, I used that

6 as an example of existing recreation in close

7 proximity to a mine. With regards to what was

8 taken into consideration prior to and during

9 construction of that mine, I can't speak to that

10 because that's Imperial Metals operation and it

11 went through its own environmental assessment

12 review some years ago.

13 MS. HORNBY: So, Catherine, you

14 don't have that information for that particular

15 mine? Like you used a slide.

16 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That's what

17 she said.

18 MS. HORNBY: Thank you very

19 much.

20 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

21 Other interested party

22 organizations? Mr. -- sorry.

23 MS. KUNKEL: Good morning, my

24 name is Titi Kunkel, T-I-T-I, K-U-N-K-E-L.

25 My question to Katherine is in 60

1 the EIS, you have 20 mines which is are listed in

2 there. Do you have any information as to

3 percentage of GDP or employment or taxation that

4 this mine's actually produced? And what

5 percentage of Taseko -- Taseko contributing in

6 terms of this new project? Thank you.

7 MS. GIZIKOFF: I would like to

8 clarify your question, please. Were you asking --

9 you referred to the 20 other mines. I'm not sure

10 what it is that you're holding up, and how the GDP

11 contribution from Gibraltar fits.

12 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Succinctly,

13 Mr. McManus, please.

14 MR. MCMANUS: I'm John McManus

15 with Taseko.

16 There was a great deal of that

17 information provided in the general sessions, both

18 by the Mining Association of British Columbia and

19 the Mining Association of Canada. And that is

20 entered into the record, if -- and we can point

21 that out for you if you want.

22 MS. KUNKEL: Thank you.

23 CHAIRPERSON ROSS:

24 Mr. Williams?

25 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'll 61

1 hold my question in the interest of time.

2 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

3 MR. MONROE: Good morning,

4 Katherine. I got a few questions. I'll try and

5 be brief.

6 The first one relates to a

7 comment about decision by Taseko to enter into

8 discussions with Taseko Lake Lodge or Taseko Lake

9 Outfitters -- I'm not sure of the name -- in terms

10 of compensating impact to their operations.

11 I was wondering what the

12 determination of that impact was. What was

13 impact? What were the values or the opportunities

14 that were lost? The values that were impacted?

15 MS. GIZIKOFF: We have had very

16 initial discussions on that topic. Mr. Ritter

17 isn't here today, so out of respect for him not

18 being present, I think we can maybe have further

19 questions about that at another time, if he's

20 present.

21 But my statement about Taseko

22 accepting the previous panel's recommendation is

23 that we would enter into those negotiations if the

24 project was approved. We have very conceptually

25 had high level discussions with Mr. Ritter (ph), 62

1 thus far, for some options and I would rather not

2 disclose those without him present.

3 MR. MONROE: The values or

4 opportunities that we're talking, though, would

5 relate to wilderness recreation, I understand.

6 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mr. Monroe,

7 I think you've asked and the answer has been

8 given. Could we move on, please.

9 MR. MONROE: All right. I had

10 an outstanding question from yesterday relating to

11 moose and selenium. I wonder if it's appropriate

12 to address that now.

13 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I think the

14 relevant experts are not here. So --

15 MR. MONROE: That's what I was

16 told yesterday.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Quickly

18 please, Mr. Monroe.

19 MR. MONROE: The -- yes, I

20 think related to a statement in the EIS about

21 selenium by accumulating in plants and the moose

22 eating a large amount of those plants, and

23 therefore being susceptible to that

24 bioaccumulation.

25 And the follow-up questions 63

1 was: Is there potential for that bioaccumulation

2 to make the one step further up the food chain

3 into humans.

4 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I was out of

5 line. This is a question proper for today.

6 MR. MONROE: Thank you.

7 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you for

8 repeating that question from yesterday.

9 If selenium did accumulate in

10 the moose, it would carry forward through to human

11 health. The modeling that we did indicated that

12 it doesn't accumulate to levels within -- showed

13 no risk to humans.

14 MR. MONROE: I got one further

15 question, if the chair will bear with me.

16 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: We have

17 seven more presentations today. At the rate we're

18 going, I think we'll be finished at midnight. If

19 the question is really important to you, then pose

20 it. But to tell you and all others, every minute

21 we take right now is a minute off some further

22 presenter's time. So Mr. Monroe, you choose.

23 MR. MONROE: Fair enough. I

24 will defer to the presenters.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you 64

1 very much.

2 Any other interested party

3 organizations? Interested party individuals?

4 Very succinctly please,

5 Mr. Nakata.

6 MR. NAKATA: I would like a

7 better understanding of the emphasis on aboriginal

8 interests over aboriginal human rights, and what's

9 the difference between those two.

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mr.

11 Gustafson.

12 MR. GUSTAFSON: Mr. Chairman,

13 that is topic that would require hours to debate.

14 I think the best answer I can give is that we need

15 to focus on what the act says in section 5 as to

16 the factors to be considered by the Panel with

17 respect to the impact of this project on cultural

18 values, traditional -- or use of the lands for

19 traditional purposes, archeological impacts, et

20 cetera.

21 There are four specific

22 factors. They don't all come to mind right now.

23 Those are the factors that Taseko considered in

24 preparing the EIS. And those are the factors that

25 we believe are relevant to your consideration. 65

1 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

2 Any other interested party

3 individuals?

4 MR. KUPFER: No questions,

5 thank you.

6 MR. SMYTH: Thank you for your

7 presentation. Can you tell me what the depth of

8 water at the Trojan Pond at Highland Valley is

9 that supports the fish population?

10 MS. GIZIKOFF: I can't off the

11 top of my head, but we can find that out for you.

12 MR. SMYTH: And tell me what's

13 the minimum depth of water required to support an

14 aquatic system in a tailings pond? How much water

15 are we going to have in the New Prosperity pond,

16 and is that going to be adequate to support a fish

17 population?

18 MR. GREG SMYTH: The volume of

19 water is estimated under average conditions to be

20 about 54 million cubic meters.

21 MR. SMYTH: I'm talking depth.

22 MR. GREG SMYTH: I'd have to

23 determine the depth, actually. I don't have that.

24 It will be a varying depth obviously because the

25 beaches work their way in, so there will be an 66

1 average depth. I'll have to look that up to give

2 you the answer.

3 MR. SMYTH: If you're going

4 that far, maybe you could tell me how long it took

5 to -- for the Trojan pond to rehabilitate so it

6 was then able to support (muffled), it would have

7 been a number of years.

8 MR. GREG SMYTH: Yeah.

9 Actually there is a paper that has been written by

10 I think Bob Yamaguchi or someone at Highland

11 Valley Copper that sort of summarizes a lot of

12 those details. And I think Taseko could probably

13 come up with that to provide that -- indicative

14 time frame.

15 MR. SMYTH: I've read that

16 paper. It's 4 metres minimum and 8 metres maximum

17 in that pond, as I understand it.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: One of the

19 measures that you proposed or that you propose to

20 deal with dust is road watering. How long do

21 roads stay non-dusty after you apply water?

22 MR. MCMANUS: Thank you. John

23 McManus.

24 It depends on the weather

25 conditions, humidity and temperature, and the 67

1 surface of the road. But typically in that

2 picture that you saw there, that was low humidity,

3 high temperature on a road with no topping, no

4 surfactant to keep the dust down. And you would

5 have to run that truck by every four hours to keep

6 the dust down.

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Is that the

8 frequency that you have in mind for road watering,

9 every four hours?

10 MR. MCMANUS: It depends on the

11 operational conditions at the time. But the mine

12 sets itself up to be able to keep the dust under

13 control on the roads depending on what the

14 conditions are. And New Prosperity would be

15 similar to Gibraltar.

16 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: In interest

17 of moving us along, the Panel has no further

18 questions and we'll move along to the next

19 presenter.

20 Next presenter is Health

21 Canada.

22 TECHNICIAN: Is Barry Jamieson

23 on line right now? Is Luc Pelletier on line right

24 now?

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I'm only 68

1 anxious about whether somebody needs to be on the

2 line. But if you're ready to start, you are

3 welcome to do so. If you need some assistance

4 from afar, then we'll certainly slow down.

5 PRESENTATION BY CARL ALLEYNE:

6 MR. ALLEYNE: In interest of

7 time, I'm not going to wait until we verify that

8 both my people are on the line.

9 So anyway, good morning,

10 Mr. Chairman, members of the Federal review panel,

11 chiefs and elders, ladies and gentleman. And I'd

12 like to thank the Panel for giving me the

13 opportunity to make this presentation, on behalf

14 of Health Canada today. And I would also like to

15 thank the Shuswop First Nations for their

16 hospitality and welcoming us to their traditional

17 territory.

18 My name is Carl Alleyne.

19 C-A-R-L, A-L-L-E-Y-N-E. I'm an environmental

20 assessment coordinator with the environmental

21 assessment program of Health Canada in Burnaby,

22 British Columbia.

23 Two of my expert colleagues, I

24 hope, will be on the line shortly. One of them is

25 Barry Jessiman, B-A-R-R-Y, J-E-S-S-I-M-A-N. He is 69

1 the head of Health Canada's Air Quality Assessment

2 section of Health Canada's Air Health Effects

3 Division.

4 The other one I hope joins us

5 shortly is Luc Pelletier, L-U-C,

6 P-E-L-L-E-T-I-E-R. And he is a health assessor

7 for important foods with the Kempville Health

8 Hazard Assessment Division of Health Canada's Food

9 Direction.

10 So they will be providing

11 their expertise and questions that fall within

12 their expertise, their specialties.

13 The presentation today will

14 touch on the main points of Health Canada's

15 review.

16 This gives us a quick outline,

17 a road map of what I'll be going through. So the

18 first four areas set the context in the background

19 for what I hope will be the meat of the matter

20 that -- in the following second half of the

21 presentation.

22 So if you'll just bear with the

23 introductory sections, it -- I believe it is

24 relevant to understanding Health Canada's

25 assessment. 70

1 This is where we get to that

2 boring slide about government mandates. Health

3 Canada is a Federal government of health. And

4 that's all I'll say about our mandate. Basically

5 Health Canada is the -- is participating in this

6 review as a Federal authority, like so many other

7 Federal departments provide expert information and

8 knowledge and its expertise that it possesses.

9 One significant aspect of

10 Health Canada's role, you know, is related to

11 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012

12 section 5.1 which defines environmental effects to

13 include the health of aboriginal people.

14 You should note that Health

15 Canada does not make any authorizations or issue

16 any licences, permits or authorizations in respect

17 to this project.

18 With regards to the expertise

19 that Health Canada brought to this review, it's a

20 short list, air quality health effects and

21 determination of country foods, drinking, and

22 recreational water quality, and the methodologies,

23 human health risk assessment and risk assessment.

24 So these are the areas that I'll speak to today.

25 I also want to make it clear 71

1 that Health Canada's expertise does not include

2 certain areas such as physical hazards and safety.

3 But especially, the second bullet, it does not

4 have any specialized expertise in modeling of

5 environmental fate dispersion and transport. And

6 the accuracy of the predictions that relate to the

7 environmental fate and dispersion of -- and

8 contaminate uptake.

9 For these, Health Canada

10 assumes -- has assumed that the Proponent's

11 results of modelled predictions have been properly

12 done and carried out in accord with best

13 practices.

14 For the second time, I'm going

15 to skip over there. The Panel is well aware of

16 what it asked us to comment on.

17 The scope of Health Canada's

18 review, what did it consider, how did it carry out

19 its review of the information. It falls into two

20 basic priorities; was good science used in the

21 assessment and did the Proponent produce good

22 evidence to justify its conclusions.

23 Of course when Health Canada

24 was undertaking its review of the Proponent's

25 information, it also looked at information, the 72

1 comments provided by others, including First

2 Nations, other Federal departments, provincial

3 governments and so on. So Health Canada took

4 these comments into account in its review.

5 Switching gears now to more

6 technical matters. I just wanted to introduce the

7 Panel to a key tool, human health risk assessment.

8 Which I'll refer to from now on as HHRA. It's a

9 standard tool that risk assessors are used to

10 identify whether their potential health risks

11 associated with human exposure to substance, such

12 as metal. So it's applies to metals or chemicals

13 as a human toxicant.

14 An important consideration in

15 doing the risk assessment, there are three factors

16 that you look at, hazard, which would, in this

17 case, be chemical, a receptor, who is being

18 affected, so that would be people in this case,

19 and a way for people to be exposed. So there must

20 be an exposure pathway for the toxicant to have an

21 effect.

22 So all of these -- all three of

23 these factors must come into play for there to be

24 a human health effect. This slide is a simplified

25 depiction of the exposure pathways that country 73

1 foods, human health risk assessment usually

2 considers. For example, metals present in dust

3 can get transported in the air to water bodies, to

4 soil, to vegetation, where it can be taken up into

5 fish, wild game and traditional plants.

6 Not considering country foods,

7 in particular, other exposure pathways that can

8 affect human health would be including breathing

9 in airborne contaminates and absorbing

10 contaminates through the skin.

11 Key considerations for

12 interpreting HHRAs. Modeling is used that predict

13 changes in the environment so we've heard a lot of

14 discussion over the last few days and in the last

15 couple weeks, perhaps, about modeling of water

16 movement around Fish Lake and under tailings

17 storage facilitate, and uncertainties the modeling

18 produced in those instances.

19 Well, similar types of issues

20 would arise and that kind of affect results the

21 human health risk assessment because modeling is

22 also used as part of the predictions.

23 So air dispersion modeling is a

24 starting point in determining how much

25 contaminates move, for example, from dust to water 74

1 to fish to humans.

2 So if you look at the table,

3 this table shows -- you know, it gives an example

4 of how modeling predictions can be influenced by

5 the modeling method and assumptions. In this case

6 I gave an example of copper concentrations in soil

7 when you compare prosperity versus New Prosperity,

8 if you focus on the differences between baseline

9 and post-closure conditions, you can see there is

10 quite a difference in the predicted levels of

11 post-closure.

12 So this is really, you know, a

13 good example of how -- the way you do your

14 modeling could influence the results of the

15 models. And, of course, the results of the models

16 in this case would carry forward into the human

17 health risk assessment.

18 So this leads to a concern that

19 Health Canada has when it looked at something like

20 this where -- when you compare Prosperity with New

21 Prosperity if the sources of contaminants, the

22 mine itself hasn't changed very substantially.

23 Yet, you can change the modeling results quite a

24 bit by how you change the assumptions.

25 So we do have concerns that 75

1 perhaps the changes in the modeling assumptions

2 carried out may have reduced the level of

3 conservatism in the predicted results, say more

4 metals and soils, plants and country foods to

5 level that may be inappropriate for human health

6 risk assessments. And possibly even -- there's a

7 chance that it could underestimate the

8 accumulations in other media.

9 Again, I just wanted to point

10 out Health Canada does not have the expertise in

11 verifying these assumptions. So the Panel, I

12 hope, is aware that we cannot double check that

13 this is done properly, that there are other

14 agencies that have the expertise so that you, the

15 Panel, would have the comfort level to know that

16 they have done it appropriately.

17 To help you in interpreting the

18 results of HHRAs, another important factor to look

19 at is that from a public health perspective risks

20 should be assessed by taking into consideration

21 the risk from all sources; in other words, the

22 total cumulative risk. And that should look at

23 background conditions as well as the contributions

24 of the project.

25 The Proponent's HHRAs, only 76

1 considered incremental changes in human health

2 risk due to the project, when it should also have

3 assessed total cumulative health risks because the

4 human body is an integrating organism and it

5 doesn't care where the source of the risk comes

6 from, it just looks at the total risk.

7 In fact, this point was also

8 made by -- in submission that is filed yesterday

9 by Dr. Doyle on behalf of the TNG in CEAA Number

10 506.

11 To determine in human health

12 risk assessment whether there is a potential

13 health risk, there are two risk benchmarks that

14 are commonly used. One is the quotient which is

15 used to assess noncarcinogenic substances.

16 If the hazard portion is less

17 than 0.2, the risk to human is considered

18 negligible. So I hope you bear in mind that magic

19 number is 0.2. And incremental cancer risk is

20 used for cancer-causing substances. And there the

21 risk benchmark is 1 in 100,000.

22 What the Panel should

23 understand is that exceeding a hazard quotient or

24 ILCR, the incremental lifetime cancer risk, does

25 not automatically indicate that you have an 77

1 unacceptable health risk. Depending on the

2 exceedants of the risk benchmark, it could

3 represent perhaps maybe a caution flag, or it

4 might represent a red flag, as far as the health

5 risk goes. So it depends.

6 When you do see exceedants,

7 though, it indicates that the human health risk

8 assessment should be refined to reduce the

9 uncertainties in the results. And that's usually

10 often done by incorporating site-specific

11 information or doing a more thorough, more

12 detailed human health risk assessment, for

13 example, using a multimedia approach where you

14 look at all media, human exposure from soil, from

15 air, from human exposure as well as food

16 ingestion.

17 So with the New Prosperity

18 panel project, what change? And we do know that

19 the biggest driver for potential health effects

20 that are different from the original Prosperity

21 proposal is of course Fish Lake.

22 From a human health perspective

23 with New Prosperity, you people can continue to

24 fish at Fish Lake, and there's also the time that

25 people can spend in close proximity to the mine. 78

1 And this is in comparison. So

2 these are differences in the human health risk

3 assessment from what was done for Prosperity. So

4 these are enhanced factors, if you want to look at

5 it that way.

6 If people are spending time

7 closer to the mine, they could be breathing in

8 high levels or higher concentrations of

9 particulate matter in the dust.

10 Things have changed somewhat

11 from the original Prosperity when we look at what

12 types of human health risk assessments were done

13 for the new proposal. There are several versions

14 of the human health risk assessment. Some of

15 these were carried out in response to IRs and

16 SIRs.

17 They differ mainly in the air

18 dispersion modeling that was used to generate the

19 concentrations in air that were carried forward to

20 other media, as well as the source of food

21 consumption rates.

22 So they used two different

23 sources of food consumption, and two different

24 types of air dispersion models; one where they

25 considered all size fractions of particulate 79

1 matter, and I say in HHR version on the two, only

2 the 2 micron size of particulate matter was

3 modelled.

4 This table, bearing --

5 remembering that hazard quotient of 0.2 exceeds

6 this. If it's less than 0.2, it implies

7 negligible health risk. And I'm not going to

8 spend much time.

9 But in HHRA Number 3, which I

10 alluded to in the previous one, in the previous

11 slide, it shows that, yeah, some exceedants, you

12 know, for toddler when they looked at ingestion of

13 country foods. Portions here were exceeded for

14 three elements. And I'll speak a little bit more

15 about these exceedants later.

16 But one point that I wanted you

17 to pick up on in this is when you compare baseline

18 hazard quotients with post-closure hazard

19 quotients, there is much a difference between the

20 two.

21 This implies, if we -- you

22 know, if the assessments carried out by Proponent

23 is correct, it implies that most of the health

24 risk actually is due to preexisting conditions;

25 the natural environment. If the project itself 80

1 added a substantial amount of -- added amount of

2 risk, you should see an increase in the hazard

3 quotient in the post-closure conditions. So that

4 was the main point that I wanted you to take home

5 from this particular slide.

6 I'll skip over this one, but

7 this is summarized in this slide. Where we look

8 at the comparisons of two versions of the HHRA.

9 What I refer to as Number 3 and Number 7, these

10 were the two most recent versions of the HHRA, and

11 they differ primarily in the use of food

12 consumption rates.

13 The air dispersion modeling, I

14 believe, stayed constant. But so they use two

15 different sources. And one -- one source is

16 (Native word) Creek EIS, which is really for

17 Tahltan First Nation data. And the one filed on

18 July 17th is from the First Nations' food

19 nutrition and environment study, which uses Lower

20 Nikola (ph) and Flatson First Nations dietary

21 information.

22 Just to give you an idea of

23 these communities. On this map somewhere in the

24 middle we have Xeni Gwet'in, which would be sort

25 of your reference point. Tahltan is up here, this 81

1 is -- there about roughly 800 kilometers away from

2 the Xeni Gwet'in community. And that was -- the

3 data from this community was used in one of the

4 HHRAs.

5 And the other one is the Lower

6 Nikola and Flatson. They are down here in

7 comparison to Xeni Gwet'in. And they are roughly

8 around 300 kilometres away.

9 So when you look at the

10 consumption data for this community, who is lowest

11 communities, you find something -- something

12 interesting happening. The HHRA that used the

13 Tahltan data had some exceedants as I showed in

14 one of the previous slides. And the conclusion

15 from that because of the exceedants is that there

16 may be an increase in potential adverse health

17 risks. I didn't say will result in; I said it

18 may. So it's a potential.

19 The other one, the HHRA Number 4

20 that used Lower Nikola Flatson consumption rates

21 did not have any exceedants. So the conclusion

22 from that would be not expected to propose an

23 unacceptable health risk.

24 So this slide really shows that

25 depending on the food consumption rights that you 82

1 use in the HHRA, you can get perhaps different

2 conclusions.

3 One suggests a potential for

4 health risk, the other one you conclude is no

5 health risk. So it is somewhat sensitive to the

6 consumption rates that we use in the HHRA.

7 So when you have exceedants,

8 what do you do? Well, when there is a suggestion

9 that there could be a potential human health risk,

10 what is recommended procedure is that you go back

11 and you do a better -- you try to do a better HHRA

12 to tighten up on the uncertainties, and get better

13 predictions. And one way to do this is by using

14 site-specific information.

15 In this slide, Health Canada is

16 suggesting some measures that can apply in

17 tightening up on the human health risk assessments

18 to get better certainty in the conclusions.

19 One of these, and I'll go

20 through this quickly, is the first one, base your

21 results on conservative models and assumptions in

22 the modeling, such as the dispersion modeling.

23 The second bullet, conduct a

24 dietary survey of the communities that are most

25 likely to be affected. 83

1 We've seen that the

2 consumption rates could give you different

3 predictions of risk. So the best way to get about

4 that is actually use the consumption data that --

5 you know for the people.

6 And one thing I wanted to

7 point out is that in the original Prosperity

8 panel, the Proponent made a commitment to conduct

9 a dietary survey, but it did not do so. And

10 that's why it had to resort to using consumption

11 results from other communities. So Health Canada

12 made the suggestion that a dietary survey would be

13 carried out in the original Prosperity and

14 continues to make that assumption.

15 Site specific information? You

16 find in one of the recent submissions that -- by

17 Dr. Doyle on behalf of TNG, he did a study on soil

18 ingestion. And we actually had that suggestion

19 here.

20 So for the interests of time,

21 I'm not going through these in much detail. But

22 just to point out, too, that some of the

23 recommendations in this slide, and in this one,

24 which is a continuation, is that we have

25 incorporated some of the comments from First 84

1 Nations', you know, community members as ways to

2 provide better information such as -- you know,

3 let's look at -- include salt bearing (ph), for

4 example.

5 So I'm now about to switch

6 gears from country foods and move on to a whole

7 new different area. And that is, air quality

8 issues. I just want to reiterate once more that

9 air quality modeling, the first bullet reminds us

10 that air dispersion modeling can have a strong

11 influence on the conclusions of HHRAs. And that's

12 all I'll say about that particular point.

13 As far as the human health

14 risks from inhalation of particulate matter,

15 airborne particulate matter, the Proponent pointed

16 out in its presentation this morning that there

17 were some exceedants of air quality guidelines.

18 In this case, they reported those exceedants

19 occurred at the employee camp in the Fish Lake

20 area. So if you have exceedants of health-based

21 air quality guidelines, this indicates that there

22 may be potential health impacts that you can't

23 expect.

24 Drinking water quality. Users

25 of Fish Lake or users of the general area might be 85

1 expected to use any available water source,

2 drinking from Fish Lake, drinking from the creeks

3 or any of the water bodies.

4 So in this case, we apply the

5 Canadian drinking water guidelines as the

6 benchmark for whether there might be potential

7 health risk. And the Proponent indicated there's

8 no exceedants of the Canadian drinking water

9 guidelines. And this -- since there is no

10 exceedants of yearly average mean concentrations,

11 we consider the potential for human health risks

12 to be low, provided the quality of the water does

13 not change over the lifetime of the project.

14 So we've heard over the last

15 few days that there is some uncertainty about

16 whether water quality can be maintained. So if it

17 is not maintained, then the potential for human

18 health risk could change.

19 Mitigation, monitoring and

20 follow-up. Well, Health Canada is interested in

21 the implementation measures that protect human

22 health, and we've listed some of these. For

23 example, we have an interest in monitoring

24 programs for metal concentrations in country foods

25 during operations. Particularly methyl mercury 86

1 and inorganic arsenic in fish.

2 During post-closure, we would

3 like to see some acknowledgement that if there are

4 indications of potential human health risks, that

5 monitoring some metals from fish will continue.

6 And, again, the same thing applies -- same

7 principle applies for drinking water if the water

8 quality does change over time, then you need to

9 assess that through the lens of: Does this change

10 in water quality represent a potential human

11 health risk, as well air quality.

12 So I'm now on to my summary

13 slide. So we're almost there. This is just the

14 high points of country foods. There are

15 uncertainties in the conclusions, I want to

16 emphasize, because the modeling assumptions used.

17 The conclusions about consuming country foods can

18 be negligible if the consumption rates are

19 correct.

20 Nature contaminants are the

21 main contributors to health risk. And we want to

22 emphasize, please conduct a dietary survey of the

23 affected communities and enhancement to provide

24 more accurate information is to analyze

25 potentially contaminated foods for metals. 87

1 For air and water after

2 reviewing the Proponent's information. For air,

3 there may be a potential health risk at certain

4 locations, the drinking water there does not

5 appear to be a significant risk to human health.

6 So that concludes my

7 presentation. And I thank you very much for your

8 attention.

9 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

10 very much, Dr. Alleyne.

11 Any questions from other

12 Government of Canada folks?

13 Any questions for Dr. Alleyne

14 from First Nations interested parties?

15 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you,

16 Mr. Chairman. And I'll try to keep it succinct.

17 But please keep in mind this is really important

18 for the community as well.

19 My first question -- and thank

20 Dr. Alleyne.

21 My first question is: Is it

22 standard practice at the environmental assessment

23 stage to conduct a human health and ecological

24 risk assessment using site specific data such as

25 food consumption surveys? 88

1 MR. ALLEYNE: It's a

2 recommendation that is driven by the potential for

3 risk. Human health risk assessment usually

4 follows a tiered approach, where there can be

5 initially a screening level risk assessment which

6 can simply consist of how do the predicted levels

7 compare against any regulatory guidelines or

8 standards. If there is -- if there are

9 exceedants, then it suggests that you need to look

10 at it more deeply. And this is where you would

11 get into more site specific assessments.

12 MR. LA PLANTE: I think I'm

13 trying to help the Panel here because I know they

14 are grappling with what should they have now

15 versus what is acceptable to have at a later date.

16 And if I recall correctly, I

17 believe Health Canada recommended site-specific

18 human health and ecological risk assessment in the

19 previous review. And I'm wondering, given the

20 unique nature of the proposal and the supposed

21 retention of Fish Lake as a traditional use area,

22 would -- Health Canada's opinion, is it

23 appropriate or should it be that we have

24 site-specific assessment at this stage?

25 MR. ALLEYNE: I believe my 89

1 presentation made that indication, that yes, we

2 would like to see, based on some of the exceedants

3 we saw in some of the data, there were some

4 exceedants in one scenario. And that, I think,

5 would be sufficient cause for more site-specific

6 assessment to be done.

7 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you. And

8 I have a follow-up question for that and one

9 other.

10 Under Federal legislation,

11 what would the consequences be if let's say 10

12 years from now there was a sudden spike in

13 selenium levels in those, would there be any

14 consequences federally for the Proponent?

15 MR. ALLEYNE: I personally am

16 not aware of the regulatory system that applies in

17 this case. I would expect certainly that the

18 provincial government would have their own. I

19 would expect likely that the regional health

20 authorities would have a role in assessing human

21 health implications of increases, in this case,

22 selenium in moose.

23 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you. We

24 can follow-up on that I guess.

25 My final question is: Is 90

1 Health Canada aware of studies concerning the

2 physical and psychological impacts of fear of

3 contamination of traditional resources?

4 MR. ALLEYNE: During the

5 original prosperity panel hearing, I actually made

6 some comments to that panel regarding risk

7 perception. It's not an unusual occurrence that

8 where there could be contamination that First

9 Nations people may choose to avoid certain areas.

10 And if they avoid certain areas where they gather

11 their food, and by not having that food and they

12 switch to less nutritious commercial foods, well,

13 that misperception could lead to indirect health

14 impacts.

15 So whether or not the risk is

16 real, just perception, could cause an indirect

17 health effect. That was the essence of what I

18 said to the original panel. And I think for the

19 old Prosperity proposal, and I think that

20 situation may still apply in this case. If there

21 is -- if there is avoidance of traditional foods,

22 that could lead to less nutritious diet, than an

23 impact could take place. And I can see -- I can

24 understand that is a possibility with fish from

25 Fish Lake. 91

1 MR. LA PLANTE: Thank you.

2 That's it.

3 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

4 Mr. LaPlante.

5 Any other interested party

6 First Nations?

7 Any interested party

8 organizations?

9 Any interested party

10 individuals?

11 Taseko?

12 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you. I

13 just have two brief ones and then I believe

14 Dr. Leece has some.

15 Can you please confirm when you

16 saw Doyle's paper?

17 MR. ALLEYNE: I was aware of

18 his previous publications published in peer

19 referenced journals. So I'm aware of his body of

20 work and his work. So I used those

21 already-published papers as a basis of my comments

22 that I included in today's thoughts.

23 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you.

24 With regards to risk -- or

25 perception of contamination and people avoiding 92

1 certain areas, we have heard from others and have

2 some experience in Gibraltar having local people

3 involved in monitoring programs during mine

4 operations to mitigate that perception and

5 increase familiarity with the site and build trust

6 and confidence.

7 Do you have any comments on

8 benefits of such a program?

9 MR. ALLEYNE: I think it's

10 always a good practice to have an educational

11 component, you know, to mitigate that risk

12 perception, including the communities helping them

13 to understand the real risk versus their fears. I

14 think that is part of the solution, but I don't

15 believe that that is the complete solution as much

16 as you may tell people, there's no risk that some

17 may choose to avoided in any way.

18 There is -- there are some

19 elements in societies where they have a tolerance,

20 tolerances for no risk. So you have to have, I

21 believe, you know multiple ways of mitigating that

22 risk perception.

23 MR. LEECE: I'm Dr. Bryan

24 Leece, B-R-Y-A-N, L-E-E-C-E.

25 Doctor, I have two or three 93

1 questions that I think I would like to get some

2 clarification so I understand exactly what Health

3 Canada's position is. It really relates to the

4 overall human health risk assessment process.

5 So is it correct in assuming

6 that the assumptions related to country food

7 ingestion rates, soil ingestion rates that you

8 used to estimate baseline are the same as the

9 values that you use to estimate the affects

10 assessment?

11 So if somebody ingests 200

12 milligrams of soil for the baseline calculations,

13 there's 200 milligrams of soil for the effects

14 assessment. And the same for country foods. If

15 you make an assumption that somebody ingests 100

16 grams of moose per day for baseline, do you also

17 assume that they ingest a hundred grams of moose

18 per day for the effects assessment?

19 MR. ALLEYNE: You would use the

20 same assumptions for baseline and for effects, so

21 you can see the contribution that the project

22 makes.

23 MR. LEECE: Correct. Okay. I

24 just wanted to make sure that I understood that

25 that is what Health Canada was expecting. That's 94

1 how I would certainly expect it to work. But I

2 wanted to confirm that that was the case.

3 So the selection of country

4 food consumption rates in that case is important

5 in determining what the baseline risks are

6 associated with a potential -- an area. But if

7 you use the same country food consumption rates

8 for both the baseline and the assessment, does

9 that not mean that the country food consumption

10 rates really do not affect the difference between

11 the baseline and the affects?

12 MR. ALLEYNE: What you are

13 referring to are differences. What is more

14 important to human health is not the difference,

15 but the totality. So I made a point that you must

16 have add the contribution of the project alone

17 with the baseline risk.

18 And in this case, the

19 consumption rates does matter. I concur that if

20 you only look at differences, then the consumption

21 rates is not as important. But it is important

22 for the total cumulative risk.

23 MR. LEECE: Is not the

24 determination of significance actually based on

25 the difference between the baseline and the 95

1 project? Because -- if may finish, please.

2 In situations where your

3 baseline already exceeds this .2 benchmark you've

4 set, what you are suggesting is that the baseline

5 food is unsafe.

6 So how do you determine at

7 that point what impact or incremental change the

8 project has on that baseline condition?

9 MR. ALLEYNE: I'm not

10 suggesting to the Proponent that it only looks at

11 incremental risk. What I'm presenting is from a

12 human health perspective, not from CEAA

13 significance perspective, not to determine what

14 the contribution of the project is to human health

15 risk, but how is it going to affect people who use

16 the area.

17 For that, the Panel I believe

18 would be interested in knowing, whether there is a

19 potential risk that preexists the project.

20 Now, that is not the

21 responsibility of the Proponent to fix, but it

22 certainly is of significant interest to the people

23 who use the area to know, you know, if there are

24 high metals that could possibly present human

25 health risk, they would like to know that, I'm 96

1 sure.

2 And that's why we advise that

3 the Proponent looks at the incremental risk, as

4 well as the total risk baseline plus project. So

5 that the communities can get a sense of what the

6 total risk is.

7 You have a different

8 perspective from the EA perspective, which focuses

9 on incremental risk due to a project. So I'm not

10 disagreeing with that point. I'm just saying I

11 have a perspective, I'm presenting a perspective

12 from a public health point of view.

13 MR. LEECE: I think I'll stop

14 there in the interest of time. This is a

15 discussion I think we can continue for quite a

16 long time, but I think I'll leave it there. Thank

17 you.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

19 Dr. Leece.

20 Anything further from Taseko?

21 MS. GIZIKOFF: That's all.

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

23 very much.

24 George?

25 MR. KUPFER: Just a quick 97

1 question. Have your two colleagues, are they tied

2 in?

3 MR. ALLEYNE: Yes. I need to

4 have confirmation from our --

5 TECHNICIAN: Yes. Barry, are

6 you there? Luc are you on-line?

7 MR. ALLEYNE: I guess we lost

8 both of them.

9 MR. KUPFER: So what is online

10 then?

11 MR. ALLEYNE: Was Barry online?

12 TECHNICIAN: They are

13 listening, but we can't seem to get them in right

14 now.

15 MR. KUPFER: I'm sure if they

16 had -- they would have tried to make their

17 comments.

18 Do you have a role -- if

19 people become ill or claim to become ill because

20 of eating certain foods, do you have a role, does

21 Health Canada come and investigate at that point?

22 Or is that a different department?

23 MR. ALLEYNE: Health Canada

24 delivery is primarily responsibility of the

25 provincial government. 98

1 However, the Federal

2 government on reserves do have a responsibility

3 for health care.

4 In British Columbia, we're

5 going through a process where healthcare delivery

6 is being devolved to the First Nations. And I

7 believe that is going to take place imminently.

8 So the First Nations themselves would be

9 responsible for the response.

10 MR. KUPFER: And would -- okay.

11 That hasn't been settled yet, though.

12 MR. ALLEYNE: Well, if -- there

13 is a timeline for the official transfer. But in

14 the interim, Health Canada does have a role for

15 First Nations on reserve.

16 MR. KUPFER: Thank you.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Dr. Alleyne,

18 I'm fearful you may not know the answer, but I'm

19 going to try it anyway.

20 On Slide 17 you identified a

21 difference between the conclusion depending on

22 whether the diet of the Tahltan or of the Lower

23 Nikola and Flatson people were used.

24 Do you have any sense, any

25 sense of which of those diets is likely to be more 99

1 like that of the Xeni Gwet'in?

2 MR. ALLEYNE: That's, I think,

3 quite central to your determination, and I can't

4 give an answer. I don't know which data set is

5 more representative of the Xeni Gwet'in. This is

6 why we advise a dietary survey of the people.

7 Then you have the actual consumption and it

8 removes all certainty guessing, which is more

9 representative.

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I suspected

11 that that would be your answer, but I thought I

12 would try.

13 MR. ALLEYNE: I'm afraid it's

14 not helpful because I have no basis of knowing

15 which is more. All I can say is the Lower Nikola

16 and Flatson data was chosen because they belong to

17 the same ecozone as the Xeni Gwet'in.

18 However, I'm also relying on the

19 comments that the Xeni Gwet'in make that their

20 food consumption rates -- and this has been part

21 of the testimony to this panel -- that it's higher

22 even than the Tahltan. So if you give credence to

23 those comments, then you can say probably neither

24 of them represent their consumption.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Dr. Leece? 100

1 MR. LEECE: If the Panel likes,

2 I can add some additional clarification. If the

3 objective is to determine whether the baseline

4 food -- the safety of the baseline food, the

5 country foods, prior to development is safe or

6 not, then knowing what the consumptions rates are

7 for individual communities, Dr. Alleyne is

8 absolutely correct.

9 If the objective is to

10 determine what the change is between baseline and

11 post-closure, and I think that Dr. Alleyne and I

12 agree on this, if that's the objective of the CEAA

13 process, then the food consumption rates that you

14 use are not going to change that conclusion,

15 because you use the same assumptions for baseline

16 and effects.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Dr. Leece, I

18 didn't pose this question earlier, but since

19 you've raised that, I would ask you to make a

20 distinction between the absolute increase in

21 health quotient, and the percentage increase in

22 health quotient. I think you're talking about

23 one, but not the other. Could you help me?

24 MR. LEECE: Sure.

25 There are two components. 101

1 Certainly with the baseline, what you look at are

2 the exposures and compare those to allowable daily

3 intakes. And that gives you the hazard portion.

4 For the project, you look at

5 two things. How much you get from baseline and

6 how much more the project adds. That's the total

7 hazard quotient.

8 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I think my

9 question is how much more up get from the project,

10 how much in quantity in health quotient, not

11 percentage, but the actual increase does depend on

12 the diet, I believe.

13 MR. LEECE: The absolute

14 number, you are absolutely correct.

15 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I just

16 wanted to be sure. I wasn't out to lunch on this

17 one. Thank you very much, that's helpful.

18 At this time, the Panel has no

19 further questions for you Dr. Alleyne. Thank you

20 very much. We'll have a break and we'll be back

21 in and less than 15 minutes.

22 --- Recessed at 10:29 a.m.

23 --- Resumed at 10:45 a.m.

24 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Good morning.

25 We're going reconvene now. When it comes the time 102

1 for lunch, we will take 30 minutes today. I

2 apologize for that, but I think it might be

3 necessary to make sure we have an opportunity to

4 hear from the participants. We will provide the

5 ruling we referred to after lunch.

6 The next presenters are

7 Transport Canada.

8 PRESENTATION BY TRANSPORT CANADA:

9 MS. AITCHISON: Hello. My name

10 is Gina Aitchison, G-I-N-A, A-I-T-C-H-I-S-O-N.

11 I'm a senior environmental

12 officer at Transport Canada. I've been working in

13 Federal Environmental Assessments for the past

14 seven years. I'm here with John Mackie, J-O-H-N,

15 M-A-C-K-I-E, our navigable waters expert who will

16 give the second half Transport Canada's

17 presentation today.

18 Good morning, Panel, Chair,

19 members, elders, and ladies and gentlemen. I

20 would like to thank the northern Shuswap

21 traditional territory where we are currently

22 meeting today.

23 I will first go over

24 Transport Canada's mandate and role, and then get

25 into the review process and considerations 103

1 including navigable waters.

2 We will then give you an

3 overview of the department's analysis, our

4 preliminary observations and Transport Canada's

5 findings.

6 Transport Canada, or TC, is

7 responsible for Federal transportation policies

8 and programs ensuring that air, marine, road and

9 rail transportations are safe, secure, efficient

10 and environmentally responsible.

11 The department administers a

12 variety of regulations, conducts reviews and

13 issues approvals for works that may affect

14 transportation. It is expected that some project

15 components may require approvals and an exemption

16 under the Navigable Waters Protection Act or NWPA

17 from this point on, requiring that TC participate

18 in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

19 review.

20 TC's role is to provide the

21 Panel with expertise on aspects of the project

22 that may interact with navigable waters. We are

23 only able to do that currently to the extent that

24 the information available allows.

25 TC looked at the body of 104

1 evidence and has identified a number of project

2 components that have the potential to affect

3 waterways that may be considered navigable. Our

4 review focussed on navigable waters protection

5 within Transport Canada's regulatory authority and

6 expertise. TC's Accessible Waters Protection

7 Program, through the administration of the NWPA

8 oversees the management and regulation of

9 obstructions in navigable waters.

10 The NWPA, which is a Federal

11 law administered by Transport Canada, is designed

12 to assist in protecting the public right of

13 navigation on navigable waters throughout Canada.

14 For the purposes of the NWPA, navigable waters

15 include all bodies of water that are capable of

16 being navigated by any type of floating vessel for

17 transportation, recreation or commerce.

18 The regulatory provisions of

19 the NWPA capture these components of the proposed

20 mine; the tailings storage facility or the TSF;

21 the transmission line crossings; coffer dams,

22 between Fish Lake and the open pit; the coffer dam

23 upstream of the TSF; and finally, potential fish

24 habitat structures or structured upgrades. An

25 application for NWPA approval will be required for 105

1 some of these proposed works. And a Section 23

2 proclamation of exception process will be required

3 for the proposed in-filling of Little Fish Lake in

4 the creation of the TSF.

5 Here on the slide, you can see

6 the four types of NWPA approvals, I won't read

7 them out. Any of these four potential types of

8 approvals may be required for this project. It

9 should be noted that approval requirements may

10 change upon review of the final design. If

11 approval is granted under the NWPA, it may include

12 conditions intended to maintain safe navigations.

13 These conditions, which are enforceable during and

14 post-construction, may include things such as

15 maintaining appropriate water level conditions for

16 Fish Lake, as well as others.

17 Sections 21 and 22 of the NWPA

18 prohibit the throwing or deposition of materials

19 in any navigable waters.

20 Section 23 of the NWPA allows

21 the governor-in-council to exempt a water body

22 from the general prohibitions contained in

23 Sections 21 and 22 of the NWPA, if it is satisfied

24 that the public interest would not be injuriously

25 affected. 106

1 It is a Proponent's

2 responsibility to show to the satisfaction

3 foundation of the governor-in-council that the

4 public interest would not be injuriously affected

5 by exempting waters from Sections 21 and 22 of the

6 NWPA.

7 In order to assess the effects

8 on public interests, the Proponent will need to

9 provide a body of evidence, which TC outlined in

10 guidance sent to the Proponent in April of 2013,

11 found on CEAR at Document No. 394.

12 Many of the details TC requires

13 as part of the section 23 application process are

14 also required in order to assess potential

15 significant adverse environmental affects to

16 navigation. As the details required for the two

17 processes overlap, and the section 23

18 governor-in-council exemption is a detailed and

19 lengthy process, the section 23 application should

20 be provided to TC during the environmental

21 assessment process.

22 The section 23 application

23 process is as involved and complicated as the

24 metal mining aspect regulation process that

25 Mr. Baharage* from Environment Canada mentioned 107

1 yesterday.

2

3 Now, he will move into TV's

4 findings. These will highlight the information

5 the Panel and TC require in order to evaluate

6 potential environmental effects on navigation,

7 which was also information requested in SIR 51.

8 These first two findings are the most important of

9 all of TC's findings and you will see that they

10 are integral to all of the rest.

11 Onto the first finding.

12 Transport Canada normally

13 requires information on current depth, width and

14 in-stream flow at the location of specific project

15 components, and current and potential navigational

16 use in order to confirm navigability of the creek

17 at specific project component locations.

18 I should say "waterways" at

19 that point.

20 SIR 51 provides some of this

21 information for Fish Creek and its main

22 tributaries. Based on the comprehensive

23 information submitted in Sir 51 for Reaches 1

24 through 5, as well as Reach 8, TC accepts the

25 Proponents application of the Miner Works and 108

1 Waters Navigable Waters Protection Act Order.

2 However, neither the EIS nor the SIR 51 response

3 contains sufficient component waterway information

4 to determine navigability and potential impact to

5 navigation for Reaches 6 and 10 on which coffer

6 dams are proposed.

7 Information still required

8 includes measurements and photos at the location

9 of works; information on depth, width, et cetera,

10 and current navigational use for Elkin and Haines

11 Creek -- Elkin and Haines Creeks will also be

12 necessary to determining impacts of temporary and

13 ancillary or fish habitat compensation works.

14 In order to TC to provide

15 advice to the Panel on the potential indirect

16 affects of project components on navigation, the

17 department requires these details from Taseko

18 regarding current depth, width, et cetera, on all

19 waterways within the Fish Creek watershed where

20 all works are planned, other than Reaches 1 to 8

21 -- Reaches 1 to 5 and 8 -- excuse me -- including,

22 fish habitat compensation plan works; temporary

23 construction works; and, any others.

24 And this is Transport Canada's

25 first finding. 109

1 Minimal information has been

2 available to date on the use of the waterways and

3 water bodies in the area for navigation. The 2009

4 Prosperity EIS lists kayaking on Fish Creek and

5 the 2012 EIS, generally mentions, fishing at

6 Little Fish Lake. The 2012 EIS discusses studies

7 and information gathered on use -- on the use of

8 Fish Lake but not on the current use at Little

9 Fish Lake.

10 The 1995 to 1997 survey of

11 visitor and sport fisheries of use of lakes in the

12 project area contains data which is not current.

13 The SIR Response 51, does not comment on whether

14 this survey would give reliable information on

15 Little Fish Lake.

16 The information in SIR 51

17 regarding the 1995 to 1997, and 2006 to 2007,

18 studies did not give TC confidence that there was

19 appropriate inform us can you within these studies

20 on Little Fish Lake. SIR No. 51 Response states:

21 "... that there is no evidence

22 of use of watercraft in Little Fish Lake."

23 The next slide sums this up in

24 Transport Canada's Finding No. 2, which is that

25 there is insufficient information on the extent to 110

1 which navigation takes place on waterways impacted

2 by the project, to allow for assessment of the

3 potential indirect impacts of the project on

4 navigation.

5 I would really like to

6 highlight here that TC recommends the Panel seek

7 information from the public and aboriginal groups

8 on the extent to which they navigate and water

9 bodies impacted by the project.

10 For example, using a canoe or

11 kayak to navigate to different areas across the

12 lake for a purpose such as to hunt or to fish, and

13 not just focused on Little Fish Lake, this could

14 also include any of those other water bodies that

15 we discussed that might be impacted.

16 We believe that both the Panel

17 and TC needs to receive this information for

18 impacted waterways during the hearing sessions.

19 The following slides have

20 pictures that show navigation taking place on

21 Little Fish Lake. These are found in Appendix 1

22 of Transport Canada's written submission. These

23 three photos are of Tsilhqot'in members using

24 Yanah Biny and they were taken by TC on

25 September 28th, 2011, during a site visit to 111

1 determine the navigability on Little Fish Lake.

2 This is a view across the lake looking from east

3 to west. And the final photo I have to show you

4 is the return with the moose pelt taken at the

5 small dock.

6 Transport Canada continues to

7 utilize the Panel process to gather information

8 needed to provide analysis of the affects of the

9 project on navigation. However, to date,

10 information regarding current and potential

11 navigation use has been insufficient for TC to

12 provide an opinion on potential effects.

13 To give a brief summary of

14 Transport Canada's preliminary observations on how

15 the project may affect navigable waterways, to

16 date, Transport Canada has been unable to

17 determine whether Taseko's predictions on

18 significance of potential negative environmental

19 effects are reasonable. And to determine the

20 potential indirect effects of the project on

21 navigation, TC would need to review the following:

22 Number one, specific locations

23 of works in many cases not detailed in the EIS;

24 number two, technical details for temporary and/or

25 ancillary or fish habitat compensation works; and, 112

1 number three, information on current navigational

2 use for Fish Creek, Reaches 6 and 10, Little Fish

3 Lake, Beece Creek and other impacted waterways.

4 As I mentioned earlier,

5 information is needed from aboriginal groups and

6 the public on how the project will impact

7 navigation, and by extension, how this may

8 adversely impact an aboriginal group's ability to

9 exercise potential or established aboriginal

10 rights.

11 In summary, the assessment of

12 impacts to navigation can be achieved only once

13 navigation information for the area has been

14 collected and presented.

15 In addition to on-site

16 observations conducted by Transport Canada, the

17 department relies on the technical information

18 from the Proponent regarding specific plans and

19 locations.

20 Therefore, based on the

21 information available and the critical baseline

22 data that remains outstanding, TC disagrees that

23 the Proponent can conclude that there are no

24 significant effects on navigable waters arising

25 from the project based, in part, on those effects 113

1 being low in magnitude low-use areas.

2 It is TC's opinion that that

3 conclusion can only be drawn once sufficient

4 baseline information on navigation in the Fish

5 Creek watershed has been presented.

6 And now, our navigation expert,

7 John Mackie, will take us through more of TC's

8 findings and the more detailed aspects related to

9 the potential indirect effects to navigation.

10 MR. MACKIE: Thanks Gina.

11 Again, my name is John Mackie,

12 J-O-H-N, M-A-C-K-I-E, and I'm the navigable waters

13 protection officer responsible for this project.

14 We will start with the tailings

15 storage facility or the TSF. The Proponent has

16 assessed the effects of the TSF as a whole on

17 navigation on portions of Upper Fish Creek and

18 Little Fish Lake as not being significant.

19 As mentioned, TC considers

20 Little Fish Lake navigable. However, sufficient

21 details from the Proponent on how the lake is

22 navigated for what purpose, and with what

23 frequency, TC is unable to determine the degree of

24 impact of the deposition of the tailings into

25 Little Fish Lake. 114

1 While SIR Response 51 presents

2 statements, it does not provide enough information

3 to make TC confident that effected waterways in

4 the project areas, such as Little Fish Lake have

5 been appropriately studied for current navigation

6 use and impact.

7 Once we do have enough

8 information to evaluate this, as in TC's second

9 finding as just mentioned, mitigation related to

10 the indirect impacts to navigation may need to be

11 revisited, and this is TC's third finding.

12 Finding No. 4, relates to the

13 further information that is required specifically

14 on how in-filling of Little Fish Lake might affect

15 the ability of aboriginal groups to navigate in

16 the area within the Fish Creek watershed,

17 particularly as it relates to the exercise of a

18 potential or established aboriginal right.

19 Finding No. 5, continues this

20 thought process and captures the need for further

21 detail on the proposed measures for mitigation or

22 accomodation in the in-filling of Little Fish Lake

23 is expected to have adverse impact on aboriginal

24 groups' ability to exercise their potential or

25 established rights while navigating on Little Fish 115

1 Lake and within the Fish Creek watershed.

2 The main embankment of the TSF

3 may be captured within the section 23 proclamation

4 of the exemption process. The photos presented in

5 Supplemental Information Request, or SIR 51,

6 indicated that the further exploration of

7 potential navigation use at this location is

8 necessary. Navigation is very location-specific

9 and TC needs to confirm the navigation use at the

10 outlet to Little Fish Lake and a portion of

11 Reach 8, in order to evaluate the potential

12 impacts.

13 Again, this need for navigation

14 use information is captured in our second finding

15 mentioned earlier.

16 The EIS potentially speaks to

17 four separate coffer dams associated with the

18 construction of the south TSF embankment. It is

19 unclear if the south TSF embankment is the same

20 structure as the south TSF embankment coffer dam.

21 It's also unclear if the coffer dam associated

22 with the pumping system during construction and

23 the coffer dam located upstream to prevent runoff

24 from the upstream cachement are the same work or

25 two separate works. 116

1 The EIS is not clear whether

2 any of these four coffer dams is the same work as

3 any other of the four coffer dams or planned

4 location of these specific works. TC may have

5 regulatory requirements related to any of these

6 works through clarification -- though

7 clarification is required to determine how many of

8 the works exist in the south TSF area, and the

9 details of each.

10 Finding No. 6, is that a

11 clarification is required around the number,

12 location and permanency of the structures; and,

13 Finding No. 7, speaks to the details of the works

14 and the waterway locations where they would be

15 placed.

16 Let me focus for a minute on

17 Reach 10, where it appears the potential coffer

18 dams would be placed. The EIS and SIR 51 Response

19 do not provide the appropriate level of

20 information on Reach 10 that would allow TC to

21 determine whether is it a navigable waterway.

22 The SIR 51 Response does not

23 include photos for Reach 10 and table 51A-1 does

24 not present data for that Reach. However, the

25 description on page 51-4 mentions that: 117

1 "... the Reach exists as a

2 defined and continuous channel for 800 metres."

3 The determination of navigation

4 and the potential impacts to navigation would

5 depend where the south embankment and/or the

6 coffer dams would be placed, as well as the

7 information on navigation use at those locations.

8 As we mentioned in the earlier finding, again, we

9 don't have enough information on navigation use.

10 The transmission line crossings

11 over Big Creek and the Fraser River were revised

12 as part of the 2009 and 2010 environmental

13 process. TC does not expect significant adverse

14 effects on navigation as a result of the proposed

15 transmission line crossings since they are not

16 expected to result in a negative impact to

17 navigation.

18 Dams, such as coffer dams, can

19 impede navigation. Reach 6 of Fish Creek does not

20 fit the miner works and waters orders parameter.

21 Table 51A-1, lists Reach 6 as having an average

22 bankfull channel width of 4 metres and an average

23 wetted width of 2.9 metres, which exceed the

24 average width identified in the miner works and

25 waters order amount 1.2 metres. 118

1 There was some indication in

2 the 2009 Prosperity EIS of kayaking on Fish Creek

3 and navigation could occur on Reach 6 via kayak,

4 canoe, et cetera. Since Reach 6 does not fit the

5 miner works and water order's parameters

6 information on current and potential navigation

7 use is required in order to determine the level of

8 impact associated with the interference to

9 navigation. We'll see on the next slide TC's

10 Finding No. 8 related to this.

11 TC found that more information

12 on the proposed structures and terminology used

13 would be necessary in order to -- in order that a

14 full assessment of the potential indirect effects

15 can be completed.

16 The location of the coffer dams

17 and a photo to show the physical nature of the

18 creek at those locations would be necessary. As

19 in Finding No. 2, we would need to know the use of

20 Fish Creek for navigation at those particular

21 locations.

22 And finally, we would need more

23 information on the impacts of the works on

24 navigation as they relate to the exercise of the

25 established and potential rights and measures to 119

1 mitigate or accommodate for those adverse impacts

2 on those rights. The EIS mentions in sections

3 2.7.2.5 and in Appendix 2.7.2.5-A, that elements

4 of Fish Creek and the fish habitat compensation

5 plan include upgrades to existing diversion

6 structures, and the construction of one or more

7 containment berms in Upper Elkin Creek and a bank

8 stabilization in Lower Elkin Creek.

9 The environmental assessment

10 EIS is unclear as it uses terms like "setback

11 berms" and "containment berms" interchangeably.

12 Information on depth, width, in-stream flow,

13 location and current navigation use for Elkin

14 Creek would be necessary to determine the

15 potential impact of temporary and ancillary or

16 fish habitat compensation works on the waterways

17 for navigation. This is finding No. 9.

18 TC has some indication that

19 portions of Elkin Creek are navigable since the

20 department previously approved structures on the

21 creek. Details of the work would enable the

22 appropriate questions around navigation use to be

23 explored in order to determine the impacts to

24 navigation.

25 Now, to Haines Creek and 120

1 finding No. 10.

2 The EIS mentions that existing

3 diversion structures on Haines Creek, i.e., the

4 twin culverts and the berm and a berm, may be

5 upgraded, replaced or newly constructed.

6 Information on depth, width, et cetera, current

7 navigation use for Haines Creek will be necessary

8 to determine the potential impact of temporary and

9 ancillary or fish habitat compensation works on

10 the waterways to navigation.

11 Details on the works would

12 enable the appropriate questions around navigation

13 use to be the explored in order to determine the

14 impacts on navigation.

15 Other fish habitat compensation

16 ancillary works, many of the works mentioned here,

17 were excluded from the analysis presented in the

18 EIS and from the Response Sir No. 51.

19 Information on the -- on all

20 the proposed temporary ancillary works is required

21 in order to determine the potential impact of the

22 project to navigation.

23 The EIS that identifies the

24 flows into Beece Creek will increase in

25 post-closure. 121

1 Section 2.7.2.4 of the EIS

2 notes that:

3

4 "The development of the project will

5 have a positive effect on navigation as

6 a result of the predicted slight

7 increase in closure and post-closure

8 flows. Increases in flows are not

9 necessarily a positive development from

10 a navigation perspective. For more

11 information regarding how the waterway

12 is used would help to determine whether

13 it is considered a positive or a

14 negative in this case."

15

16 In closing, to reiterate, the

17 assessment of impacts to navigation can be

18 achieved only once the information for the area

19 has been collected and presented. In addition to

20 on-site observations conducted by TC, the

21 department relies on the technical information

22 from the Proponent regarding the specific plans

23 and location. These were our findings in 1 and 2.

24 Therefore, based on the

25 information available and the critical baseline 122

1 data that remains outstanding, Transport Canada

2 disagrees that the Proponent can conclude there

3 are no significant effects on navigable waters

4 arising from the project, based in part on those

5 effects being low in magnitude, and a low use

6 area.

7 It is TC's opinion that

8 conclusions can only be drawn once sufficient

9 baseline information on navigation in the Fish

10 Creek watershed and other missing information, as

11 we mentioned, has been presented. Without this

12 information which is already questioned in SIR 51,

13 it is TC's view that the Panel will be unable to

14 determine environmental effects of the project on

15 navigation and the significance of those effects.

16 Thank you.

17 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Thank you,

18 Mr. Mackie, and Ms. Aitchison.

19 First, any questions for

20 Transport Canada from the Government of Canada?

21 Second, any questions for

22 Transport Canada from the interested parties,

23 First Nations?

24 Any questions for Transport

25 Canada by interested party organizations? 123

1 Any questions for Transport

2 Canada from interested party individuals?

3 Taseko?

4 MR. JONES: Yes, thank you

5 Mr. Chairman. Just a couple questions.

6 I'm assuming the photos of

7 Little Fish Lake are Transport Canada photos?

8 MR. MACKIE: Yes, they are.

9 MR. JONES: So Transport Canada

10 has been to Fish Lake?

11 MR. MACKIE: Yes, they have.

12 MR. JONES: Does Transport

13 Canada recognize there have been no changes to the

14 project with respect to the 2008 Prosperity

15 Project, relative to the upper reaches of the Fish

16 Creek drainage? I guess the clearer question

17 would be, the TSF at the upper end of the drainage

18 effectively mirrors the previous project including

19 Prosperity Lake?

20 MR. MACKIE: Do you mean with

21 regards to the impacts from the upper portions of

22 the creek down to Fish Lake including the pit and

23 the changes that EIS indicates leave Fish Lake

24 untouched is -- is that what you mean?

25 MR. JONES: No, it's just the 124

1 footprint of the upper end.

2 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Mr. Jones, it

3 seems to me that Prosperity Lake was up there

4 before and so is the footprint changed because of

5 that change?

6 MR. JONES: No, just the

7 footprint of the TSF under New Prosperity,

8 basically is the same as the footprint as

9 Prosperity Plus, Prosperity Lake.

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thanks.

11 MR. MACKIE: Can you restate

12 the question or reframe it?

13 MR. JONES: Would you agree

14 that the footprint of the New Prosperity tailings

15 facility at the headwaters of the Fish Creek

16 drainage is basically the same as the footprint of

17 the Prosperity tailings facility, if you include

18 Prosperity Lake with that?

19 MR. MACKIE: I think I can say

20 yes, I would agree. If I'm gathering the question

21 properly.

22 MR. JONES: Okay.

23 MR. MACKIE: Go ahead?

24 MR. JONES: I'm assuming that

25 Transport Canada recognizes that we've retained 95 125

1 percent of the lake environment in terms of area

2 relative to the Prosperity project?

3 MR. MACKIE: We recognize the

4 difference between this review and the last review

5 and that Taseko has taken efforts to retain Fish

6 Lake. We do recognize that.

7 MR. JONES: Okay. And that --

8 just my last question.

9 Do you recognize or realize

10 that what we're proposing to do on Haines Creek

11 and Elkin Creek are works to refurbish, if you

12 will, previously existing diverse structures?

13 MR. MACKIE: We recognize that

14 as information that was stated in the EIS, yes,

15 but it's -- that's all we recognize. It's unclear

16 to us what those works are, where they are. And

17 basically, as explained in our presentation

18 further detail is required on those two creeks.

19 MR. JONES: That's it. Thank

20 you.

21 MS. AITCHISON: Could I just

22 add something, Mr. Chairman?

23 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Please do.

24 MS. AITCHISON: Thank you.

25 Going back to your first and 126

1 second question, that we also recognize the

2 previous review body of evidence really did appear

3 to focus on the destruction of Fish Lake and

4 Little Fish Lake and the other water bodies were

5 not discussed a large amount. So this is just

6 something that we've noted and taken into account

7 in our components.

8 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Thank you for

9 that.

10

11 CHAIRMAN ROSS: I'm not

12 entirely sure how to pose the question, so let me

13 ramble just a little bit.

14 It seems pretty clear to me

15 from your presentation that the issue of the

16 transmission line, which pretty much hasn't

17 changed so your conclusion from before persists.

18 The issue of Fish Lake has changed quite a bit and

19 so your position has changed quite a bit.

20 And my question is: Are there

21 any other waterways for which your earlier

22 conclusions from the Prosperity review would

23 persist? And, for example, I guess I'm thinking

24 of Lower Fish Creek or -- and pursuant to

25 Mr. Jones questions, are there parts of Upper Fish 127

1 Creek that would be similar?

2 MR. MACKIE: I'll try to answer

3 this as best I can.

4 During the previous review we

5 did focus on Fish Lake as did most of the review

6 focused on Fish Lake. We assessed the

7 navigability of Fish Lake, we assessed, to the

8 extent of the information we had at the time, the

9 navigability of surrounding water bodies that were

10 -- or waterways that were impacted by that

11 previous project.

12 We were -- and there was

13 overarching amounts of focus on Fish Lake and we

14 focused there. But in general terms recalling

15 back, and fortunately I was on that file as well,

16 we were in much the same position that we are now.

17 It's easy enough to look at the larger waterway

18 and then provide feedback into the process that,

19 yes, it looks like we have some role in this

20 particular project like Fish Lake, like the

21 previous review, and then provide guidance to the

22 Proponent for additional information that is

23 required for us to further assess the impacts,

24 and this is really what we're doing in this case.

25 So, yes, I was -- it was actually me up at Little 128

1 Fish Lake with a Federal working group and the

2 TNG, it was easy enough to determine the

3 navigability of Fish Lake but not necessarily the

4 impacts. I don't know the frequency of use, I

5 don't know how it's used, and really from that

6 perspective where -- where we are right now isn't

7 really much different from where we were at then.

8 Does that answer your question?

9 CHAIRMAN ROSS: That helps a

10 great deal.

11 Ms. Aitchison?

12 MS. AITCHISON: Yes, I believe

13 some of the information we're missing now, we were

14 also missing then. We just didn't necessarily

15 focus on that in our findings at that time. And

16 we certainly did not focus on Fish Creek upstream

17 of Little Fish Lake so there are certain water

18 bodies that we haven't been able to determine the

19 navigability on at any point in time.

20 MR. CHAIRMAN: That's very

21 helpful. Thank you.

22 Ron?

23 MR. SMYTH: We didn't have all

24 of your PowerPoints, so things might get a bit

25 mushy here. 129

1 In Reach 10, you expressed some

2 confusion, are the coffer dams in Reach 10 the

3 same as the south embankment? Is that correct?

4 MS. AITCHISON: Yes.

5 MR. SMYTHE: And now you've got

6 me confused, so maybe I'll ask Taseko.

7 Are there other coffer dams

8 proposed in the Reach 10 area or is it just the

9 south embankment?

10 MR. JONES: I'll answer, but

11 I'll ask Greg Smyth to correct me if I am

12 incorrect. The south coffer dam -- sorry, the

13 south embankment, as far as being curtailed, does

14 not require a coffer dam. If it did, it would

15 fall within the footprint of the south embankment.

16 MR. SMYTH: I'm not sure I

17 understand the footprint. You are not putting one

18 on top of the other?

19 MR. JONES: Sorry. For

20 clarity, if a small coffer dam was required there

21 it would fall within the ultimate footprint of the

22 embankment.

23 MR. SMYTH: Thank you.

24 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Now, I'm

25 confused. 130

1 Is there an upstream coffer dam

2 that would divert water -- uncontaminated water

3 around the TSF or how is that accomplished?

4 MR. JONES: On the south coffer

5 dam we don't expect that because there's no flow

6 on the -- sorry, on the south embankment.

7 On the main embankment that

8 would be required, but it would be upstream of the

9 main embankment and that just allows us to contain

10 water pumped around the construction site while

11 we're working on the foundation of the main

12 embankment.

13 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: The reason I

14 ask is that I think that may be the coffer dam

15 that Transport Canada has some concern about, did

16 I get that approximately right Mr. Mackie?

17 MR. MACKIE: Yes, you did, Mr.

18 Chairman.

19 The EIS -- in order for us to

20 move forward, gainfully, in this process there is

21 a minimum amount of information that we need as

22 stated in our presentation. There was confusion,

23 at least in my reading of the EIS, what things

24 were, how they were termed, and where they should

25 be located. And really exact pinpoint locations, 131

1 exact designs, isn't` necessary but it certainly

2 is good enough for me to provide guidance to the

3 Proponent with regards to approaching First

4 Nations and other users that may make use the

5 waterway for navigation to determine the extent to

6 which it may be used for navigation.

7 CHAIRMAN ROSS: And we paid

8 attention to your suggestion that advice from

9 aboriginal and other users would be helpful? I

10 think at this time we have no further questions so

11 I thank you very much for your presentation and

12 for your response to questions.

13 MR. JONES: Mr. Chairman?

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Sorry, Mr.

15 Jones?

16 MR. JONES: Just an offer here

17 that might be helpful to the panel and perhaps to

18 Transport Canada. Would it be helpful to have a

19 photograph of Reach 10 and would it be helpful to

20 have a diagram that clearly labels the coffer dam

21 and the embankments? Would that be of assistance?

22 MR. MACKIE: I think that would

23 be of assistance and again, minimal information is

24 knowing what it is, where it is, the physical

25 description of the waterway. That allows us to -- 132

1 and I say this, save for the miner works and

2 waterways order, but it allows for Transport

3 Canada to determine the navigability of the

4 waterway. That's one part.

5 And now it would be helpful to

6 know how it's used, when it's used, why it's used

7 and the frequency. And we normally depend on the

8 Proponent as they know the footprint of their

9 project and the area better than we do.

10 CHAIRMAN ROSS: And I think was

11 a longwinded "yes."

12 MR. MACKIE: Sorry about that.

13 CHAIRMAN ROSS: It's all right.

14 I was just trying to lighten things up. But after

15 we come back from lunch I'm going to talk a little

16 bit about undertakings.

17 Do I infer that this as an

18 undertaking from you?

19 MR. JONES: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Starting after

21 lunch we are going to start attaching a time frame

22 on undertakings so we can know when to expect

23 materials.

24 When do you expect to be able

25 to provide this realistically, and we're not 133

1 pushing, we just want to know.

2 MR. JONES: Realistically

3 before we head out west. Like, before Monday

4 night.

5 CHAIRMAN ROSS: That would be

6 excellent. We'll take that as an undertaking.

7 Thank you very much.

8 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Dr. Marvin

9 Shaffer, MiningWatch Canada.

10 PRESENTATION BY DR. MARVIN SHAFFER:

11 MR. SHAFFER: Thank you.

12 My name is Marvin Shaffer, and

13 I am a consulting economist and an adjunct

14 professor in the public policy program at Simon

15 Fraser University, where I teach a course in

16 multiple account benefit cost analysis and project

17 evaluation.

18 I want to thank you for the

19 opportunity to present. I don't have slides. I

20 just want to summarize the key findings and it's

21 my understanding that you have a copy of the

22 report available for review. And this is the

23 report that I prepared for MiningWatch Canada.

24 I realize this is an

25 environmental hearing and the focus, of course, is 134

1 -- the central focus is the environmental impacts

2 and the consequences of the project, as well as

3 the social and cultural implications.

4 However, I do think it's very

5 important to consider the net-economic benefits of

6 the project, simply for the reason that often we

7 run into situations where there are tradeoffs, and

8 at the end of the day governments tend the

9 consider whether those tradeoffs are justified in

10 the circumstances, and we've seen that language in

11 previous reports.

12 And so, I was asked by

13 MiningWatch Canada to provide an independent

14 opinion on whether the economic benefits presented

15 by the Proponent and in particular what was

16 provided in the report prepared by spatial

17 economics, I'll call it the Stokes report:

18 Economic and Physical Impacts of New Prosperity,

19 provide a methodologically valid assessment of net

20 benefits, net economic benefits and they asked me

21 to consider whether there would be -- one could

22 expect material differences in the net economic

23 benefits that would arise from New Prosperity, as

24 compared to what was concluded in a report that

25 was presented by myself, and on behalf of Friends 135

1 of Nemaiah Valley for the original project, where

2 it was concluded, in fact, that there were net

3 economic costs and there was no evidence to

4 suggest that there would be net benefits overall.

5 Let me first comment on the --

6 what I'll call The Stokes Report, which provides

7 the economic impact information and that the

8 Proponent used in presenting what it defined as

9 the project benefits in its EIS.

10 I'll start with what actually

11 -- well, methodologically interesting, I don't

12 think it's a central issue here -- the impact

13 estimates were overestimated. And I say that

14 because while it's a very sophisticated model and,

15 obviously, competently undertaken, it's a demand

16 driven model, and demand driven model there are no

17 supply constraints and yet we know in the current

18 environment there are shortages of skilled labour,

19 there are pressures more generally on the labour

20 market and projects such as this will be competing

21 with other projects potentially putting upward

22 pressure on wages and in any event competing for

23 skilled workers that might otherwise work

24 elsewhere.

25 There will also be other price 136

1 impacts, and I'll come to that in a minute, in

2 particular BC Hydro and those can have negative

3 consequences for other industries.

4 So when you want to calculate

5 your economic impacts you really want to net out

6 not just the positive impacts on industry that

7 arise from the demand for goods and services from

8 this project, but also the negative impacts it may

9 have on other industries, which we see in Canada

10 from major projects in all sorts of areas.

11 The more important issue,

12 though, is a more fundamental issue, and I can't

13 emphasize this enough.

14 And, that is, economic impacts

15 are not a measure of net benefits, and I would

16 like to explain that just with some simple

17 examples.

18 If you estimate economic

19 impacts you're typically looking at, for example,

20 the total amount of employment in the total amount

21 of wages that might be generated as a result of

22 the project, but those wages aren't a benefit.

23 In economic terms what is the

24 benefit is the incremental income that is earned

25 by the people who are hired. In other words, what 137

1 advantage does this employment offer relative to

2 what they would otherwise be doing. We can't and

3 shouldn't assume that they would otherwise be

4 unemployed, earning nothing and yet in the

5 economic impact analysis, that is what you are

6 effectively doing if you want to describe those

7 impacts as benefits.

8 Taxes are another example.

9 If we look at the taxes that

10 workers, for example, pay, for sales taxes for the

11 purchases of goods and services, those are

12 impacts, but they are not net benefits to

13 government and, therefore, the taxpayers, because

14 what really matter says whether there is an

15 increase in the amount of income taxes that are

16 paid or the extent to which there is an increase

17 in the income taxes that are paid not what the

18 total income tax might be, and if those workers

19 would otherwise be gainfully employed they would

20 be paying taxes elsewhere.

21 So we're always looking for the

22 incremental effects and looking for the

23 incremental effects, the net of the expenditures

24 that the government would incur.

25 And, of course, for example, 138

1 the expenditures that would incur within my group

2 of (muffled), will be paying new taxes, but at the

3 same time they and their families would require

4 government services, whether schools hospitals and

5 the like.

6 In the case of electricity, the

7 example is even more striking. The demand for

8 electricity is an impact and in the Stokes Model

9 it's not just an immediate impact, but because

10 this is a longer, adjustment model it will

11 generate investments in adding capacity to

12 maintain the incremental demand causing further

13 impacts, but those aren't benefits.

14 Those aren't benefits if the

15 price that is paid for the power is less than the

16 cost to provide the service, which I'll come to in

17 a minute, and which is the case here.

18 So it's very important to

19 understand, if one is ever going to look at in

20 your circumstance or in the case of advice for

21 government or government, itself, that any

22 tradeoff that a project may offer, it's important

23 to look at the net economic benefits and certainly

24 not the economic impacts, and I think that's well

25 understood by all economists in the field of 139

1 project evaluation.

2 Let me go to second part of the

3 assignment I had for MiningWatch was to ask the

4 question: Well, in your previous report, my

5 previous report, it was concluded that there was

6 net costs, and the net costs arose because there

7 is a very significant market failure in the

8 provision of electricity.

9 In the case of the provision of

10 electricity, electricity is supplied at its

11 historic average cost which in British Columbia is

12 very low because of the hydro facilities that were

13 built in the '60s and '70s.

14 But the relevant question from

15 a net benefit point of view is: What is the

16 incremental cost supplied? When you get a major

17 new load, a new mining load or an LNG load or

18 other such loads, BC Hydro has to advance when it

19 develops additional supply and the question is

20 what does it cost through that new supply, as

21 compared to the price it receives for the power it

22 sells.

23 And we know from recent calls

24 for energy by BC Hydro as well as its findings in

25 the site C hearing that the price of power -- 140

1 sorry, the incremental cost of power is in excess

2 of a $100 per megawatt hour, and yet the

3 industrial rate generates the average revenues

4 under in the vicinity of around $40 per megawatt

5 hours.

6 In the previous report we noted

7 that market failure and costs that would be

8 imposed on BC Hydro and the financial losses it

9 would incur and that, of course, would be borne by

10 British Columbia ratepayers who have to make up

11 the difference in net losses on any particular

12 sale.

13 And in the finding in that

14 report those losses exceeded the estimated

15 benefits from the employment, which we took to be

16 approximately 25 percent of the wages, which in

17 some respects is generous as we are in a tight

18 labour-market circumstances, and the estimated tax

19 benefits, which we based on the information that

20 was available to us in the 2007 feasibility study.

21 The question arises: Is there

22 reason to believe circumstances are different

23 today with the New Prosperity Project?

24 With respect to the losses that

25 would be incurred by BC Hydro, which are very 141

1 significant, the finding you'll see in the report

2 that's filed with you, are, if anything, greater

3 today than what we thought they would be a couple

4 of years ago, and that's because the marginal,

5 incremental cost of power is higher than the

6 information we had at that time, which was based

7 on an earlier call for energy.

8 So if anything, the losses of

9 BC Hydro might incur to supply new loads, such as

10 this load and would be in the order of $50 million

11 per year and that's not dealing with questions

12 around who is paying for transmission lines and

13 that's just in the supply of energy.

14 And I want to emphasize that

15 I'm not suggesting for a minute that there is a

16 special rate here for this mine, as opposed to

17 other mines. This is a problem inherent in the

18 pricing of electricity. It's what economists

19 would call a classic market failure, where the

20 price doesn't reflect the marginal cost of supply.

21 As for the benefits from the

22 employment, the estimated wage bill from the

23 project is somewhat higher now than it was for the

24 previous project.

25 So one could expect that there 142

1 might be some increase in the employment benefits

2 from this project relative to the past project.

3 On the other hand, labour markets are, if

4 anything, tighter and suggesting that the net

5 benefit may be less. In any event, it still would

6 not be of a magnitude that approaches a cost that

7 would be born by BC Hydro.

8 The one area where there is

9 some considerable uncertainty that we point out in

10 the report is: What would the tax benefits be

11 from this project, because BC Hydro my lose money

12 and residents may lose money and residents and

13 other businesses may have to make up for that in

14 the form of rates that are higher than otherwise,

15 but at the same time other offsetting tax

16 benefits.

17 In the previous report we

18 estimate the tax benefits at around $11 million

19 per year and we did that based on the 2007

20 feasibility study, which provided estimates for

21 the mineral taxes, and it also provided the net

22 cash flows on an unlevered basis but, nonetheless,

23 the estimated cash flows we levelize those and we

24 took some average tax rates and that is how we got

25 the $11 million. 143

1 We don't have any evidence.

2 Just here, we have some statements suggesting

3 there's much higher taxes that would be paid, both

4 mineral and corporate income tax, but there is no

5 evidence supporting that and it's quite

6 questionable, in my mind at least, that they would

7 be accurate.

8 There's some other areas that I

9 investigated with respect to GHT benefits,

10 recognizing the carbon taxes that would be paid,

11 and they would be, if anything, a bit smaller than

12 what we had estimated last time.

13 As for the consequences for

14 communities, obviously there's positive effects

15 from the local economic activity, there's negative

16 effects from the disruption and the concerns about

17 the resources and other impacts and those have

18 been presumably much the same on the environmental

19 side, and you'll, no doubt, be addressing that

20 yourselves.

21 The bottom line from this

22 investigation, was that there is no evidence

23 suggesting a substantively different conclusion

24 than what we reached last time, which we know

25 there will be significant and economic costs and 144

1 there is no evidence to suggest there will be

2 overall net economic benefits. Notwithstanding

3 the fact there will be large impacts, and I repeat

4 there's a big difference between impacts and net

5 benefits.

6 Thank you.

7 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Thank you very

8 much Dr. Shaffer.

9 Questions from the Government

10 of Canada?

11 Questions from interested party

12 First Nations?

13 Questions from interested party

14 organizations?

15 Mr. Monroe?

16 MR. MONROE: Thank you for your

17 presentation, Dr. Shaffer.

18 I'm Keith Monroe with the

19 Council of Canadians, and maybe you can help me

20 clarify how the system works relating to

21 government mineral revenues, and I'm not sure

22 whether that is referred to as a "royalty" or a

23 "tax," and I'm kind of interested in whether there

24 is a minimum royalty payable on minerals or

25 whether it is dependent on the profitability? 145

1 MR. SHAFFER: In

2 British Columbia there is a two-part mineral tax.

3 There is a base level, there is a -- based on the

4 value of production and then there is an increment

5 based on the calculated net return.

6 MR. MONROE: Okay. Do you

7 assess the magnitude of that revenue to

8 government?

9 MR. SHAFFER: I didn't assess

10 the magnitude of that revenue to Government. But

11 I did rely on estimates that were represented by

12 Taseko in its 2007 feasibility study. And that

13 was the basis for the figures that we had

14 previously, to look at what the -- to look at what

15 the New Prosperity Project would generate, you

16 would need the detailed feasibility studies and

17 cash flows, which we don't have.

18 MR. MONROE: So just I'm trying

19 to make sure I understand this. So the potential

20 mineral revenue to government is somewhat

21 dependent on the profitability of the operation?

22 MR. SHAFFER: Yes.

23 MR. MONROE: Thank you.

24 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Interested

25 party organizations? 146

1 Please, sir.

2 MR. CARRUTHERS: Yeah. My name

3 is Beau Carruthers.

4 Dr. Shaffer, you indicated that

5 there will be no net increase in employment, but

6 I'm a little confused about that. Could you

7 clarify that? I mean, these are talking about 550

8 new jobs plus some incremental jobs, and if people

9 come from other locations to take those jobs,

10 those other jobs would get filled, would they not?

11 So that would be two people working instead of

12 one?

13 MR. SHAFFER: I think this was

14 found in the Stokes study, as well. What's most

15 likely to happen in the context of

16 British Columbia is a migration to the provinces

17 on balance. There will be jobs associated and

18 there will be impacts associated with this

19 project, certainly; there will be jobs in this

20 sector that there might not otherwise be, but

21 those jobs will be filled by people, at least

22 looking forward, will be filled by people who

23 would otherwise be working and one would expect

24 that that means both to the region and to the

25 province, there will be in migrants for the most 147

1 part, and I think the Stokes study concluded that

2 that would be the predominant effect.

3 MR. CARRUTHERS: My other

4 question is: You went through a lot of sort of

5 economic information. Would not the banking

6 people, who potentially would finance this project

7 review a lot of the things that you are talking

8 about? I wouldn't see the money being forwarded

9 for a project like this, if there are a whole

10 bunch of things that were questionable in that

11 respect?

12 MR. SHAFFER: Well, I think

13 it's very important to distinguish what the

14 bankers would look at and what the investors would

15 look it, which is what does this mean in terms of

16 the investment? Are we going to make sufficient

17 return to justify the equity and to secure the

18 debt? And they will look at that very carefully

19 and I'm sure they will make good judgments about

20 that, but that is a private perspective.

21 When we are looking at the

22 public interest we have to say: How does that

23 effect other people? And my main point, insofar

24 as it affects all BC Hydro ratepayers, it affects

25 them negatively in a very significant way. 148

1 In the evidence I've seen, I

2 haven't found offsetting benefits that is

3 sufficient that would offset that cost. And

4 that's not something the bankers would take into

5 account because we're not talking about Taseko or

6 other mines or other industrial users, for that

7 matter, for not paying the posted price. They

8 will be paying the posted price but that's the

9 problem. The posted price doesn't reflect the

10 cost that BC Hydro will have to incur.

11 MR. CARRUTHERS: Is that not a

12 public policy issue that we, as taxpayers in this

13 province, have to deal with and not necessarily

14 something that the Proponent has to deal with?

15 MR. SHAFFER: I totally agree

16 it's a public policy issue and it's not an easy

17 one to resolve and I don't expect it will be

18 resolved any time soon, although, interestingly

19 there is going to be a report on it fairly soon.

20 But the point is that while we

21 have this public policy issue and until its

22 resolved in a way that protects ratepayers more,

23 it's something to take into account when you are

24 looking at a project. And I'm not here to say

25 whether this is a good project or a bad project, 149

1 but if you are asking me are there overwhelming

2 economic benefits that somebody should take into

3 account, my advice is: No, they are not and this

4 is one of the main reasons. This is the main

5 reason why not.

6 Thank you.

7 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Thank you.

8 Other interested party organizations?

9 Interested party individuals?

10 Taseko?

11 MR. YELLAND: Yes, Mr.

12 Chairman, thank you. My name is Greg Yelland, the

13 last name is spelled Y-E-L-L-A-N-D.

14 Mr. Shaffer, I found your

15 presentation and submission very interesting from

16 a personal point of view. I just want to make a

17 few clarifications.

18 In your executive summary of

19 your submission you state:

20

21 "The net benefits and cost of the

22 project arising from impacts on economic

23 activity, government and the environment

24 of communities must be measured for

25 proper benefit cost assessment, is 150

1 that those affects would be willing to

2 pay or give up to acquire the positive

3 consequences or be compensated to fully

4 offset the negative."

5

6 Does that summarize your

7 submission? Is that a good statement that would

8 summarize your submission, in your point of view?

9 MR. SHAFFER: I wouldn't say

10 that summarizes the submission. I would say in

11 the economic evaluation and benefit cost

12 methodology, when you want to know the

13 significance of an impact you want to know in the

14 case of a benefit what people would be willing to

15 give up in order to get it, that's the measure of

16 significance.

17 Similarly, when you're looking

18 at a cost, you would want to know what would

19 people have to be compensated, for example, what

20 would BC Hydro ratepayers have to be compensated

21 to be no worse off. And I hope you didn't infer

22 from the executive summary that I'm suggesting

23 everything has to be measured in dollar terms, as

24 I make a point of telling people that you can't

25 always do that. 151

1 But conceptually, it's the

2 tradeoff people would willing make for either the

3 positive or the negative that is the measure of

4 significance.

5 MR. YELLAND: I'm an engineer,

6 and when we work with measurements that's why I'm

7 a little bit -- it's a little bit airy fairy for

8 me.

9 When we measure things you

10 usually try to measure against a baseline and then

11 we can begin doing that throughout this whole

12 session where we are looking at our measurements

13 of future predictions on what we have, what is

14 going to be happening in the environment, and

15 we're measuring that against the baseline in order

16 to determine the difference that this project will

17 make.

18 Can you describe what baseline

19 is that you've measured your predictions against?

20 MR. SHAFFER: The baseline is

21 what one could expect without the project. So,

22 for example, the baseline in trying to assess

23 employment net benefits, is what would the workers

24 otherwise be doing, if not for the project? And

25 that is precisely the point. 152

1 And then the net benefits then

2 become, well, what is the advantage of this

3 opportunity relative to what they would otherwise

4 be doing, or in the case -- it runs through every

5 example, but in the case of government.

6 So for the taxes, when we're

7 trying to distinguish well what impacts are, in

8 fact, in the net benefits we would be saying,

9 well, what of those taxes would we otherwise

10 receive or what, in other words in the base case,

11 what would we otherwise have received, or in the

12 case of expenditures what expenditures are we now

13 incurring that we wouldn't otherwise have to

14 incur.

15 So the base case is that

16 without project state of affairs, I guess, it

17 would be the simplest way to say it.

18 MR. YELLAND: So when you're

19 looking at that baseline are you looking at it at

20 this point in time the situation or would you be

21 looking into the future and trying to predict

22 what's going to be happening into the future, so

23 that you can truly understand the net benefit and

24 cost of not putting this project in place?

25 MR. SHAFFER: You should be 153

1 looking at it over the course of the project into

2 the future, yes, that's correct.

3 MR. YELLAND: And that's what

4 you did?

5 MR. SHAFFER: I didn't do a

6 benefit cost study for this project nor did the

7 Proponent. I did a review of the information

8 provided by the Proponent and in particular the

9 study that underlaid the evidence, as well as

10 provided an opinion of the net benefits and costs

11 as economists understand those terms, given the

12 information that was available.

13 MR. YELLAND: Okay. So there

14 was really then no measure against the baseline?

15 MR. SHAFFER: Well, I tried to

16 provide some perspective on what that measure

17 would be. I tried to provide some measure of, for

18 example, with respect to BC Hydro and ratepayers

19 and how much they would have to receive in

20 compensation to be no worse off as a result of the

21 project and that was a specific estimate.

22 With respect to workers,

23 admittedly, it was rough but it was based on

24 studies and, in my view, reasonable assumptions, I

25 tried to get a sense of what would be the 154

1 advantage, what would be the incremental income,

2 which is all relative to a baseline.

3 In other words for the major

4 benefit and cost categories, I was trying to

5 provide some perspective to what the magnitude of

6 those might be and what relative advantage or

7 disadvantage there might be.

8 MR. YELLAND: Okay. I'm just

9 trying to dig into this a bit because I think it's

10 important because I know other presenters relied

11 on your information from this and especially, Ms.

12 Kuyek's report, it relied on this information and

13 they have been distributing information around

14 this.

15 My next question, I guess, is

16 around BC Hydro, and this is the main thing of

17 this report. I just want to understand, again, so

18 even if Taseko pays for the transmission line and

19 the upgrade of the substation, and that's got

20 nothing to do with the cost of power.

21 MR. SHAFFER: It has to do,

22 obviously, with the infrastructure required to

23 supply the power, but the cost of the power

24 incrementally, relative to our agreed baseline and

25 what would otherwise take place is what does BC 155

1 Hydro have to do when it gets a demand for

2 electricity, a requirement for electricity and in

3 this case, I believe, it's in the order of 700

4 gigawatt hours per year, and that's a lot of

5 electricity.

6 Clearly, it has to increase its

7 capability. It may have some surface this year

8 but that surface gets absorbed so, and it is

9 already -- they are looking at increasing its

10 supply, so it would have to advance the addition

11 of energy -- of energy capability in order to meet

12 the demands of the new client, customer.

13 And so the question is: What

14 does it cost to do that? And so the evidence from

15 both the calls for energy and the most recent

16 clean call came in at the average price was about

17 $125 per megawatt hour. In evidence filed in the

18 Site C Environmental Assessment Hearing they

19 provide an estimate of the cost of Site C at $110

20 dollars per megawatt hour.

21 And so if these are the kinds

22 of costs it has to incur to increase its supply

23 and yet the incremental revenues that it gets from

24 these new customers are in the order of $40 per

25 megawatt hours, based on the standard industrial 156

1 tariff you can see it's losing, you know, anywhere

2 from $70 to $85, just with those numbers per

3 megawatt hour, you apply that by 700 gigawatt

4 hours and you're into $50 million a year.

5 These are significant amounts,

6 and they have a bearing on the rate pressures that

7 BC Hydro is facing and it will make it that much

8 worse.

9 And I want to emphasize, this

10 isn't suggesting anybody is doing anything wrong

11 here, except perhaps Government. This is talking

12 about the market failure inherent in pricing power

13 on the basis of historic average costs and not the

14 incremental costs.

15 MR. YELLAND: That makes sense.

16 And I just want to reiterate that this is a BC

17 rate-setting problem, as opposed to our project

18 being the problem?

19 MR. SHAFFER: The project isn't

20 the problem in terms of rates. The implication of

21 this more fundamental problem, is that there are

22 significant net costs arising from not just this

23 mine but any project that creates a sufficiently

24 significant demand for electricity that is going

25 to advance the need for new sources of power. 157

1 MR. YELLAND: In your answer to

2 the previous question, you said that:

3 "Your work was based on the

4 2007 feasibility study."

5 So this report that you've

6 submitted is not based on the updated economics of

7 this project and the current metal market

8 projections?

9 MR. SHAFFER: I think I did

10 read that the electricity requirements for

11 New Prosperity were very similar to the old,

12 possibly a bit more, but what we don't have is the

13 feasibility study, the comparable feasibility

14 study that would support the estimates of mineral

15 taxes and corporate income taxes, and as so my

16 point is simply that the information isn't there

17 to support the numbers that were presented in the

18 project benefits part of the EIS.

19 MR. YELLAND: Thank you very

20 much. That's all I have.

21 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Thank you,

22 Mr. Yelland.

23 Anything else?

24 Mr. Gustafson?

25 MR. GUSTAFSON: Yes, 158

1 Mr. Chairman, I would like to explore a little bit

2 further some of the discussion with respect to the

3 BC Hydro costs.

4 I take it, Dr. Shaffer, that

5 you would agree that there is a fundamental

6 principle of utility ratemaking in

7 British Columbia and, indeed, in most parts of the

8 world that all customers are equally responsible

9 on a kilowatt-hour basis for the cost of providing

10 service?

11 MR. SHAFFER: I think it's

12 widely accepted that rates are based on average

13 cost to all customers and, certainly, it's the

14 case in British Columbia where the Government

15 passed legislation saying all customers would

16 share in the benefit of the heritage assets.

17 MR. GUSTAFSON: And in

18 British Columbia rates are designed for specific

19 classes of customers, residential, commercial,

20 industrial, large industrial?

21 MR. SHAFFER: Right. That's

22 correct.

23 MR. GUSTAFSON: Within each

24 class it's the obligation of the Utilities

25 Commission to ensure that rates are fair, just and 159

1 reasonable and allow for full recovery of costs of

2 providing that service to that class?

3 MR. SHAFFER: It recovers a

4 fully allocated cost of service, which are based

5 on historical costs, it isn't based on incremental

6 costs.

7 MR. GUSTAFSON: And would you

8 agree, based on the fully allocated cost of

9 service studies, that the driving principle is the

10 cost causation?

11 MR. SHAFFER: I wouldn't agree

12 in the economic sense. In the economic sense, we

13 would say: What is the cost causation, and that

14 would be the incremental effect of the demand on

15 the system and as you know, costs of the rates are

16 not set that way.

17 MR. GUSTAFSON: But the rates

18 are set by the Utilities Commission based on their

19 assessment of who is driving -- which classes were

20 driving the costs in each case.

21 MR. SHAFFER: They have

22 formulas for allocating the historic, average

23 costs.

24 MR. GUSTAFSON: And based on

25 those formulas, would you agree, that historically 160

1 industrial customers pay a rate that is in excess

2 of its fully allocated costs of service and

3 generally that residential customers pay a rate

4 that is lower than their fully allocated cost of

5 service?

6 MR. SHAFFER: Yes, with this --

7 with a very strong qualification. You're talking

8 about the allocation of historic average costs and

9 the formulas used to allocate that. And I would

10 argue very strongly that in terms of the cost

11 causation now, meaning the increment costs that is

12 not the case -- I would argue very strongly that's

13 not the case and that in the case of in particular

14 large industrial loads, the rates that are paid

15 are far less, less than 50 percent of the costs

16 that they truly cost in the sense of the economic

17 sense of the incremental cost that they impose on

18 the system.

19 And I think that it's important

20 to understand the economic principles here of what

21 the consequences are for BC Hydro as opposed to

22 the rate setting principle, which I agree with you

23 are based on historic average costs and formulas

24 for allocating those costs across different

25 customer categories. 161

1 MR. GUSTAFSON: Which in the

2 judgement of the Utilities Commission produce

3 rates that are fair, just and reasonable for each

4 class?

5 MR. SHAFFER: Well, as you know

6 the Utilities Commission is governed by the laws

7 and in particular the laws who -- that were

8 recently passed where the Government said that the

9 benefit of the heritage assets will be shared

10 among other customers. And they have to develop

11 their rates in accordance with current government

12 policies, as policy is set out in legislation.

13 MR. GUSTAFSON: Right. And

14 that means that when a person moves into a new

15 neighborhood and signs up as a new customer they

16 enjoy the same rate that a customer next door will

17 have, will be paying, even though they have been

18 there for 30 or 50 years?

19 MR. SHAFFER: That's correct.

20 MR. GUSTAFSON: And the same

21 principle applies with respect to commercial

22 customers and industrial customers?

23 MR. SHAFFER: Yes. And one

24 point I would make with industrial customers is

25 that there's a provision in the act and if a 162

1 customer is sufficiently large and it's considered

2 to be in the public interest, the BC Hydro can

3 apply for and BC Utilities Commission can approve

4 a special rate.

5 And the reason for doing that,

6 if you thought of it an aluminum smelter, for

7 example, it would not be able to go out and simply

8 acquire power at the standard industrial tariff

9 because the losses would be so severe on the hydro

10 system.

11 Similarly, I would expect with

12 the LNG facilities, there would be specially

13 negotiated rates if BC Hydro were to just supply

14 those facilities, they wouldn't be getting power

15 at the $40 rate.

16 In other words, you wouldn't

17 expect -- because those facilities, two or three

18 of them, couldn't consume the entire output of the

19 Site C plant, and so you wouldn't expect or one

20 would hope -- one wouldn't expect -- you wouldn't

21 hope -- you would hope or wouldn't expect the

22 Government to build Site C at a cost of $10

23 billion to supply a -- to recover maybe 40 percent

24 of that in the tariff.

25 MR. GUSTAFSON: Dr. Shaffer, 163

1 you talked about the need to construct

2 infrastructure to supply and would you agree that

3 the infrastructure is put in place to ensure that

4 BC Hydro and, indeed, Fordis (ph), BC are able to

5 meet peak demand on a coincident peak basis. Is

6 that correct?

7 MR. SHAFFER: I believe that's

8 correct, yes.

9 MR. GUSTAFSON: And which class

10 of customer is the principle driver of peak demand

11 on that basis?

12 MR. SHAFFER: I would expect it

13 would be -- it's a combination, of course, but if

14 you are asking me for which class of customer is

15 the peaking more severe, relative to their average

16 use it would be probably the residential.

17 MR. GUSTAFSON: And by a

18 substantial amount?

19 DR. SHAFFER: I would expect

20 so, yes, as industrial loads are typically flat.

21 MR. GUSTAFSON: One final

22 question in this area, are you familiar with

23 demand side management or DSM programs implemented

24 by Fordis and BC Hydro?

25 MR. SHAFFER: I'm generally 164

1 familiar with them, yes.

2 MR. GUSTAFSON: And how are

3 those programs costed?

4 MR. SHAFFER: In what sense?

5 MR. GUSTAFSON: In the sense of

6 the benefit that flows to residential customers?

7 Would you agree that the residential customers who

8 receive the benefit of -- of those programs

9 receive the benefit based on it, and avoid a

10 marginal cost basis?

11 MR. SHAFFER: Certainly, it

12 would, and I -- I'm not sure if this answers your

13 question, but I'll give it a go.

14 When BC Hydro looks at the

15 economic potential for DSM and what it's willing

16 to invest in, it's looking at the marginal cost to

17 new supply and -- and that goes to the heart of

18 what we're talking about.

19 It realizes that more load

20 means more -- more cost at the margin and more

21 need to develop new supply and, therefore, it's

22 willing to contribute to reductions because it

23 reduces its need for new supply and, therefore,

24 when it looks at the economics of loads, positive

25 or negative, it looks at the marginal cost and 165

1 that's precisely why I would argue that new loads

2 give rise to it -- it's marginal consequences,

3 incremental consequences, which in the case of BC

4 Hydro is very high.

5 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.

6 And just one other question on

7 a slightly different topic.

8 Have you been following the

9 proceedings and listening to the evidence with

10 respect to the discussion, I guess, around

11 inmigration of workers and how Taseko proposes to

12 find employees for the new mine should it proceed?

13 MR. SHAFFER: I'm not familiar

14 with that discussion.

15 MR. GUSTAFSON: Would it be

16 fair to conclude, then, that your comments about

17 the likelihood of inmigration is just a general

18 comment and is not specific to this particular

19 project or to this company?

20 MR. SHAFFER: I think it is

21 specific in this sense. I would fully expect that

22 Taseko -- and, in fact, it was stated in the

23 Stokes Report and in the EIS, it will make efforts

24 to hire from within the local area and from within

25 the region and from within the province, but the 166

1 net effect of all that in a tight labour market

2 will, in all likelihood, be for there to be more

3 inmigration to the Proving and that was, in fact,

4 the Stokes Study commissioned by Taseko founders.

5 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you,

6 Dr. Shaffer. Those are my questions.

7 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Anything else

8 from Taseko?

9 Thank you very much.

10 MR. KUPFER: The last question,

11 what's been going through my mind, is a very

12 simplistic basis.

13 When there are large number of

14 people who are employed or who are being paid

15 lower wages for the jobs they have and they become

16 employed, how are you -- are you assuming that --

17 what is the labour rate? How many labour people

18 are available right now in this area and could it

19 fulfill the requirements of this company without

20 large inmigration? I don't know if you mean

21 offshore inmigration or Canadian inmigration.

22 MR. SHAFFER: Well, there are a

23 couple of references in my study to labour market

24 outlooks, both by BC Government and also the

25 Mining Association. And the outlook is for 167

1 shortages of construction workers; shortages of

2 workers with skills suitable for the mining

3 industry; and, there's a number of reasons for

4 that, but not the least of which is the so-called

5 "Baby Boomer effect" and the large number of

6 retirements that we can expect in these

7 industries, relative to the demands.

8 Part of it has got to do with

9 some of the major demands that we're seeing from

10 the oil sands and other major projects in western

11 Canada, so this isn't something new. But it's not

12 expected to get better, it's expected to get

13 worse.

14 MR. KUPFER: You assume labour

15 would not be available in this area?

16 MR. SHAFFER: There are

17 shortages in -- so, if Taseko is successful -- if

18 Taseko is successful, at least for the skilled

19 component, if they are successful in securing the

20 workforce locally, they would be taking them away

21 from people who would work at other projects with

22 requiring similar skills and those would have to

23 be filled by people coming in from the rest of the

24 country and potentially from the rest of the

25 world. 168

1 And I accept the fact that

2 people are making very significant efforts to

3 increase training, make investments in training,

4 to improve and increase the availability of

5 workers and that's a sign -- and that will,

6 obviously, provide benefits, but it's a sign, too,

7 of how tight the labour marks are.

8 MR. KUPFER: Again, a

9 simplistic question. If people are unemployed or

10 poorly paid, and they get a much higher paying

11 job, how does that -- isn't that a benefit to

12 them, as well as to the community, as well to

13 Province?

14 MR. SHAFFER: Yes, it is if you

15 take somebody who is working at Tim Hortons and

16 they become a heavy-equipment operator in a mine,

17 but that doesn't happen. If the person working at

18 Tim Hortons could go work in the mine, they would

19 be doing it already.

20 The problem going forward isn't

21 the shortage of job opportunities, it's the

22 shortage of skills, the matching of people to

23 those opportunities and that's something in this

24 industry I know and others, governments, are

25 working hard on, you know, it just doesn't happen 169

1 somebody who works for $10 an hour when there is a

2 $30 an hour job out there and the problem isn't

3 the fact that there wasn't a $30 an hour job out

4 there. The problem was their capability, their

5 experience, their knowledge, their certification

6 wasn't adequate for that need.

7 And so, I think we've got to

8 going forward think about these impacts

9 differently. The impacts -- the benefits won't

10 come from the job opportunities, it will come from

11 the efforts that companies and individuals and

12 universities and governments make to match people

13 to those opportunities.

14 MR. KUPFER: Thank you.

15 CHAIRMAN ROSS: Dr. Shaffer,

16 when you analyze the net benefits for the region,

17 is the region you're talking about the

18 Cariboo-Chilcotin, is it British Columbia, or is

19 it Canada?

20 MR. SHAFFER: I would say, for

21 the most part, the perspective that I was taking

22 here was from the point of view of

23 British Columbia.

24 CHAIRMAN ROSS: I'm going to

25 give a little preamble to make a point. I don't 170

1 -- I don't always approve of this but I'm going to

2 do it and I'm going to exercise my authority.

3 As a now retired University

4 Professor, I have read studies for the last 30 or

5 40 years about the impending shortage of

6 University Professors in Canada, and the time of

7 implementation of this seems to have moved forward

8 approximately as fast as I've got older.

9 So, I guess, I'm trying to

10 understand the labour shortage of skilled mine

11 workers that you've been referring to and, I

12 guess, my question could be: Is it any more

13 reliable than the forecast that I just referred

14 to?

15 MR. SHAFFER: I think you're

16 quite right, that we're seeing, in particular with

17 respect to retirements, we're seeing people

18 working longer and that's having an impact on the

19 timing of impending shortages in universities and

20 elsewhere.

21 But I relied on labour market

22 studies by labour market experts and for better or

23 worse, but I think it's for better, and so I would

24 refer you to the Work BC, BC Labour Market

25 Conditions Outlook, and there's a study by the 171

1 MiningWatch, Human Resources Council. And these

2 are the people that are closest to these matters

3 and they are certainly forecasting shortages.

4 And you're quite right, it may

5 be that older workers stay on longer. I think it

6 would also be the case that companies will bid up

7 wages to keep people, to attract people more, and

8 that will have some effect as well.

9 CHAIRMAN ROSS: On a totally

10 different point, I remember reading it in your

11 paper but when you presented the information about

12 greenhouse gas costs and/or taxes, the note I made

13 was that the taxes would be smaller under

14 New Prosperity than under Prosperity and I was

15 trying to figure out why that would be.

16 Could you -- maybe I just

17 didn't --

18 MR. SHAFFER: No, that wasn't

19 the point I was trying to make. In the -- when we

20 -- when I looked at the original project

21 characterization, how can we think about the cost

22 of the GHG emissions, and I was thinking of

23 diminishing the emissions was one way we have

24 targets to achieve and if we're going to achieve

25 those targets and we have an increase from a new 172

1 source, then we have to, in some sense, we have to

2 offset that and what would it cost and then assign

3 a cost to it.

4 In this report, I acknowledged,

5 and we know now that there is going to be taxes in

6 the order of right now I think it's $30 per ton

7 and, therefore, in economic jargon, the external

8 cost, it would be the difference between that

9 offset cost and the taxes that are paid.

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

11 That makes things fit better in my head.

12 Seeing no further questions

13 here. Thank you very much for your presentation.

14 I think what I'm inclined to do

15 now is to break for lunch. We will take a half an

16 hour or so and we will reconvene here about 10

17 minutes before 1 o'clock.

18 --- Recessed at 12:25 p.m. --- Upon resuming at

19 12:50 p.m.

20 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Good

21 afternoon, ladies and gentleman. Sorry to break

22 up the party. We are making good progress through

23 the presentations. I am more optimistic now than

24 I was this morning, but we will still press. I

25 have two matters before we get back to the 173

1 presentations. I assumed that they have made

2 adult decisions.

3 The first matter relates to the

4 undertakings. A few points: First, a complete

5 list of all undertakings issued to date will be

6 posted on the registry at the close of this

7 session.

8 Second, all outstanding

9 undertakings are due no later than Thursday,

10 August 8th, and our secretariat will be sending

11 harassing e-mails to those who have committed to

12 making submissions of undertakings to try to

13 enforce that date. I understand, for example,

14 that Taseko's commitment was even earlier than

15 that and so we thought that that date was

16 reasonable.

17 Third, undertakings are to be

18 e-mailed to the New Prosperity general 'IN' box or

19 presented to a member of secretariat at a hearing

20 session. From now on if I'm on my toes, we will

21 assign due date to every new undertaking. The

22 second item was going to be a response to the TNG

23 motion. Seeing no TNG people here, maybe I'll do

24 that a little bit later. The short version will

25 be TNG's request to close the record for project 174

1 information by August the 5th, is denied. The

2 longer version I will read into the record.

3 The next presenter is John

4 Lerner with Friends of the Nemiah Valley.

5 Mr. Lerner.

6 MR. LERNER: I'm going to ask,

7 as well, that one of the counselors from the Xeni

8 Gwet'in join me for the questions, if that's all

9 right?

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Absolutely

11 all right.

12 PRESENTATION BY JOHN LERNER:

13 MR. LERNER: I'm going to give

14 a presentation about the Xeni Gwet'in vision for

15 sustainable development of their caretaker area

16 and the implications of the New Prosperity mine

17 development on that vision. Again, my name is

18 John Lerner, the last name is L-E-R-N-E-R. My

19 background is in economics, but I'm speaking on a

20 fairly wide range of topics and so when I speak on

21 some of the issues that I'm really not an expert

22 in, I'll be referring to some of the biologists

23 and the Xeni Gwet'in representatives if need be.

24 So before I start with that

25 vision, the Chief In Council wanted me to assert 175

1 the stewardship claim of the Xeni Gwet'in people

2 over the caretaker area in which the mine is

3 potentially occupying.

4 So we, the Xeni Gwet'in First

5 Nations government part of 6 communities of

6 Chilcotin Nation, reaffirm through our August 23

7 (Native being spoken) declaration that we are the

8 stewards of the Chilcotin area called the Xeni

9 Gwet'in caretaker area. We govern the area using

10 our Chilcotin customary laws which come down to us

11 through our ancestors and existing membership.

12 Brief Intro. The Xeni Gwet'in

13 people have a vision for how they want to use

14 their land. It is one based on historical use and

15 on moving forward in an ecologically sustainable

16 manner. The proposed New Prosperity mine project

17 does not honour this vision; indeed, it threatens

18 this vision for many years to come, and therefore,

19 the very self determination of the Xeni Gwet'in.

20 So the vision is for the Xeni

21 Gwet'in sustainable development of the caretaker

22 is broken into really six principles or criteria.

23 No. 1, maintenance of area's ecological integrity;

24 No. 2, maintenance of the traditional use

25 opportunities and culture in the area; No. 3, 176

1 creation of meaningful employment and income for

2 our people; No. 4, enhancement of our people's

3 self reliance; No. 5, enhancement of our

4 community's resilience; and No. 6, development of

5 capacity for self governances. So what I'm going

6 to do is I'll go through those and comment on the

7 impact of those from the mine potentially.

8 So in terms of ecological

9 integrity, what do they need? We envision a

10 healthy land which includes a diversity of intact

11 habitats with an abundance of plants, fish and

12 wildlife natural to the area, as well as clean

13 water and air and other valuable services that are

14 integral to a healthy land. And if you look at

15 that picture on the right, it's actually a map of

16 an ecosystem-based plan they've done and they've

17 been working on for years and it maps out the land

18 use zones that --

19 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mr. Lerner,

20 perhaps a little slower would be helpful.

21 MR. LERNER: Sure.

22 -- is a map of an

23 ecosystem-based plan which outlines the zones for

24 human uses and cultural uses and restoration

25 areas. So they've done a bit of planning around 177

1 land use in the area.

2 How would the New Prosperity

3 Mine impact on that vision? Well, the proposed

4 mine will severely degrade Fish Lake and destroy

5 Little Fish Lake ecosystems and their ecosystem

6 services. It will fragment the connectivity to

7 adjoining ecosystems in the caretaker area and add

8 to an already badly fragmented eastern region

9 outside of the caretaker area. So if you look at

10 the circle on the right, it's already been logged

11 and will continue to be logged potentially. The

12 mine will basically add to that fragmentation.

13 This, in turn, will stress adjacent ecosystem

14 services in the caretaker area through pollution

15 and force them to compensate for degraded or

16 destroyed ecosystems.

17 Traditional use. We envision a

18 future where we have sufficient opportunity to

19 practice our traditional uses of land, including

20 hunting and fishing and collecting forest

21 products, managing our wild and domestic horses

22 and domestic cattle, teaching our traditional

23 language and ways of the land, hosting gatherings

24 and ceremonies. And these all depend on the

25 health of the land. 178

1 So how would New Prosperity

2 Mine impact traditional use? Well, it's already

3 been discussed already, but I'll review some of

4 them. It will potentially eliminate deer and

5 moose hunting, fishing, berry picking, medicinal

6 plant collecting from the Fish Lake area. It will

7 result in greater wildlife fatalities from

8 traffic, collision and greater recreational

9 hunting and fishing which will limit the

10 availability of wild foods for the Xeni Gwet'in.

11 It will potentially reduce traditional activities

12 in adjacent waters and land due to concerns over

13 contamination.

14 So the Xeni Gwet'in have real

15 concerns over not just contamination in the Fish

16 Lake area, but the land adjacent to it. It will

17 shift traditional use into a smaller area which

18 will make it harder animals to survive and the

19 Xeni Gwet'in to sustain traditional activities.

20 And lastly, it will negative

21 impact traditional fishing and water sources down

22 stream if there is significant contamination.

23 Sustainable jobs and income.

24 We envision employment and income creation that is

25 based on renewable resource use and value added 179

1 manufacturing consistent with our ecosystem-based

2 plan.

3 How will New Prosperity impact

4 this? Well, obviously there will be opportunity

5 for some jobs and royalties which is a positive,

6 but those jobs and income will be based on a

7 non-renewable resource development approach.

8 There may be little interest in mining jobs among

9 the Xeni Gwet'in at present because of their

10 opposition to the project. Most semi-skilled and

11 skilled jobs will probably go to outside workers,

12 not to the Xeni Gwet'in. Labour drawn to the mine

13 will take away from local projects, enterprise and

14 development. Much of the money earned from those

15 who do work at the mine will be spent outside of

16 the community, the Nemiah Valley, and it is

17 uncertain so far, at least to my knowledge, what

18 royalties will trickle down to the Xeni Gwet'in if

19 there are any.

20 Self-reliance. We aspire to

21 depend as much as possible upon our own resources

22 and capabilities to fulfill our needs. How will

23 the mine impact this? Well, in some ways it'll be

24 positive, there will be some income to the

25 community via employment and royalties. But 180

1 proposed mine will negatively impact self reliance

2 by restricting traditional food gathering, and

3 I've talked about it already, by drawing labour

4 away from production of local good and services

5 and by tying the community even closer to the cash

6 economy.

7 Resilience. We aspire to be

8 resilient people supported by our diversity of

9 skills and food, energy systems, as well as

10 diversity of businesses, public services, all

11 grounded in a healthy ecosystem and culture.

12 How will the mine impact the

13 resilience? Well, there will be increased

14 economic activity from the mine. That's, I think,

15 without a doubt but at a cost of community

16 resilience to some degree. It will harm existing

17 wilderness tourism sector and the emerging

18 wilderness tourism sector which the Xeni wish to

19 develop. It will draw flavor from local projects

20 potentially. It will reduce ecological diversity

21 in the area, and it will weaken local food

22 security which are all important to community

23 resilience.

24 Capacity bidding. We aspire to

25 strengthen our administrative, technical business 181

1 and resource management skills in order to enhance

2 our self governance capacity.

3 So how will the mine impact

4 this? It may provide some opportunity for work

5 experience and technical training, that's true,

6 but the uptake may be small at this point because

7 opposition of the Xeni Gwet'in people, and

8 management and high skill capacities are not

9 likely to be fostered among the Xeni Gwet'in

10 because positions will likely be filled from

11 outside.

12 Lastly, there's a bit of a

13 cascading risk, if the proposed mine goes ahead,

14 it opens the door to more mine development in the

15 area which will compound the effects already

16 discussed above.

17 So in summary, the Xeni Gwet'in

18 have a vision of how they want to develop their

19 land. It's based on historical use and moving

20 forward in an ecologically sustainable manner.

21 The proposed New Prosperity Mine doesn't honour

22 this vision; indeed, it threatens the vision for

23 many years to come, and therefore the very self

24 determination of Xeni Gwet'in. If there is any

25 integrity in the government's commitment to First 182

1 Nations rights and the duty to consult, the

2 government must honour this Xeni Gwet'in vision

3 and disallow the New Prosperity Mine project.

4 Thank you.

5 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

6 Mr. Lerner. I would ask if there are any

7 questions from the Government of Canada, but I

8 think that would be impossible. Sorry. If there

9 are any Government of Canada people with

10 questions, I would be happy to entertain them but

11 they don't seem to be here so I would move on to

12 any First Nations interested parties who have

13 questions for Mr. Lerner? Any interested party

14 organizations with questions for Mr. Lerner? Any

15 interested party individuals?

16 Mr. Birchwater?

17 MR. BIRCHWATER: Thank you.

18 Mr. Lerner, I'm wondering if you can tell us what

19 would be the impact on a subsistent lifestyle way

20 of life community by having a high income

21 cash-based enterprise brought right into the

22 community; what kind of impact would that have on

23 the morale and way of life that people know there

24 now?

25 MR. LERNER: I'm not an expert 183

1 in that area so I'm not really sure. From what

2 I've heard from the Xeni Gwet'in is it has the

3 potential of drawing off people from the community

4 and it's project. But also people with regular

5 employment and high-level income would tend to buy

6 their food rather than hunt and fish. I'm not

7 sure what impact that would have. I'm not an

8 expert in that area.

9 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Any other

10 interested party individuals with questions for

11 Mr. Lerner?

12 Taseko?

13 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you very

14 much for your presentation. With regards to the

15 ecosystem plan that you showed on the screen,

16 perhaps you'd be so kind to flip that map up and

17 in the report it's a little bit fuzzy, the one

18 online.

19 I was going to ask a question

20 about the legend on the map, but I see on your

21 screen you don't have that. From what I can tell

22 in the document that's online, can you confirm the

23 project area is within the hunting and trapping

24 and plant gathering area that is yellow and green?

25 MR. LERNER: Yeah, I think 184

1 that's correct.

2 MS. GIZIKOFF: Could you also

3 confirm for me what those darker brown blobs are?

4 I believe in the legend I can make out the word

5 "wildlife and wildlife habitat."

6 MR. LERNER: I'm not intimately

7 familiar with the plan. I didn't do the plan.

8 But we can certainly get you a copy of that if you

9 want, and all the details are there in.

10 MS. GIZIKOFF: Okay. That's of

11 interest. I would appreciate that to know what

12 those critical wildlife areas.

13 And also, we would be

14 interested in knowing what the pink areas are. I

15 think it says "Cultural Values" and I'm interested

16 to know if they're at all related to something

17 like the cultural keystone areas that we heard a

18 presentation on yesterday?

19 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I have a

20 greater interest in undertakings now because I

21 promised I would pay more attention to them. I'm

22 trying to determine whether the response from

23 Mr. Lerner was to undertake to get you this, and

24 I'm asking Mr. Lerner whether now that there are

25 at least councillor Marilyn back here, whether 185

1 someone from the Xeni Gwet'in area may be able to

2 do this right now in order to avoid an undertaking

3 or whether there's a time in which you would

4 provide that response?

5 MR. LERNER: Marilyn, do you

6 want to answer that or should we have an

7 undertaking?

8 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mr. Nelson?

9 MR. NELSON: Thank you, Mr.

10 Chairman. That might be a discussion that

11 requires more than councillor Marilyn on her own.

12 If we could maybe get back to the Panel on that

13 request.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Sure. The

15 only reason I suggested it was he suggested

16 someone may come up subsequently from Xeni

17 Gwet'in, and I was just trying to explore that.

18 Thank you. Then that will be an undertaking and

19 over what period of time would you need to provide

20 that information?

21 MR. LERNER: Is two weeks

22 acceptable?

23 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: No.

24 MR. LERNER: A couple of days.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That would 186

1 be certainly satisfactory. August the 8th would

2 be fine, because I think that's when we said all

3 of the other ones are due. Is that going to work

4 for you folks?

5 MR. LERNER: I think that's

6 fine. Do you want it in digital or hard copy.

7 How do we send it to you?

8 MS. GIZIKOFF: Just legible

9 would be fine. It's just the legend on the map is

10 not readable on the Internet.

11 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Digital

12 would be good for us.

13 MR. LERNER: Do you just want

14 the map or do you want --

15 MS. GIZIKOFF: No, the report

16 to quantify what the various categories are would

17 be of value.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

19 for that. Sorry, Ms. Gizikoff. I interrupted.

20 MS. GIZIKOFF: Just one more

21 question. In the appendix of the report of the

22 Submission Table 5 Capacity Development

23 Priorities, listed on that there's a variety of

24 things related to your discussion, but also is

25 encouraging trade training for electrician, light 187

1 and heavy duty mechanic, there's a variety of

2 them. Could you respond as to what value

3 something like the BC/AMPTA Program might have in

4 promoting training for those skill sets,

5 recognizing your comments about mining, or

6 anything else related to initiatives that the Xeni

7 Gwet'in have taken to get training in those areas?

8 MR. LERNER: I don't know if I

9 can comment on the BC/AMPTA, but I can say this:

10 Most of that training was based on current needs

11 and on needs that would come about by some of the

12 enterprise development they were planning. That's

13 where it comes from.

14 MS. GIZIKOFF: Enterprise

15 development?

16 MR. LERNER: If you look at the

17 report, there's a number of things around import

18 substitution and export-based development. That's

19 where it comes from.

20 MS. GIZIKOFF: I thought

21 perhaps you were meaning the Xeni Gwet'in

22 enterprises. So...

23 MR. LERNER: No.

24 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you 188

1 Miss Gizikoff.

2 George?

3 MR. KUPFER: When you were on

4 this particular page you made the comment that

5 Xeni Gwet'in had been working on this for years.

6 Could you put a little bit more clarity on that?

7 MR. LERNER: As you probably

8 know, there's a shortage of money to do a lot of

9 things on reserves, so it's been basically piecing

10 together funds to pay consultants to develop this

11 plan over many years, plus it takes a long time to

12 consult properly with the community and other

13 people in the area. It's probably taken 10 years

14 to do this.

15 MR. KUPFER: That's what I was

16 looking for. Thank you.

17 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: This plan,

18 if it's taken 10 years, came well after the

19 caretaker area was first established in some

20 sense. I'm trying to get a sense of what the

21 caretaker area is in the context of the culture of

22 Xeni Gwet'in; could you help me there?

23 MR. LERNER: I probably can't,

24 but maybe Councillor Marilyn could answer that.

25 MS. BAPTISTE: This is in 189

1 regards to the ecosystem based planning. That was

2 a work that was done and began after a lot of the

3 controversy in our territory over another

4 industrial activity in clear cut logging and of

5 course that work has been going forward and being

6 piece-mealed together as John said. And as well

7 as including our people trying to work on building

8 our foundation and our economy in a diversified

9 and sustainable manner. I don't know if answered

10 your question.

11 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That

12 certainly is helpful, and I suspect I'll learn

13 some more next week. But for the time being, that

14 would be -- it's quite good. Did you have more?

15 MS. BAPTISTE: I was just going

16 to say exactly that, that you will hear a lot of

17 information in our communities, but it will not be

18 specifically referencing or recommending you to

19 our ecosystem-based planning because our way is

20 not in these technical terms, just for your

21 information. Thank you.

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I'm

23 certainly open to other pieces of information that

24 will help me. Mr. Lerner, you said you were more

25 of an economist so this may be closer to your 190

1 alley. You alluded to Xeni tourism. I've heard

2 about that throughout the hearing, but I'm trying

3 to understand more about what is the plan for

4 tourism development in the caretaker area or by

5 the Xeni Gwet'in generally?

6 MR. LERNER: I think in general

7 it's to continue to develop the wilderness tourism

8 sector which is already there. Mainly, which is

9 developed mainly from non-First Nations. But the

10 Xeni Gwet'in are at the point where they've

11 thought about it enough and planned enough that

12 they would really like to get involved in that.

13 So it would be things like

14 building on their existing rodeo, building on

15 trail riding, developing luxury camps, maybe

16 resort, that sort of thing. So it's basically

17 building on wilderness tourism heritage.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Councillor

19 Marilyn.

20 MS. BAPTISTE: I just would

21 like to add that we are looking to do exactly that

22 presentation in Xeni Gwet'in hearings and we also

23 did that in the last panel process. Thank you.

24 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

25 I didn't remember the one from last time. In that 191

1 case, I think we're done with questioning. Thank

2 you very much for your presentation Mr. Lerner.

3 Our next speaker is Patt

4 Larcombe.

5 Ms. Larcombe, go right ahead.

6 PRESENTATION BY PATT LARCOMBE:

7 MS. LARCOMBE: Good afternoon,

8 Panel members, hearing participants and observers.

9 My name is Patt Larcombe and that's spelled

10 P-A-T-T, L-A-R-C-O-M-B-E, and I'm presenting here

11 today as an expert for the Chilcotin Nation.

12 I'm a private consultant based

13 out of Winnipeg, Manitoba and my credentials and

14 experience are relevant to my presentation today

15 are outlined in my written submission dated July

16 22 and listed as Document No. 714.

17 I'm honoured to be in the

18 homelands of the First Nations and nations of the

19 territory and of course I'm honoured to be in this

20 community in the Cariboo-Chilcotin region.

21 During the review of the

22 previous prosperity proposal there was a

23 substantial body of information established on a

24 number of things, namely Chilcotin current use of

25 lands and resources for traditional purposes, the 192

1 cultural and spiritual importance of an area

2 called Nabas and the impact of the Prosperity Mine

3 as it was proposed then. You've already heard

4 directly from a number of Chilcotin nation leaders

5 and members as well as experts about the

6 importance of the area where this proposed mine is

7 located. And I'm sure during the following weeks,

8 you'll hear more directly from Chilcotin members

9 during the community hearings.

10 My presentation today has two

11 general purposes. First, I offered as a primer of

12 Chilcotin current use of land and resources for

13 traditional purposes, and for the rest of my

14 presentation today rather than using that very

15 long phrase, I'm going to abbreviate it to just

16 current use.

17 Second, I'm going to be

18 highlighting what I believe are the certain and

19 likely impacts on current use that this new design

20 of the New Prosperity Mine would have. Today I'm

21 only going to be addressing the proposed mine site

22 component, the transportation route, transmission

23 line and load out facilities remain the same as

24 they were in the original proposal, and therefore,

25 I would say the previous Panel's findings remain. 193

1 Before I delve into these two

2 subject areas I'd like to set the stage by

3 providing some context on three important matters.

4 The first is an overview of the

5 record to date concerning current use and the

6 record concerning the impact on current use.

7 The second is when I use the

8 term "current use" today and in my report, what I

9 mean by that phrase.

10 And thirdly, because this is

11 the Chilcotin territory and they do have names for

12 places within their territory, I'd like to give a

13 brief geography lesson.

14 So prior to the original

15 project review, there were three main bodies of

16 information regarding current use in the

17 geographic area of the proposed project and these

18 bodies were report by Ms. Cindy Ehrhart English,

19 which is dated 1994, which at the time she

20 prepared for Taseko. A full copy of her report

21 was included in Taseko's original EIS at Volume 7,

22 Appendix 7-2-C. Her report focussed exclusively

23 on a study area around the mine as it was

24 contemplated in the early 1990's.

25 The second body of work was a 194

1 study done by Chilcotin nation itself during the

2 time frame from 1997 to 2001, and this study

3 documented traditional use or current use

4 throughout their broader territory.

5 And third body of information

6 came directly from the testimony and evidence of

7 Chilcotin members during the previous hearing

8 process.

9 All of those 3 sources were

10 summarized by myself in the previous panel review

11 process in a report called The Chilcotin Current

12 Use of Land and Resources Traditional Purposes. I

13 know Taseko included a full copy of that report in

14 their New Prosperity EIS located at 2.6.4B,

15 Part 1. I also note that I gave a verbal

16 presentation of that report to the previous Panel

17 on March 29, 2010.

18 So as I said, there was a

19 substantial amount of new information that came

20 directly from Chilcotin members during the

21 community hearings. According to the previous

22 Panel, there was over 125 individuals or groups

23 who made presentations and gave evidence. On

24 April 30 of 2010, I presented a synthesis of all

25 of that new information and presented it to the 195

1 previous panel in a study much like this, and that

2 presentation is in Volume 3 of the previous

3 Panel's hearing transcripts. There's also an

4 accompanying Power Point that went with that

5 presentation and that was registered on the

6 previous Panel's registry as No. 2290.

7 My most recent written

8 submission I alluded to earlier dated July 22 is a

9 further summary of all that record just described.

10 In addition, that most recent written submission

11 includes some of the previous Panel's findings as

12 they related to each subject area.

13 Finally, in my written

14 submission regarding impact, I looked at the

15 previous record, but I also looked at the new

16 project description for the New Prosperity Mine

17 and I was looking at it to look at what is the

18 same and what has changed.

19 This slide No. 4 is my attempt

20 to illustrate in one diagram all of the activities

21 and products and values that comprise current use.

22 Each of the circles in this diagram has been

23 discussed much during the previous Panel process

24 and during written -- some of my written

25 submissions and in my most recent submission and 196

1 given the time frame today, I'm not going to go

2 into each one of those but to assure you that

3 current use is more than the physical act of going

4 out and harvesting a plant or an animal or a fish.

5 There are economic, there are social and there are

6 spiritual components to that and combined they

7 make up what I'm referring to as current use.

8 So I offer this diagram to you

9 as a panel if you will as a cheat sheet or an

10 anchor or a frame in which as you hear

11 information, you might be able to see where it

12 fits into each of these circles in the diagram.

13 In my written submission and in

14 the previous panel review process, being a

15 geographer it's in our nature, I came up with two

16 geographic areas. One I referred to as Nabas

17 Central, and the other area I referred to as

18 Greater Nabas. I carried on with those two

19 geographic descriptions in my most recent

20 submission. I'd like to just run through a bit of

21 geography of Nabas Central and Greater Nabas. And

22 you have to bear with me. I'm going to do my very

23 best to pronounce Chilcotin place names properly.

24 What I've called Nabas Central

25 is outlined on this map in the dashed yellow line. 197

1 At the south end of the yellow dashed area is box

2 B and 'B' is actually spelled B-I-N-Y, and Biny

3 means lake.

4 Moving northerly, Nabas Central

5 takes in the entire Fish Creek watershed or Teztan

6 Yeqox, and hopefully I'm pronouncing that

7 properly, but it's spelled T-E-Z-T-A-N space,

8 Y-E-Q-O-X and that is the Fish Creek. Within that

9 watershed we have, Y'anah Biny, which is

10 Y-A-N-A-H, B-I-N-Y and then the next larger water

11 body is Teztan Biny or Fish Lake spelled

12 T-E-Z-T-A-N, B-I-N-Y.

13 For my purposes, Nabas Central

14 follows the entire Fish Creek down to where it

15 joins the Taseko River which is Dasiqox in the

16 Chilcotin language, and I hope I haven't butchered

17 it. And it's spelled D-A-S-I-Q-O-X. It includes

18 the water bodies and the adjacent meadows,

19 grasslands, riparian areas and forested areas.

20 Nabas Central is where the proposed mine footprint

21 is situated.

22 Greater Nabas is depicted on

23 this map in the dashed black outline and again

24 this is a representation. Nabas is not a precise

25 geographic area. You won't find it on any other 198

1 map probably other than the map you're looking at

2 today. Greater Nabas starts at Anvil Mountain and

3 takes in (Native being spoken), which is also

4 Onion Lake and continues along the east side of

5 the Taseko River until it meets again Fish Creek.

6 This slide 6 is a pictorial

7 synthesis of why Nabas Central is so important to

8 the Chilcotin. Throughout the previous panel,

9 testimony and evidence and findings of the Panel,

10 all of the values that are in each of these circle

11 have been described at length and how each one of

12 these interconnected combined is why Nabas Central

13 is so important to the Chilcotin, and that is

14 quite evident in the record so far. The long term

15 and continuing unique importance of this area was

16 specifically recognized by the previous panel when

17 they said, "The Teztan Biny and the Nabas areas

18 are unique and of special significance to the

19 Chilcotin."

20 Many of the attributes and

21 values that are the same as what I've just shown

22 in the previous graphic for central Nabas. Again,

23 the previous Panel review documented the

24 importance of this area and I've summarized it

25 again in my July 22 report. 199

1 I'm now going to spend the rest

2 of my allocated time talking about what I expect

3 are the certain and the likely expected impacts on

4 current use if the project as proposed were to

5 proceed. My assessment is based on the evidence

6 by Chilcotin in the original panel review, my own

7 assessment and conclusions that were reached

8 during that previous review process, the

9 conclusions of the original Panel and the

10 components of the New Prosperity plan that were

11 presented and reviewed at the previous Panel which

12 remain the same under this proposal.

13 My assessment is also based on

14 some of the things that are new or different from

15 the original proposal; namely, the plan to use

16 Y'anah Biny and portions of Teztan Creek for a

17 tailings storage facility. In the previous

18 proposal most of Y'anah Biny would have been

19 replaced with a fish habitat compensation lake,

20 but this time around it would be a tailing storage

21 facility. I've also considered the plan to

22 preserve the physicality of Teztan Biny, Taseko's

23 plans for escorted access to Teztan Biny and

24 finally Taseko's proposed no access and no

25 shooting designations in the area. 200

1 As a Panel, you get to hear

2 directly from the Chilcotin members in the

3 community hearings. I'm sure you'll hear a lot

4 firsthand so some of the aspects of my assessment

5 today you should consider preliminary. I haven't

6 had the opportunity here firsthand from them

7 either so I reserve any sort of final conclusions

8 on my part until the community hearings are done.

9 As I said, part of my

10 assessment in terms of impact on current use deals

11 with direct changes in the landscape resulting

12 from the proposed foot prints, but also

13 restrictions on access and the proposed no

14 shooting zone. This map might look familiar to

15 you, it's Taseko's map. It was provided to you in

16 response to Information Request No. 40. I have

17 clipped and annotated this map to show the three

18 lakes for orienting us today. On this map, the

19 gray, darker gray hatched area is the area that

20 Taseko has proposed would be a no access area. So

21 my understanding of this type of designation is

22 for safety and security reasons, Chilcotin members

23 would not be permitted to go into that area to

24 engage in current use. According to Taseko this

25 designation and prohibition on use in this area 201

1 would be for a minimum 44 years covering

2 construction, operation and closure phases of the

3 proposed mine. Taseko has planned for access to

4 Teztan Biny and on this map there's a red linear

5 feature which is where they propose escorted

6 access would be through the physical footprint of

7 the mine to Teztan Biny, and in their response to

8 Information Request No. 40 they've outlined the

9 various companies that would go along with that

10 access.

11 The gray hatched area according

12 to our estimate covers an extent of 28.7 square

13 kilometers. Is the pink-toned area on this map is

14 what is being proposed to be designated as a no

15 shoot zone. My understanding is that Chilcotin

16 would be prohibited from discharging a firearm

17 within this area for purposes of current use,

18 which if you break that down what that means is

19 within that entire pink zone you would not be

20 allowed to shoot and harvest any larger animal

21 such as a moose or a deer, a grouse or waterfowl.

22 Additionally as I've written in my written report,

23 this has implications for certain trapping of

24 certain fur bearer species, the larger fur

25 bearers, where it's not infrequent for a trapper 202

1 to have to humanely shoot the animal once it's

2 been caught in the trap. So that pink zone would

3 also be essentially off limits for trapping larger

4 fur bearers.

5 Combined the no access and the

6 no shoot designation would mean that Chilcotin

7 were prohibited from hunting basically in this

8 area and large fur bearer trapping. That's 60

9 square kilometers of intact, rich, diverse

10 landscape currently used by Chilcotin for

11 harvesting purposes.

12 In my written report I provided

13 some population projections and have indicated

14 that the Chilcotin population is expected to

15 double within the next 45 years or the same time

16 frame in which these proposed designations are in

17 place. Going forward, Chilcotin in order to meet

18 their desired needs for harvesting, are going to

19 need more land and more resources, not less. So

20 this 60 square kilometer loss would need to be

21 considered quite critically.

22 In my written report, I grouped

23 three direct or primary types of impact. I've

24 labeled them destruction, displacement and

25 avoidance. When I speak of destruction what I 203

1 mean the permanent footprint features of proposed

2 mine would permanently alter the landscape or

3 water scape in a way that would present current

4 use from ever occurring there again. Not just

5 long term, it's permanent. Y'anah Biny and

6 portions of Fish Creek would be permanently

7 transformed by the proposed tailings storage

8 facility. This means the well document the

9 ancestral and historic, physical, cultural and

10 spiritual features associated with Y'anah Biny and

11 the surrounding meadows and portions of the creek

12 would be permanently destroyed. As well any

13 future opportunity to engage in other current use

14 activities within that footprint would be forever

15 lost. The open pit would also permanently alter

16 the terrestrial, riparian and river area north of

17 Teztan Biny. Future opportunity to engage in

18 current use in this area would be forever lost.

19 With respect to displacement,

20 the no access area designation would prohibit all

21 forms of current use throughout that area shown in

22 gray on the previous slide. This is an area the

23 Chilcotin can temporarily use for harvesting deer,

24 moose, plants, trapping, overnighting and

25 livestock grazing. If instrument in the no 204

1 shooting zone would prohibit also harvesting of

2 deer, moose, grouse and waterfowl for at least

3 several generations. Notably the entire area on

4 the north half of Teztan Biny would be off limits

5 for shooting.

6 Taseko, in their environmental

7 impact statement, quantifies this areal extent of

8 loss of access to hunting and trapping areas and

9 they did this based on the mapped harvest areas

10 from the Cindy English report and then overlayed

11 their 2012 mine disturbance area. They did that

12 to illustrate the new proposal has a smaller

13 footprint and therefore, less impact.

14 In my written submission in

15 Tables 4 and 5, I've recalculated these tables

16 because Taseko had not included the no shooting

17 zone in those calculations. So for example,

18 Taseko reported that the mine development area

19 would eliminate 17 to 18 percent of the moose and

20 deer harvesting areas. However, if you include

21 the no shooting zones, that bring these figures

22 closer to 40 and 41 percent. For the same reason,

23 areas lost to waterfowl and grouse hunting are

24 also estimated.

25 Although Teztan Biny in the 205

1 area just south of this lake would not be within

2 this proposed no shoot zone, as I'll be discussing

3 shortly, I think it's highly unlikely current use

4 would continue even without those designations.

5 With respect to avoidance,

6 during the original Prosperity hearings many

7 Chilcotin members strongly expressed that if the

8 mine were to be built, they would not harvest

9 animals, plants or fish throughout central Nabas

10 and possibly beyond due to disturbance and

11 contaminant concerns. The link between

12 contaminant concerns and cessation of food

13 harvesting was described at length by the previous

14 Panel and by Ms. Sherri Houston(ph) who was the

15 primary health care provider at Xeni Gwet'in at

16 that time. Dr. Elaine who was here this morning

17 from Health Canada also told the previous Panel

18 and this Panel this very morning that it's not

19 uncommon for First Nations to totally avoid

20 harvesting an area due to contaminant concerns.

21 Risk perception and risk

22 tolerance are variable at the family and

23 individual level; however, based on the depth of

24 concern that's expressed by the Chilcotin in the

25 previous panel hearing, I would say there's a high 206

1 likelihood that that contaminant concern is going

2 to manifest in avoidance of harvesting animals,

3 fish and plants in the Nabas area and likely

4 beyond.

5 In the case of Teztan Biny,

6 Taseko proposes to preserve the physicality of the

7 lake, including measures to retain it as a

8 trout-bearing lake, to provide escorted access

9 through the mine site to the shore of the lake,

10 and not to restrict access, camping or plant

11 harvesting and harvesting of smaller animals where

12 a firearm is not required. I'm sure as a Panel

13 will hear directly from the Chilcotin during the

14 community hearings whether or not these proposed

15 plans are going to address their concerns. I

16 submit that these plans are highly unlikely to

17 work and the Chilcotin will not continue to go to

18 Teztan Biny for culture and spiritual purposes or

19 to harvest animals, fish or plants. Based on the

20 strength of the concern expressed by the Chilcotin

21 about the importance of Teztan Biny, this lake, if

22 the project were approved, would become situated

23 downstream of a massive tailings storage facility

24 and directly adjacent to an operating open pit.

25 This combination of noise and general disturbance 207

1 and contaminant concerns would make it a very

2 unattractive place.

3 The cumulative effect of the

4 mine operation would be effective to completely

5 negate the cultural and spiritual value of Teztan

6 Biny and it's vicinity. Avoidance of Teztan Biny

7 for several generations, in my view, the

8 continuity they have to this place would be

9 severed.

10 Also based on the depth of

11 concern regarding mine-related contaminants

12 expressed to the previous Panel, there's a high

13 likelihood that the Chilcotin would also avoid

14 activities, current-use activities, in those

15 remaining areas of Nabas Central that would not be

16 subject to the no access or no shoot designations.

17 There's a high likelihood they would avoid current

18 use in all or most portions of Greater Nabas. In

19 particular, there's a strong likelihood food

20 fishing avoidance would occur on the downstream of

21 the Taseko, Biny Creek and Onion and Little Onion

22 Lake. And all of these are important for fishing.

23 The Chilcotin told the previous Panel if the mine

24 were built, they would avoid fishing in the waters

25 downstream of that watershed and that includes the 208

1 Taseko River which is an important salmon fishing

2 river, as well the level of concern extended down

3 to the Chilko River. They also expressed they

4 would avoid harvesting animals and plants as far

5 as the Red Mountain, which is to the south and

6 west of Anvil Mountain.

7 In the PowerPoint presentation

8 I have created two slides that provided a

9 breakdown by geographic area, but due to time

10 constraints I'm going to pass those two slides.

11 However, they're there as a synopsis.

12 Slide 16 is the same graphic

13 that's in my July 22 written submission. A

14 breadth of information on social, cultural,

15 physical and mental health and economic impact was

16 presented to the previous Panel and the previous

17 Panel made findings on those issues. It's my

18 opinion that the original Panel's conclusion

19 regarding the effects on current use, ceremony,

20 teachings, cultural and spiritual practice would

21 be irreversible, high magnitude and long term and

22 that would still apply under the New Prosperity

23 Mine.

24 So in conclusion the conversion

25 of Y'anah Biny and surrounding area to a tailing 209

1 storage facility would have at least the same

2 impact as the original proposal, and current use

3 and cultural attachment to Y'anah Biny would be

4 permanently last or destroyed. There is no

5 feasible way to mitigate this. Conversion of the

6 area north of Teztan Biny to an open pit would

7 have the same impacts as the original proposal.

8 Current use would be permanently lost in this area

9 and there's no mitigating this impact.

10 Not withstanding the plan to

11 preserve Teztan Biny, continuation of current use

12 and the retention of the cultural and spiritual

13 connection to this area, is highly doubtful. The

14 extent of current use displacement in the proposed

15 no access and no shoot designation areas remains

16 extensive.

17 There's nothing new in the New

18 Prosperity proposal that would reduce the already

19 strongly-expressed Chilcotin concerns about safety

20 of water, plants, fish and animals as food and

21 medicinal resources. Avoidance of current use

22 throughout Nabas Central, Greater Nabas and

23 potentially beyond remains a very strong likely

24 hood.

25 Lastly, there's a high 210

1 probability the combined impacts would lead to the

2 same social, cultural, physical and mental and

3 health impact identified by the original

4 prosperity panel. They characterized these as

5 high magnitude, long term, irreversible and

6 (unintelligible).

7 This is the end of my

8 presentation. I thank you for listening to me

9 today. And I'm honoured that the Chilcotin nation

10 has entrusted me to speak with you on these

11 matters. Thank you.

12 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

13 very much, Ms. Larcombe. Questions from the

14 Government of Canada? Questions from First

15 Nations interested parties? Questions from

16 interested party organizations? Questions from

17 interested party individuals?

18 Taseko?

19 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you for

20 your presentation. A couple brief questions.

21 Were you involved in Xeni Gwet'in land use

22 planning process that we heard about a few moments

23 ago?

24 MS. LARCOMBE: No, I was not.

25 MS. GIZIKOFF: Is the only area 211

1 for the Xeni Gwet'in that you have applied the

2 interconnectedness approach to evaluating the

3 values and current use?

4 MS. LARCOMBE: The slide that

5 -- I can't remember which page it was. The

6 rendition of what the elements of current use are

7 would say current use that would apply to

8 indigenous peoples throughout their territory.

9 The slide that was the qualities specific to Nabas

10 Central is specific to that location.

11 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you. I

12 was just trying to make some linkages in

13 preparation for seeing that other report that we

14 heard about earlier this afternoon. That's the

15 only question I have. Other people are

16 clarifying, I'd like to make a clarification if I

17 may. It's very brief.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Please do.

19 MS. GIZIKOFF: With regard to

20 the no hunting zone for 44 years, in our IR40 we

21 do say no shooting will persist through all phases

22 of mining and that is our error for not being more

23 clear that it should not no have included the

24 post-closure phase. Thanks.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you 212

1 for the clarification. Are you done now? Thank

2 you.

3 MR. KUPFER: In your studies

4 with the Xeni Gwet'in people, do they have other

5 areas they would go to or might go to or do go to

6 now to achieve the same ends for food or for

7 culture or for...

8 MS. LARCOMBE: Well, the

9 Chilcotin nation has a broader territory and Nabas

10 Central is not the only place where harvesting

11 occurs. It is one of the few places that's not

12 been otherwise effected by logging operations or

13 privately-titled lands. It's import derives from

14 it's a one stop shop kind of place. It has good

15 resources, good fishing, but there's a very strong

16 cultural connection to Nabas Central.

17 MR. KUPFER: Thank you.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Your

19 terminology of Nabas Central, how widespread would

20 that be among the Chilcotin people, would they use

21 the same terminology, perhaps in a different

22 language, but would they include that, roughly

23 that area that you identified?

24 MS. LARCOMBE: Yes, generally.

25 As I said, I'm a geographer so we're kind of 213

1 compelled to do these things, based on reviewing

2 some of the trial evidence listening at Xeni

3 Gwet'in during the previous panel, I suggested

4 Nabas Central as the equivalent of a

5 neighbourhood; how we in our own communities are

6 not consistent in how we would describe a

7 neighbourhood either. I've included the entire

8 Fish Creek all the way down to the Taseko because

9 that is also part of an area that has potential

10 impact from the project itself. Some people refer

11 to Nabas as south of Teztan Biny, some include

12 Teztan Biny. The main geographic feature in my

13 mind comes from Nabas being the mountain.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: The main

15 reason I ask is as I've been listening to speakers

16 referring to Nabas, admittedly not Nabas Central,

17 but I got the impression that they were referring

18 to something south of Teztan Biny and if I hear

19 others refer to it, you're saying they're likely

20 to refer to it roughly as what used called Nabas

21 or Nabas Central.

22 MS. LARCOMBE: Okay.

23 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That's

24 helpful. Thank you. You indicated that the

25 original Panel's conclusion about significant 214

1 adverse effects to traditional land use and I

2 think you may have emphasized the inability to

3 mitigate those significant adverse effects as

4 likely continuing for New Prosperity. When you

5 said, "no feasible way to mitigate those effects,"

6 what ways did you contemplate mitigation and why

7 did you reject them as being not feasible?

8 MS. LARCOMBE: I don't

9 understand. Mitigation that I contemplated?

10 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: You said

11 there was no feasible way of mitigating, I think

12 I'll finish the sentence, I think I got it roughly

13 right, The significant adverse effects to

14 traditional land use by the Chilcotin in the area

15 of Nabas, Nabas Central, whatever.

16 MS. LARCOMBE: The two

17 concluding points where I said there was no

18 mitigation feasible, if you're turning a lake and

19 landscape into a tailings pond, you can't mitigate

20 the fact that you're never going to harvest a deer

21 or a plant. It's illogical. The character

22 forever changed. The same with the open pit; it's

23 not going to be a terrestrial environment ever

24 again. It's going to be a deep bit lake. There

25 is no way to mitigate the loss of those landscapes 215

1 or those waterscapes is what I was coming from.

2 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

3 That helps. In that case, we're finished now, Ms.

4 Larcombe. Thank you very much for your

5 presentation and you're response to questions.

6 At the beginning of this

7 session, I deferred a decision because the

8 Chilcotin folks were not here, and so I will

9 return to that and deal with the request that was

10 made earlier by TNG. The hearing procedures that

11 we use allow Taseko to respond to issues that

12 arise in each phase of the hearing. Taseko may

13 file rebuttal information if necessary. This

14 approach is fair because the Proponent can not

15 anticipate all the information and issues that may

16 arise during the hearing. If Taseko's rebuttal

17 information raises new topics, then others may

18 request a chance to question the new issues. The

19 Panel would decide on the merits of the question

20 and the process at that time.

21 In addition, the Panel may ask

22 any party, including Taseko, for an undertaking,

23 which would involve submission of additional

24 information. TNG's request to close the record

25 for project information by August 5th is denied. 216

1 However, all parties are asked, to the extent

2 possible, to make substantial submissions as early

3 as possible in order to be fair to other parties.

4 For those who came late, I also

5 made some notes about undertakings, and I'm not

6 going to repeat them. But they will be posted on

7 the registry.

8 The next speaker is Dr. Jonaki

9 Bhattacharyya, Friends of Nemiah Valley.

10 My colleague reminded me of

11 something else I'm supposed to warn us of. We

12 noted earlier in the day that there was a

13 substantial disruption out the door. We

14 understand that the snow birds are flying around

15 here because of an air show in Quesnel. Moreover

16 we believe approximately 2:45 they will be

17 visiting us again and so I don't want anyone to

18 get terribly excited. This is apparently a

19 planned event. We are not being attacked.

20 Dr. B Bhattacharyya.

21 PRESENTATION BY DR. JONAKI BHATTACHARYYA:

22 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: Thank you

23 very much Mr. Chairperson. Thank you to the

24 Scwempec First Nations on whose land we're

25 meeting, to the Chilcotin First Nations whose land 217

1 we're discussing, and the community of Williams

2 Lake for hosting us, and I thank the Panel members

3 for the opportunity to speak and your attention

4 after these long hearings.

5 My name is Jonaki

6 Bhattacharyya. I'm currently a post-doctoral

7 research fellow specializing in ethnoecology at

8 the University of Victoria. I have a PhD in

9 environmental planning, and a master's of

10 environmental studies from the University of

11 Waterloo, and a bachelor's degree in geography

12 with a focus on national resource management from

13 UVIC.

14 Between graduate research and

15 professional work in private and non profit

16 sections, I have been involved in land use

17 planning, natural resource management and wildlife

18 habitat conservation in B.C. for 15 years. For

19 the last 7 years I have focussed entirely on

20 research in Chilcotin territory, primarily Xeni

21 Gwet'in. Over those 7 years, I spent over 35

22 weeks of field time in and around the tribal

23 Nemiah Valley and the region around Fish Lake,

24 ground truthing research primarily on foot.

25 Today I'm here to describe key 218

1 cultural and social factors relevant to the

2 ecological systems that would be impacted by the

3 proposed New Prosperity Mine. I will highlight

4 for you the significance of those elements and the

5 region that includes Teztan Biny, Y'anah Biny and

6 Nabas.

7 After a brief definition of a

8 couple of terms, I'll comment on three main

9 points: How Chilcotin culture, knowledge and

10 community capacity are inextricably related to the

11 ecological systems that would be impacted; how

12 Teztan Biny and the surrounding project are vital

13 to the social and ecological resilience of the

14 Xeni Gwet'in and other Chilcotin communities; and

15 finally, the significance of the current social

16 ecological system in Chilcotin territory.

17 To clarify before we begin as

18 is customary in my discipline, my role is not to

19 speak for the Xeni Gwet'in or Chilcotin people.

20 Their voices are clear and you'll be hearing from

21 them directly as experts on their own culture in

22 the coming weeks. I speak of my experiences with

23 them respectfully as a professional bridging

24 between local communities and a community of

25 researchers and scholars. 219

1 To get a couple of terms

2 established before we progress, current research

3 and the most up to date professional practice in

4 land use planning and natural resource management

5 recognize that people and the environments in

6 which they live are inextricably interrelated

7 social, ecological systems. These systems are

8 complex and systemic.

9 An integrated approach to

10 planning for social environmental systems is key

11 to First Nations and to current western approaches

12 to resource decisions. The point here is that

13 impacts of the proposed New Prosperity Mine to the

14 environmental systems in the project area have

15 profound implications for Chilcotin society and

16 culture as well as local livelihoods and economy

17 for residents and well-being of all people

18 associated with this area. In terms of Panel's

19 mandate to assess Aboriginal rights and interests,

20 the points I speaking to you relate to cultural

21 heritage, the current use of land for traditional

22 purposes and to socioeconomic activities.

23 So the next term I want to

24 discuss briefly is social ecological resilience

25 which we've already heard reference to today. I 220

1 define it in more depth in my written submission

2 but for the sake of brevity here, it is an

3 integrated description of sustainability and the

4 capacity of communities and ecosystems to

5 withstand stress and disturbances and adapt to

6 change while retaining essential qualities.

7 So First Nations communities in

8 particular are under considerable stress as a

9 result of historical and ongoing political and

10 economic pressures. A recent article in the

11 Canadian Journal of Psychiatry speaks with

12 reference to resilience in the psychological

13 sense. In Canada the overriding social realities

14 of indigenous people include historical rootedness

15 to a specific place with traditional lands,

16 communities and transactions with the environment

17 and the profound displacement caused by

18 colonization and subsequent loss of autonomy,

19 political oppression and bureaucratic control.

20 As Sherry Houston reported at

21 the previous environmental assessment hearings in

22 2010 for the proposed mine at Teztan Biny, the

23 Xeni Gwet'in and other Chilcotin nation have

24 demonstrated the capacity to respond to, recover

25 and heal from these past stress with tremendous 221

1 strength. I want to suggest one key to their

2 strength, self reliance and resilience and their

3 adaptive capacity is the integrity of their land

4 base.

5 The area around Fish Lake is

6 increasingly important as other landscapes for

7 Chilcotin who practice traditional livelihood

8 activities, gather medicines and maintain their

9 spiritual and cultural strength are developed or

10 made inaccessible for various reasons.

11 I'm going to talk with you

12 about three key categories in the social

13 ecological system, the first being language,

14 knowledge and practices. The second being the

15 management of the natural resources and community

16 development, and the third being capacities, self

17 efficacy and strength.

18 It's important to be clear that

19 the cultural and social qualities I'm discussing

20 here are not only traditions, heritage or other

21 values that can be relegated to the past. They

22 are current. The ways people use the place and

23 it's resources are central to the healthy and

24 progressive future of people who dwell there.

25 Time spent on the land in specific places engaged 222

1 in particular activities there support evidence

2 space monitoring of natural resources, ongoing

3 maintenance of cultural, environmental knowledge

4 and cultural identity and, in turn, good

5 governance and community well-being through

6 progressive culturally appropriate development

7 within First Nations communities.

8 The Chilcotin language is most

9 effectively spoken, learned, understood and shared

10 in situ, on the land. So much of the richness of

11 cultural knowledge and practices is communicated

12 through and held within the Chilcotin language

13 which is linked with specific places ands

14 practices carried out in those places. In a

15 culture that is unique and orally maintained and

16 transmitted, knowledge is not fully or properly

17 written in books or documents so gaining knowledge

18 is a process as much as a concept. It's a way of

19 being that is inherent in relationships between

20 people and specific places. A severe alteration

21 to the landscapes and natural systems in the

22 project area that is not culturally mediated will

23 fundamentally impact the availability and the

24 richness of cultural knowledge. If people stop

25 going to engage in cultural practices in certain 223

1 place, the corresponding parts of the language and

2 cultural knowledge are at risk.

3 Such changes would effect the

4 local communities in the same way the removal of

5 libraries, archives and schools would effect

6 communities of western cultures. The landscape

7 plants, animals, habitats, waters courses and

8 ecosystems within the project area for the

9 proposed mines are primary cultural facilities of

10 local communities for Chilcotin people. These

11 facilities can not be replaced or moved to new

12 locations nor can their functions be reduced to

13 structure parts alone. For example, the

14 redistribution of fish population is not effective

15 mitigation or compensation and may still represent

16 is cultural loss as a result of the qualitative

17 impacts to cultural, spiritual and social values

18 that are damaged, both in the impacted environment

19 at the mine site and also in the modified

20 compensation sites.

21 So the Xeni Gwet'in and

22 Chilcotin First Nations have a long tradition of

23 successfully managing the natural resources in

24 their territory. The current state of fresh water

25 systems, wildlife and fish population and intact 224

1 forest systems and their abundance are outcomes of

2 traditional management systems by Chilcotin. Many

3 current plans the Xeni Gwet'in have for ongoing

4 and future resource management, economic

5 development and community well-being are rooted in

6 these traditional management systems.

7 So, a key criterion for

8 evaluating the succession of natural resource

9 management decisions in this region is whether

10 they're compatible with and supportive of the

11 maintenance of culturally appropriate interactions

12 between people and their landscape. In other

13 words, management actions and development that

14 facilitates stronger relationships between people

15 and their lands, long term social, ecological

16 resilience and ongoing cultural well-being while

17 supporting diverse livelihood activities within

18 the communities are a sign of progressive natural

19 resource management and truly sustainable

20 development. Conversely, the use of resources in

21 a way that hinders, removes or damages people's

22 ability to relate to the land, or irreversibly

23 alters or harms social, ecological resilience

24 while narrowing options for livelihood activities

25 within the local area are regressive and 225

1 unsustainable.

2 Natural resources are not

3 simply things in traditional management systems

4 for many indigenous cultures including the

5 Chilcotin, but rather reflect relationships and

6 processes. So maintaining Xeni Gwet'in and

7 Chilcotin rights to fish, hunt and harvest natural

8 resources in the project areas does not simply

9 mean maintaining a apply in populations of those

10 plants and animals. Of equal importance is the

11 maintenance of where and how those resources are

12 harvested and accessed. Essential qualities of

13 the whole system and place must be maintained,

14 such as distance from intensive resource

15 development, sacred quietness, the absence of dust

16 and contaminants and safety from the impacts of

17 culturally inappropriate human behaviour.

18 These qualitative factors

19 directly influence the spiritual power of

20 traditional medicines, cultural experiences on the

21 land, and has the psychological and physical

22 health of people engaging in traditional

23 activities. They can not be maintained through

24 the replacement or preservation of structural

25 features alone. The they depend on the integrity 226

1 of the system as a whole qualitatively as well as

2 ecosystem structure and function.

3 So retaining the structural

4 features of Fish Lake while impacting the

5 surrounding lands and watershed, while it may be a

6 solution to some of the recreational or other

7 interests is not a solution to the negative social

8 and cultural effects of the proposed mine. It

9 must be emphasized that mitigation and

10 compensation measures such as transplanting fish

11 to increase population numbers, building berms and

12 altering stream flow in other places and other

13 such matters are neither a benefit nor desirable

14 outcomes within a traditional management system.

15 Because people use the resources is not about a

16 single species use or accessing only one species

17 at a time, it's about the highly complex and

18 diversified resource use patterns where people go

19 to a place to access multiple plants and animals,

20 harvest and interact with many elements of that

21 place in a certain way. So summarize that point,

22 the places and processes by which Chilcotin people

23 hunt, fish and harvest natural resources are as

24 crucial as the things themselves.

25 Bear with me while we switch 227

1 gears for a moment here. I'm going to define and

2 term and tie it into this project. Psychologist

3 Albert(muffled) defines perceived collective

4 efficacy as, "A group's shared belief in it's

5 conjoined capabilities to organize and execute the

6 courses of action required to produce given levels

7 of attainment."

8 I'm not a psychologist so

9 that's a mouthful. Self efficacy is a sense of

10 one's ability to cope with certain circumstances.

11 It is the confidence based on experience that one

12 can figure out how to get through a situation and

13 successfully deal with it.

14 Self efficacy has been strongly

15 linked with individual and group success in

16 achieving goals, and we're going to tie this in to

17 the importance of the area around Fish Lake. For

18 many Xeni Gwet'in colleagues, personal strengths

19 and identity are integrated with their self

20 efficacy as caretakers and protectors of the land.

21 This self efficacy arises from engaged decision

22 making regarding local land and resources. It

23 characterizes people's behaviour and governance

24 decisions about community priorities, land use and

25 their only development. So it's important to 228

1 current and future generations to continue to

2 protect the land and to combine traditional values

3 with modern livelihoods, those are values and

4 priorities that are been identified by Xeni

5 Gwet'in colleagues.

6 Now, Teztan Biny and Nabas are

7 a vital part of the support veil to young

8 Chilcotin people. These are places where Elders

9 and youth connect, where oral knowledge and skills

10 relating to the land are shared and passed on

11 between generations. The sense of self and hope

12 that many young people rely on to cope with

13 negative social pressures is tied to their self

14 efficacy in protecting those resources that are

15 sacred to their people. These are qualities that

16 many First Nations in Canada struggle to foster in

17 youth these days. Research has shown a loss in

18 the practices and access to areas that provide

19 cultural continuity can have severe negative

20 effects on the mental health and social engagement

21 of First Nations youth and those documents are

22 cited more fully in my written submission. The

23 proposed mine threatens to damage one of the most

24 important sites for leaders and elder to help

25 youth gain these qualities as they mature. 229

1 So back to the concept of

2 resilience. Given the interrelatedness of culture

3 and ecosystems of Xeni Gwet'in and Chilcotin

4 communities, specific places impacted by the

5 proposed mine are key to the social ecological

6 resilience of surrounding communities and that

7 means their capacity to adapt and respond to

8 stressor and changes.

9 The project area that would be

10 irreversibly destroyed by the mine is home to a

11 number of local families and to Xeni Gwet'in

12 people and the culture. This is equivalent to

13 community members' water source, farm, grocery

14 store, school, university, cathedral, grave, park

15 land, community hall, living room, kitchen,

16 bedroom. Much more. It is sacred space. In the

17 terms that we might use, the existing place as it

18 is community infrastructure for Xeni Gwet'in.

19 In my written submission, I

20 reference the UN declaration on the rights of

21 indigenous people. I'm not going to go into that

22 here, but I would for the panel recommend, in

23 particular, Article 20, 25 and 29 as having

24 particular relevance to these proceedings.

25 The results and understanding 230

1 that emerged from my research and time in the

2 Chilcotin region. First, I want to mention the

3 current social ecological system in these

4 communities is a resilient system that can serve

5 as a positive example, a role model, for other

6 rural and remote communities in Canada. This

7 isn't to idealize the Xeni Gwet'in, nor is it a

8 claim that the First Nations is without their

9 challenges and problems like any other

10 communities, but rather what I'm pointing out is

11 they have the cultural strength, the collective

12 efficacy and the functional capacity to address

13 and cope with their problems in a positive way

14 provided that that capacity is supported rather

15 than compromised by economic development.

16 The source strength that

17 sustains this system and the culturally and

18 ecologically unique features of this area is the

19 relationship between people and the land. The

20 proposed projet not only threatens to dramatically

21 and adversely effect local community and

22 landscapes, but it would also, in my opinion,

23 undermine the resilience, i.e., their capacity to

24 recover from such a major stressor. It poses a

25 high risk of exacerbating problems in this region 231

1 that federal, provincial, and First Nation

2 governments are already struggling to cope with in

3 other regions and I suggest some of those problems

4 in detail in my written submission.

5 These negative effect are

6 inherent to the proposed mining operation itself.

7 They can not be mitigated by rearranging the

8 component parts of the proposed mine or

9 structurally manipulating the ecosystems in the

10 region. Rather, they would a predictable and

11 direct result of developing a sacred and

12 culturally important site for an industrial mining

13 operation.

14 Given the precipitous global

15 decline in bio cultural diversity, the loss of

16 indigenous language, conflicts over resource

17 scarcity and the rarity of intact ecologically

18 healthy fresh water systems, this area currently

19 stands out as an exemplary social ecological

20 system. Teztan Biny, Y'anah Biny and Nabas in the

21 their current state and as the Chilcotin have

22 chosen to keep it, them, are supporting the

23 cultural strength and leadership shown by those

24 communities and nations. The combined social

25 ecological system in this area is globally 232

1 significant. It's characteristics are worthy of

2 recognition, support and protection as well as

3 emulation in other communities across Canada and

4 internationally. Thank you.

5 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you,

6 Dr. Bhattacharyya. I hope I got the name

7 pronunciation a little better this time. Any

8 questions for Dr. Bhattacharyya by the Government

9 of Canada? Questions by First Nations interested

10 parties? Questions by interested party

11 organizations? Questions by interested party

12 individuals?

13 Taseko?

14 MS. SMITH: Kristi Smith. I'm

15 curious, there's a lot of maybe I'll go into my

16 question in a roundabout way, a lot of studies and

17 correlations are out there between training and

18 the increase of self efficacy, especially when it

19 leads to employment, and I just noted there was a

20 picture of the late Harry Steed on your

21 presentation and I do know that on the Friends of

22 the Nemiah Valley website he's quoted saying:

23

24 "...has had to look

25 elsewhere for employment, 233

1 a search that has taken

2 him to the oil patch in

3 Northeastern British

4 Columbia every winter for

5 the past year" --

6

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Could you

8 slow down, please.

9 MS. SMITH: Do you want me to

10 start over?

11 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I would like

12 it. I'm not sure if the Court Reporter needs it.

13 MS. SMITH: Would you like to

14 start from the beginning?

15 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Let's start

16 it from the individual you saw in the web page and

17 what he had to say.

18 MS. SMITH: Okay. So the late

19 Harry Steed was as quoted on the Friends of the

20 Nemiah Valley web page stating that he has had to

21 look elsewhere for employment, a search that has

22 taken him to the oil patch in Northeastern British

23 Columbia every winter for the past few years.

24 "I don't want to leave, but there's no work around

25 here," he says before hitting the ignition and 234

1 twisting the throttle.'"

2 My question to you is: What

3 impact does moving away impact the self efficacy

4 of the individual in the community?

5 MS. BHATTACHARYYA: Thank you

6 for the question. I think the key aspect -- I

7 knew Harry, and we had conversations about that

8 issue. I think the key aspect to consider and

9 that he was getting at is the nature of the work

10 available. So for some background, the context

11 for that comment was that he was exemplary in his

12 job at the time of that as the wild horse ranger

13 on Chilcotin lands and was engaged in training

14 youth actively and that job allowed him two things

15 that are important because they are both present.

16 One is to be employed locally; and two is to be

17 employed locally in a way that was consistent with

18 and facilitated his traditional values. And what

19 he was commenting on there was the fact that a

20 number of times in his life he had had to leave

21 his community in a way that was not consistent

22 with his own preferred way of life and that had a

23 negative effect. Now, the imposition of an

24 unwanted form of employment in the community is

25 not the same as the provision of a wanted form of 235

1 employment in the community that is consistent.

2 So I think that the effects on self efficacy --

3 now, I'm not a psychologist -- but my sense from

4 what I've read and studied is the effect on self

5 efficacy have to do dually with the nature of the

6 employment and the ability to stay in the

7 community supporting traditional livelihoods.

8 Does that answer your question?

9 MS. SMITH: Yes, thank you.

10 MR. KUPFER: Thank you for your

11 presentation. Have you had an opportunity to talk

12 to many Chilcotin people who have left the area or

13 are there many who have left the area for

14 employment or other reasons? And what have you

15 learned from that about their attachment and

16 relationship to the land.

17 MS. BHATTACHARYYA: I'm going

18 to open by saying I really have to get on

19 Facebook. It's a great way to stay in touch with

20 people who are not in the area and my Chilcotin

21 friends keep telling me to get on Facebook.

22 My research was primarily

23 conducted in Nemiah Valley and Chilcotin territory

24 throughout various parts of Chilcotin territory,

25 also primarily south of Highway 20. So the 236

1 majority of the Xeni Gwet'in people that I spoke

2 with were -- we had those conversations while in

3 Chilcotin territory. Now, I spoke with a number

4 of people who had left for employment through my

5 interviewing and participant observation and other

6 research. Given that I was there in their

7 territory having those conversations, I was

8 speaking to people who had left for employment and

9 then chosen to come back. So the overwhelming

10 sentiment I got partly because of the nature of

11 the circumstance was people choosing to come back

12 to their community often for the sake of their

13 kids, wanting to raise them on the land with

14 values and in continuity for their culture.

15 MR. SMYTH: Thank you for your

16 presentation. Seven years of research in one

17 area, I'm impressed. Because you've got seven

18 years under your belt, you'll probably be able to

19 comment on this. As you know there have been two

20 large land and resource planning processes in this

21 general region, which would have taken in the

22 Chilcotin territory. The first was I knew it as

23 Chilko Lake Park and then, of course, Mt. Silas

24 Park and then the second was the bigger regional

25 land and resource management plan. 237

1 So from your perspective of all

2 that research, do you see any fatal flaws in those

3 planning processes?

4 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: That's a

5 good question. And I have a feeling it's one of

6 those ones I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning

7 wishing I'd answered with new things that occur to

8 me.

9 One of the first things that

10 actually a number of people commented to me on,

11 both government -- provincial government employees

12 and residents in Nemiah Valley was actually that

13 the process of working through the working groups,

14 the participatory processes that they went

15 through, I'm thinking right now of the Chilko

16 Plan, was they had to hammer through a lot of

17 differences, any kind of multi-government,

18 multi-stakeholder process, there's a lot hubris

19 that comes out. By the time they had been engaged

20 in that for a number of years, they felt that they

21 had established a good working relationship and

22 then they ended. And then a few years later

23 another process starts up and there's the desire

24 for consultation and people, again, feel like

25 they're starting from scratch. 238

1 So one flaw that came out was

2 the lack of continuity in an ongoing, open

3 consultative relationship.

4 Another flaw was there was

5 definitely resentment, or, there was inequity in

6 terms of the financial support for ability of

7 people to participate, so residents from the

8 Valley often had to leave their day jobs,

9 travelling long distances, driving incurring their

10 own costs and staying in places outside of their

11 things in order to participate in the meeting. So

12 that was difficult.

13 And the last flaw that I was

14 made aware of to mention right now was for the

15 LRMP process, a number of people commented just

16 that they felt that the terms of reference were

17 fairly narrowly defined.

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Sorry.

19 LRMP?

20 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: Sorry.

21 Land and resource management processes. I believe

22 that what we were referring to. The terms of

23 reference were narrowly defined. My conversation

24 about this was regarding range management, and so

25 some participants felt that the real issues could 239

1 not be addressed on the table for things they felt

2 were important just because of the nature of the

3 process.

4 I don't know if that answers

5 your question. Those are the flaws that spring to

6 mind.

7 MR. SMYTH: That's fine.

8 Thanks. I'm sure it'll come up next week when we

9 get down in to the community in Mount Silos

10 because I understand the TNG have a caretaker role

11 in that park and the economic benefits that have

12 come from that and interesting things to explore a

13 little bit. Thank you.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I'm just

15 going to jump in. I have some questions, some of

16 which may be a little cheeky so you have to

17 listen. The first one is not, I think it's a

18 similar question I asked earlier. What's

19 culturally appropriate development for the

20 Chilcotin?

21 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: I was

22 hoping for the opportunity for a cheeky answer,

23 but I can't think of one. Good question, and I

24 would defer that answer to the Chilcotin people.

25 I think that probably the best example will be the 240

1 ecosystem-based management plan and their economic

2 development plan that they themselves are working

3 on.

4 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I plan to

5 ask the Chilcotin, of course, and they have

6 promised they're going to tell me about it. I was

7 interested in -- I'm trying to use your word

8 here -- based on your experiences with them for

9 seven years, what do you see as culturally

10 appropriate development?

11 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: Fair

12 enough. My based on my experience, culturally

13 appropriate economic development and I'm going to

14 specify Xeni Gwet'in because that's the lion's

15 share of my experience, would be development that

16 happens with community consensus in favour of that

17 form of development, development that facilitates

18 their ability to engage in traditional activities

19 and also have the quality of life that they deem

20 important.

21 So there's a historian who

22 studied the area, a UVIC professor named John

23 Sutton Lutz, and he coined the term in his book a

24 "moditional economy" and he was referring to

25 joining together the words modern and traditional. 241

1 And his suggestion was that for the last since

2 contact really with settler cultures, Xeni Gwet'in

3 have adapted and engaged to some extent to changes

4 to their local livelihood and economic activities

5 in a way that facilitated and worked in with their

6 traditional management systems and values, et

7 cetera. And he also points out that this

8 continues now. They're still engaged in a

9 moditional economy, and I would suggest that

10 culturally appropriate development is development

11 that will support traditional values and

12 livelihoods in a way that is deemed appropriate by

13 the Xeni Gwet'in themselves.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That's very

15 helpful. Thank you. I may understand a little

16 bit, but I want to understand some of the things

17 you said better and so I'm going to ask you about

18 this next one. With that view in mind and as I

19 get cheekier, it's always about a view so I can

20 understand what it is that you have been saying.

21 The next one is a reference to

22 the importance of place in culture and language,

23 and that places are cultural facilities is what I

24 wrote down that you were saying. And I guess I'm

25 not certain that I understand, I mean, I sort of 242

1 understand the words but I'm not sure I understand

2 what you're saying, the context and so, could you

3 help me a little bit there?

4 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: I will try

5 and feel free to keep at me, as in hotter and

6 colder as I get to what you need.

7 To start with the language

8 point, there's a book from 1996 by Keith Basso who

9 worked in the United States and it's called Wisdom

10 Sits in Places and he studied the ways in which

11 language in a different indigenous communities,

12 many words are references and descriptions to

13 specific places or the activities that take place

14 in those places. And this is the case to the best

15 of my understanding also in Chilcotin territory.

16 I'm not a linguist, so this is what I'm giving you

17 is my understanding based on the ethnographic work

18 that I've done. It means that if you -- words are

19 taught and shared a lot of the time they're tied

20 to particular place where an activity is engaged

21 in, and so if a person can't go to that place

22 certain words may be used less and less

23 frequently. They may not be invoked and it has an

24 impact on the language.

25 Does that help? 243

1 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That helps a

2 good deal and it brings back some of the

3 transcripts from 2010 where some of this was being

4 said in the communities and it makes more sense

5 now. So I thank you for that.

6 Socio ecological resilience.

7 You write like an academic. Intellectually and

8 moditional economy is another example. Bigger,

9 high intellectual substance, incomprehensible

10 jargon -- help me -- socio ecological resilience,

11 what does it mean?

12 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: The ability

13 to bounce back and recover from stressors and

14 disturbances. And the problem with that term, the

15 reason it's a tough one is it's actually, to my

16 understanding, combining an ecological concept

17 with a psychological concept. So if I may,

18 ecological resilience has a scientific definition

19 for how an ecosystem responds to stress and there

20 are thresholds it can be pushed to that it'll

21 retain certain quality, structure and function and

22 then once past the threshold, it'll flip into a

23 new state. In ecological terms, resilience does

24 not have a positive or negative connotation

25 because you can have a barren, degraded landscape 244

1 that is incredibly resilient and really hard to

2 restore. It want to stay barren and degraded. Or

3 you can have a really rich landscape that can

4 recover from stresses and disturbances.

5 Psychologically, the same term

6 resilience is used to talk about how people

7 respond to stressors and in that case it tends to

8 have a positive connotation when you talk about a

9 person being resilient, it tends to mean they have

10 the capacity to recover from upheaval, stress,

11 things like that in their life. When we say

12 social ecological resilience, we're usually

13 combining those things to talk about communities

14 and so talking about how well does a community and

15 the environmental in which they live adapt to

16 change, how strong are they. So a major

17 disturbance might be something like an industrial

18 development. It might be a catastrophic fire. It

19 might be, you know, a horrible crime in a

20 community or something like that. And social

21 ecological resilience is the way in which the

22 community and their landscape and the relationship

23 that they have with their landscape can bounce

24 back from stress.

25 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you 245

1 for that. My last question, you said, I'm fearful

2 of using the term Nabas now given what I just

3 learned about where it might be. If I take it to

4 be the rough area that has been described, you

5 said that that area was a place where people go to

6 get a variety of resources. I wrote down

7 something that clearly does not represent what you

8 intended, and I know it doesn't, but in some ways

9 I used the same concepts and wrote this down. And

10 so I want you to help me improve, and I want you

11 to know I start from a higher level than this, but

12 when I go to a super market I can get lots of

13 things that I need to. So Nabas is like a super

14 market, and in some respects it is, but that's not

15 what you were saying. So help me to better

16 understand what you really were saying.

17 DR. BHATTACHARYYA: Certainly.

18 I think that's a great question. And I think that

19 long list of western community places that I gave

20 is sort of an illustration, so super market is a

21 start because people will go to a place like this.

22 They'll be potentially harvesting cammium(ph) from

23 trees, medicine, plants, berries, fish, hunting.

24 So there's the super market. But it also has

25 spiritual significance. So now we have it also as 246

1 a church because people will go there for

2 ceremony, for spiritual significance and personal

3 experiences. It's ancestral home to certain Xeni

4 Gwet'in people, so now you have cemetery, grave

5 yard, places of prayer and respect. And we can

6 keep adding to that list for all the functions.

7 So, yes, I did say resources and in addition to

8 resources I'm using that term in the way we would

9 use it to talk about an indigenous traditional

10 management system, not just our modern management

11 systems. I could go on with that list, but I

12 think if I'm reading you correctly we're on the

13 same page now.

14 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

15 That's very helpful. Thank you, Dr.

16 Bhattacharyya. We're finished for now. I think

17 we'll call a short 15 minute break and return in

18 15 minutes.

19 --- Recess taken at 2:40 p.m.

20 --- Upon resuming at 2:55 p.m.

21 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Good afternoon,

22 ladies and gentleman. I think we're ready to move

23 on with the next speaker who is - and I may

24 misprounounce - Titi Kunkel.

25 247

1 PRESENTATION BY TITI KUNKEL:

2 MS. KUNKEL: Good afternoon, my

3 name is Titi Kunkel, spelled T-I-T-I, last name

4 K-U-N-K-E-L. On my left hand side I have Bella

5 Alphonse and on my right I have Geritha Elkin.

6 They're not here to take questions or present,

7 they're just here to give me morale support. I

8 would like to ask for more time. I know it's 3:00

9 now so I would appreciate a little bit more time.

10 My presentation is a follow up

11 from what we've heard today. We've heard from Dr.

12 Jonaki and we've also heard from Patt Larcombe,

13 and my presentation was like triangulating the

14 information that they presented and we hadn't

15 planned this. I haven't consulted with them

16 either, but this feels like a triangulation of

17 data.

18 A couple of questions that Mr.

19 Chairman asked earlier, you asked Jonaki about the

20 language and the language of the people. This is

21 a book by Lynda Myers and she is here in the

22 background, and it's about the language and it

23 tells you a little bit more about how the language

24 is related to the land. Then, in addition to

25 that, I'd like to start my presentation by going 248

1 to my conclusions and then working my way back and

2 showing you how I got there.

3 I have BSC in computer science

4 from Nigeria. I have an MBA from England. A

5 Master's in natural resource and environmental

6 studies from UNBC and I'm just concluding my PhD

7 also in natural resource and environmental

8 studies.

9 And my presentation today is

10 from my dissertation. I'm in the process of

11 putting the dissertation together in another form.

12 I can give you an entire copy of the whole thing.

13 Today I'll give you part of my work. As a way of

14 concluding and working back, I want to state that

15 this development which has been proposed is not

16 going to have the same impact on Aboriginal people

17 as it is on other people within the region.

18 I am going to take you back to

19 how I came to that conclusion. So the Fish Lake

20 site -- actually, before going into my

21 presentation, I want to acknowledge that we're

22 within we're within the Shuswap territory and I

23 want to acknowledge the Elders, Chiefs and Council

24 members who are in our midst.

25 This project, the Fish Lake 249

1 site, literally is a spiritual site. We're asking

2 -- the project is asking the Chilcotin people to

3 give up a spiritual site, a grocery store, which

4 the Chairman went into earlier, I have this as a

5 list in my presentation. The project is asking

6 them to give up the equivalent of a Walmart,

7 asking them to give up the country, the

8 traditional cloth, the pharmacy. It's asking them

9 to give up their recreational grounds, their

10 quality of life, important outdoor schools for the

11 children. It's asking them to give away or give

12 up the resources, the vocation and even grave

13 sites.

14 It's asking them to give up

15 sites where there is rich indigenous knowledge, to

16 give up historical site. So some of these things

17 may not come back after reclamation. So this is a

18 big compromise, which is why I say the impact of

19 the new project will not be the same on Aboriginal

20 people as it is on other people.

21 In this presentation this

22 afternoon I'm going to look at or talk briefly

23 about my summary to the Federal Panel in 2010,

24 then I'm going to take us through the regional

25 profile and I'm going to focus on Aboriginal 250

1 values and my understanding of Chilcotin values

2 and I'm going to talk about Aboriginal values at

3 Fish Lake and surrounding and also look at

4 Aboriginal values, social, cultural components.

5 As I mentioned this is part of

6 my PhD thesis which is an examination of the

7 compatibility of Aboriginal values, and I started

8 out with(unintelligible) but in the course of my

9 study I had to look at mining as another resource

10 within the region because my research interest is

11 in economic development for the First Nations

12 community.

13 So I had to look at what's

14 going on within the region. My study methodology

15 is grounded theory and indigenous research

16 methodology and I have to point out that I'm also

17 an indigenous women and I'm from the (Foreign

18 word) tribe West Africa.

19 So I'm here within the

20 territory of the indigenous people and most of my

21 concerns stem around being an indigenous women and

22 looking at the indigenous women within this

23 territory.

24 The major themes addressed

25 include Aboriginal values and the uses of 251

1 traditional land and for traditional purposes

2 which have been expressed within this study

3 region.

4 In addition to that, I looked

5 at the contemporary culture of the Chilcotin

6 people including how the women continue to survive

7 on the land. So this slide just gives you like a

8 diagrammatic representation of my methodology in

9 order to discern Aboriginal values, which I

10 believe is very, very important when we look at

11 natural resource considerations within this area.

12 So I had do a content and thematic analysis of

13 what was said at the last panel hearing. In

14 addition to that I had a field trip, a geothermal

15 field trip and I travelled to Reno, Nevada with

16 some indigenous women from this area. We had a

17 couple of focus groups sessions with First Nations

18 communities and there was representation from all

19 the communities in this area, and when I said all

20 the communities, it includes the (Native being

21 spoken) and the northern Shuswap people.

22 So taking the information from

23 there, I had interviews with Chilcotin women, and

24 this is to affirm some of my findings. In

25 addition to that I had lots of discussions with 252

1 people, and then I had presentations and

2 discussions with Chief and council members of most

3 of the communities in the region.

4 And when I say "most" I include

5 all the First Nations communities, not just the

6 Chilcotin Chiefs. So in addition to all these

7 interviews I had participant observation. I

8 attended community gatherings and events, both

9 within the Chilcotin and also with the(Native

10 word) people. I participated in the development

11 of Chilcotin culture course alongside with the

12 language group from the communities. As a result

13 of that we developed a cultural textbook which was

14 very useful and we used that to deliver to

15 university cultural courses.

16 A summary of my presentation to

17 the Federal Panel in 2010 is First Nations people

18 living on reserves face higher than average

19 unemployment and on reserve female population was

20 991 in 2006, of which more than 30 percent were

21 unemployed, and people who do not participate in

22 the labour force rely on the hunting, fishing,

23 trapping and gathering activities for sustenance.

24 First Nations women in particular are unlikely to

25 access training or get experience necessary to 253

1 qualify for highly skilled or specialized mining

2 jobs. In addition to that, First Nations' women

3 face significant challenges in terms of building

4 the capacity, including child care issues,

5 emotional wellness. They're major caregivers.

6 Most of them lack transportation from reserves to

7 attend classes and they're still suffering from

8 the legacy of residential schools. So the effects

9 of mining operations on women which we have seen

10 from literature reviews, include changes to health

11 and well-being.

12 So First Nations people are

13 highly reliant on the traditional economy and

14 activities and anything that alters the land which

15 these people rely on will result in an increased

16 hardship for the women.

17 I have, on slide 7, a profile

18 of the First Nations communities within this

19 region. We don't have enough information from

20 Statistics Canada, because some communities are

21 quite small. So what I have is what is available

22 and this is from the 2006 census. We can see

23 there is a total population of over 50 thousand

24 people within the Cariboo Chilcotin region aged 15

25 and over and of that we have representation from 254

1 some of the communities within this project area.

2 We have Canoe Creek, Xeni Gwet'in, and Chilcotin

3 communities and we can see that they have a

4 substantial amount of people, children, who -- not

5 children, youth, who are over 15 years old.

6 Some of these people are within

7 the labour force and the information on the second

8 row this shows you the labour force participation.

9 In the Cariboo Chilcotin we have over 33 thousand

10 people that participate in the labour force. And

11 of that we have over 29 thousand who are employed

12 and over 3 thousand who are unemployed. And when

13 we look at the different communities we can see

14 that the people are trying.

15 So there's high participation

16 in the labour force, and when I say "high", it's

17 high by comparison to the age or number of people

18 who are aged 15 years and over, but in addition to

19 that we also have the figures there for those not

20 in the labour force and we have the percentages

21 there, which we've already heard about, how there

22 is high unemployment within these communities.

23 From the 2006 Census information we can see that

24 within Canoe Creek, as an example, there's over 28

25 percent of people unemployed, and Xeni Gwet'in has 255

1 over 31 percent and the(Native word) is over 28

2 percent.

3 And then we have Anaham which

4 is unusually low. I was actually corrected when I

5 went out to the communities that people have

6 seasonal jobs. So at the time the census

7 information is taken people are probably either

8 out working, and in some instances people were not

9 at home or in other cases depending on the time of

10 the year when the information was gathered people

11 can be home doing traditional activities but not

12 looking for employment.

13 So the labour force

14 participation information may not be reflective of

15 what's actually happening in the community. I was

16 also informed at that point that there's the

17 notion that people get paid and they leave work

18 and go and spend the money and when they come back

19 or when they run out of money they go looking for

20 work. That is not what is happening. People

21 leave work to participate in traditional

22 activities.

23 So this time of the year, as an

24 example, is when they gather berries. So people

25 are not necessarily looking for work because 256

1 they're out there gathering berries or people are

2 going fishing so they're not looking for work.

3 All this do have an impact on the number of people

4 participating in the labour force.

5 And one other thing to point

6 out is the fact that some people have actually

7 given up looking for work. And those people will

8 not show up in this figure. So we will miss out

9 on that number of people all together. So in a

10 sense we could potentially have higher numbers of

11 unemployment rates that we wouldn't necessarily

12 capture.

13 I want to give a little bit of

14 economic history of the region. We have the

15 mountain pine beetle epidemic still ongoing, and

16 this has had a devastating impact on the

17 surrounding forest and ecosystem. We found a

18 short term increase in AAC, which is the allowable

19 annual (muffled) and that resulted in a short term

20 economic boom. But the longer term impact of

21 mountain pine beetle on forestry, and you can look

22 at the report, which is the Cariboo Chilcotin

23 Beetle Action report, and they go into details of

24 longer term impact on forestry. Just a snapshot

25 of what the report says, we are, as we all know, 257

1 forestry in the Cariboo Chilcotin region. And the

2 report talks about the potential to lose 4

3 thousand jobs in forestry and the report goes on

4 to talk about the mills and forestry related

5 operation which make up to 22.3 percent of local

6 government taxes in 2006. And the potential for

7 out-migration of people within the region.

8 So the report's literally had a

9 strategy for the different sectors and also for

10 different communities within this region.

11 One of the other things that

12 has happened since then is a substantial

13 investment in this area as a result of mountain

14 pine beetle. So the provincial government

15 invested a lot of money and so has the federal

16 government through initiatives such as the

17 community economic diversification initiative

18 program, and following on from that we had the

19 economic recession of 2008, and that was --

20 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Miss Kunkel,

21 we're going to get to New Prosperity soon.

22 MS. KUNKEL: We are, but it's

23 important to understand the context within which

24 all of this is happening. So the recession in

25 2008 also saw an influx of funding from the 258

1 federal government.

2 We have the community

3 adjustment funds which also brought in a lot of

4 money. So the point of this, really, is to let

5 you know that there are a lot of people, a lot of

6 organizations, a lot of companies in this area who

7 are literally working to diversify the economy of

8 this region.

9 So in addition to that we have

10 the baby boomers who are retiring soon. And the

11 baby boomers, from the figures I have, we have

12 over 11 thousand of them who are retiring about

13 now. And when we look at the information we also

14 have people coming into the workforce.

15 So we have more jobs from

16 people retiring than people coming into the

17 workforce. So, as a result, we're not in a panic

18 right now. We have enough time to fit things into

19 place to mitigate the 4 thousand people who would

20 be losing their jobs as a result of downturn in

21 forestry. The downturn was projected in 2008, but

22 we are not seeing the 4 thousand people all walk

23 out at the same time. And, in addition to that,

24 the new statistics information from Statistics

25 Canada, the census information, doesn't show an 259

1 out migration which is what the report stated back

2 in 2008.

3 So I think there's a notion

4 that the regional government are going to lose

5 taxation money because of out migration. But what

6 I'm saying here is that that is not happening

7 right now. We haven't seen the out migration

8 between two census periods. In addition to that

9 we haven't seen the 4 thousand people lose their

10 jobs, like throw it away, and we do have leeway

11 within, in what we have was actually going on and

12 we have a lot of investment in the region

13 happening right now.

14 In addition to the influx of

15 money from the provincial and federal government

16 to diversify the economy, we also have a geo

17 science (unintelligible) who has recently

18 announced a project, and that's a $3.2 million

19 investment to try and find new minerals and

20 geothermal resources within this area. So we do

21 have a lot of activities going on.

22 My point in this is that the

23 New Prosperity project we're looking at is not the

24 linchpin for this region, is not the project that

25 if we do without everything is going to go 260

1 bankrupt. We have other projects or other

2 activities all happening. And in addition to

3 that, Taseko's EIS talked about 20 other mining

4 operations, and in addition to that we also have

5 the new gold, we have the Blackwater District

6 which is nicknamed the Blackwater Gold District.

7 And in that region we have a lot of other mining

8 operations coming on board. So there are other

9 projects in this area.

10 In terms of how the numbers are

11 with First Nations communities, we still have a

12 lot of women on and off reserve unemployed, and

13 one of the things my study shows is that the women

14 who are off reserve actually depend on their own

15 reserve family for traditional food, for local

16 food, and for sustenance.

17 So the figures I have right

18 now, slide number 12, shows the population, the

19 registered female population for 2013 within these

20 communities. We are looking at an increase from

21 the 2006 figures. I've highlighted two other

22 communities which were not in my 2010 report,

23 because at that time Taseko didn't include them as

24 part of the communities. So adding those two

25 communities to it right now we have over 15 261

1 hundred women on reserve when we add the women off

2 reserve. And we're looking at larger numbers

3 right now.

4 My point is that these women

5 still sustain themselves on the land and it's kind

6 of important to bear that in mind. So this

7 particular project we're looking at, Fish Lake

8 area, not just looking at the women on reserve but

9 also off reserve in areas that rely on that same

10 area, the same sites.

11 Moving to some of the critical

12 things I want to talk about, I'll move to slide

13 15. It's very important for us to understand the

14 Aboriginal values at this particular site.

15 Now, within the Fish Lake area

16 there are cultural activities, and you've probably

17 heard a lot about these cultural activities. You

18 heard about hunting, trapping, fishing, the

19 gathering berries and all those things that happen

20 in those areas.

21 What my study shows is that

22 Aboriginal values are embedded within these

23 cultural activities. So the activities such as

24 hunting as an example doesn't just provide food.

25 It provides other values, and not just the food 262

1 aspect that are important for these people, those

2 values are also important; things like the

3 teaching that comes, the knowledge transferred as

4 a result of the activities.

5 It's also important to

6 understand that some of these activities -- you

7 may say people can hunt elsewhere, but some of the

8 teaching that happens are site specific, location

9 specific.

10 So if you move their activities

11 somewhere else, the indigenous knowledge that

12 happens at Fish Lake, as an example, will not

13 happen anywhere else. So these values are

14 important, too, for surviving marginality and

15 isolation. So it's important to understand that

16 the majority of these communities are isolated and

17 they need those resources to survive the

18 isolation. They can't access jobs in urban areas

19 and if the men go off to work the women are still

20 home and need those resources.

21 So it is important to

22 understand how those values are embedded in these

23 cultural activities are also site specific. The

24 values passed down from generation to generation

25 are specific locations. 263

1 What I also want to point out

2 is in order to understand Chilcotin values you

3 need to understand the culture and it's part of my

4 work -- Bella and I worked along with the language

5 group and we developed a framework to understand

6 Chilcotin values, and I'm presenting this

7 framework for you today so when you go out to the

8 community and listen to what people are saying

9 you're able to actually discern the values,

10 discern what they're saying.

11 So with the framework Bella and

12 I worked on (Native being spoken), that's the

13 ancient, past and present to understand the

14 spatial and temporal dimension of the Chilcotin

15 culture. Within that it's also important to

16 understand that the culture is a continuum. So

17 the culture from the ancient to the present,

18 that's (Native being spoken), while there may be

19 changes when you look at the ancient and you look

20 at the present, but the change is actually not

21 that --

22 --- Reporter intervenes.

23 MS. KUNKEL: It's a continuum.

24 So the changes are there and they are gradual.

25 But I also worked with other community researchers 264

1 and I worked with Louis William, with Jessica

2 Alphonse and Blane Grinder, and we expanded that

3 framework to include the future generation.

4 So we're not looking at (Native

5 being spoken) as the ancient, the past, the

6 present, future. And in understanding that you

7 can understand what people are actually saying.

8 So people are not narrating their history.

9 They're telling you about their connection, their

10 connection from the past from the ancient through

11 the past, the present and the future. And this is

12 how the culture works.

13 So through using that framework

14 I came up with these values to summarize the

15 statement of people from the 2010 panel hearing.

16 I'm actually providing you an analysis of that

17 statement using the framework and giving you the

18 values that people stated around the Fish Lake

19 area. So these values are place based. These are

20 site specific.

21 While the geological area is

22 where the mineral deposit is, it is at this same

23 area the resources that the people use have been

24 placed there and it's not by the people's choice,

25 just where it's been placed. 265

1 At that particular site when

2 you break this down into land, water, wildlife and

3 people, which are areas important to them, and you

4 start to look at the actual values around this --

5 so when it comes to water, as an example, they

6 want to protect the water because there's

7 sustenance in this and they have rituals, and

8 there's also the life that springs from the water

9 and you have protection and healing from the land.

10 You have the ancestral connection, the

11 significance of that place and the sustenance.

12 You have the history, the teachings.

13 So I went into over a hundred,

14 sort of, people who testified at the previous

15 hearing and did an analysis using the framework of

16 what they said. What appeared to myself is the

17 fact that all these values represented in this

18 slide you can't get that elsewhere. And if you

19 take the same values, the teachings, you get at

20 Fish Lake it's different from the teachings that

21 you get if you go to the Brittany area, and you

22 can't get the same teaching.

23 The legends that you get when

24 you go to Fish Lake are different from the legends

25 somewhere else. The teachings that the children 266

1 will get at that particular site you can't get

2 elsewhere.

3 So Fish Lake represents to the

4 people all these things that are here. These same

5 values may exist somewhere else but the actual

6 content will be different. So the indigenous

7 knowledge at this particular site will not be the

8 same as elsewhere.

9 The actual site Fish Lake is

10 where the indigenous knowledge for that area is

11 authenticated. You can't authenticate that same

12 knowledge elsewhere, and that's why Fish Lake is

13 so important to the people. In addition, you have

14 the stories and the history that come with that

15 particular location, and you can't get that

16 elsewhere. When you go to a different site you

17 get different stories. You wouldn't get the same

18 story that you'd get from Fish Lake, which is

19 where it's so, so important to the people.

20 What I have in the next few

21 slides is to help in terms of literally assessing

22 the values and it's compatibility with resource

23 development. So right now the environmental

24 assessment looked at valued ecosystem component.

25 There's a need to look at the valued 267

1 social/cultural components, and in order to look

2 at that it's useful to break it into the different

3 areas, and I've provided here the way that I would

4 do it.

5 I'm not saying what I'm

6 presenting here is the definitive. Each

7 researcher has to come up with their own way of

8 breaking this down.

9 In terms of the land, I would

10 look at things like landscape, the dependance on

11 the land for survival, the honour of the land,

12 identity in the land. I would use a qualitative

13 method to provide or get base line information.

14 And I think that the 2010 panel gave us that base

15 line information that we need.

16 So quantitatively you can still

17 use that information and you can use the rich

18 description from qualitative methods to actually

19 measure what people are saying and how important

20 this is to the community. So you could take the

21 landscape, as an example, break it down for that

22 and you can find out what particular landscape the

23 teachings that go through that landscape, the

24 rituals, the history, the stories. You can look

25 at the values, the land maps, the sacred stories, 268

1 the legend that go with that particular landscape.

2 And one of the other things I

3 want to mention with regard to the landscape in

4 the Chilcotin region is the fact that these are

5 sacred eco environments because the landscape have

6 meanings to the people. Particular places are

7 like pilgrimage sites where people actually go

8 there to pray, to offer sacrifices. People go and

9 ask for help from ancestors. So this is very

10 important and they're very, very important valued

11 social cultural components.

12 So you could do the same with

13 plants, animals and fishes. And with the people

14 you can go back and look at the framework and add

15 more to it. We have the stories from the ancient

16 times. We have the (Native being spoken) stories,

17 and you want to look at the connection to the

18 future, and in addition to that there's the

19 knowledge that has transferred, the indigenous

20 knowledge.

21 We have the cultural stability

22 and the connection to the land and then the

23 identity and the language which goes with that

24 particular place.

25 I'd recommend as part of the 269

1 assessment that there's the valued ecosystem

2 component that there should be also be a valued

3 social component to it, and cultural component and

4 a combination will give you rich information in

5 terms of assessing this project and what the

6 people are actually saying.

7 So to conclude my presentation,

8 the women still depend on the land. There's over

9 1500 women on reserves who are vulnerable who will

10 be impacted by this project. They depend on the

11 hunting, fishing, gathering activities. And in

12 addition to that over 1500 people. We have 1669

13 off reserve women who depend on their families on

14 reserve for(unintelligible).

15 Women sell the products, some

16 of the crafts they make and women actually barter

17 some of these crafts for school supplies and extra

18 curricular activities. There's a lot of things at

19 stake for these women. In addition to that, the

20 elders, the elders are vulnerable. They're not

21 like the retired elders who live in urban areas.

22 These people depend on the land. They depend on

23 the family who carry out the traditional

24 activities. The elders themselves contribute to

25 knowledge, and even come to our classroom and they 270

1 teach indigenous knowledge to our students at the

2 university.

3 So in addition to that the

4 elders depend on the berries and the medicinal

5 plants and Fish Lake is described as an area where

6 the medicine's actually potent. So they wouldn't

7 get the same potency from the medicine at Fish

8 Lake as what they gather elsewhere.

9 The other thing with Fish Lake

10 is it has that continuity for the elders, the

11 children and the ancestors. So there's that

12 connection which happens at that particular

13 location.

14 The sacred eco environment will

15 be disturbed. In addition to the land form

16 there's also the sacred sites. All these are

17 visible connections to the legends and tot the

18 stories of the place and, as I mentioned earlier,

19 these are pilgrimage sites. It gives them the

20 contemporary connection, and while the culture is

21 here today, the culture hasn't changed much from

22 the past and the people still continue the

23 contemporary traditions.

24 This site provides knowledge

25 for education and it serves as a school and it's a 271

1 vehicle for transmitting the culture from one

2 generation to the other. And the other dwellers

3 participate at this different site at events at

4 the different locations, and that's how they

5 maintain their cultural ties.

6 These urban dwellers have the

7 responsibility to transmit the culture to their

8 children. So these sites are important for them

9 in terms of doing that.

10 The previous panel did ask me

11 for a recommendation and at that time I didn't

12 have an answer. But my recommendation would be

13 the need for upfront investment in these

14 communities because the lack of infrastructure

15 means they can't participate fully in any economic

16 opportunity presented as a result of the project

17 and the lack of infrastructure investment, upfront

18 investment means that they can't participate fully

19 and get the benefits or will be left with the

20 impact of the development. So by investing

21 upfront in places it would alleviate some of the

22 poverty situations we see on reserve. It would

23 help improve the health and well-being of the

24 people. Without this upfront investment they

25 can't participate. So things like IBA's, they're 272

1 after the fact, but the communities need to have

2 the infrastructure in place before they can

3 participate.

4 My conclusion is that the

5 impact of the proposed development on Aboriginal

6 people will be different from the impact on others

7 within the region.

8 And I'd like to acknowledge all

9 those that made the research possible. I'd like

10 to acknowledge the tribal administrators, the

11 Chief and council and all the different people I

12 worked with, including the women who supports me,

13 people like Geritha(ph) and Bella, and without all

14 these people, without the language, without the

15 women I interviewed I wouldn't have been able to

16 present this. I'd like to acknowledge them.

17 And all the references in my

18 presentations are available, if you want it I can

19 supply them to you. Thank you.

20 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

21 In accordance with the usual order, any questions

22 from the Government of Canada? Any questions from

23 First Nations interested parties? Any questions

24 from interested party organizations? Any

25 questions from interested party individuals? 273

1 Taseko.

2 MS. SMITH: Being a First

3 Nations woman in the mining industry this is

4 interesting. I have a few questions and I wanted

5 to clarify a few points to have further dialogue,

6 I guess.

7 In respect to upfront

8 investment, what does that look like?

9 MS. KUNKEL: Right now when you

10 go to a number of these communities they don't

11 have three-phase power supply, which makes it

12 difficult for industry to come in. So you can't

13 go out there and build a huge workshop with the

14 hope of servicing even mining trucks or stuff like

15 that. They don't have that power investment in

16 place. They don't have the ability to do that.

17 So upfront investment in these

18 communities will mean having economic development

19 infrastructure in place so they can access

20 whatever benefit there might be. Without this in

21 place it's impossible.

22 MS. SMITH: Thank you. I guess

23 my next question is why do First Nations' women

24 have a harder time getting work and what are the

25 barriers you see in respect to training in the 274

1 mining industry?

2 MS. KUNKEL: I've been teaching

3 for the university since 2006 in this region and

4 I've developed, delivered rather, a number of

5 programs, including Aboriginal business

6 development programs. I delivered that twice in

7 this region, and the outcome of this has been

8 consistent for us. The First Nations' women,

9 they're the caregivers. They face the same

10 challenges as any other women in terms of getting

11 jobs or education or training, but in addition to

12 that they have the barriers such as being out

13 there isolated because their communities are

14 rural. They're remote. They have to get to

15 school. Number one, transportation. They don't

16 have vehicles or they can't afford to get gas to

17 get to urban centres and attend classes. They

18 have the issue of child care.

19 Now, for a number of us we have

20 networks of people that can help us with child

21 care, but a number of these First Nations' women,

22 they don't have that network in place. They have

23 the legacy of residential schools and because of

24 the residential school system a lot of them

25 experienced they don't have the same sort of -- it 275

1 literally holds them back.

2 MS. SMITH: Thank you. I would

3 like to comment a little bit. I'm kind of proud

4 to say that Taseko's corporate office has 54

5 percent women that work there and 8 percent are

6 First Nations.

7 So I was -- that's something to

8 be proud of and maybe an anomaly.

9 In respect to looking back to

10 your slides on unemployment, you mentioned that

11 investing in places will alleviate poverty. Does

12 upfront investment in communities such as training

13 and education, will it bring up the health and

14 well-being of the people?

15 MS. KUNKEL: I believe it will

16 help, but other investment needs to have been done

17 earlier because as things stand right now if you

18 start investing in training you're not going to

19 get the result that you want for a few years.

20 So you need to start the

21 investment several years prior.

22 MS. SMITH: Thank you. That's

23 all my questions. Thank you Titi.

24 MR. SMYTH: Thank you for your

25 presentation. I probably should have asked this 276

1 question of the economist we had here but none of

2 them put up graphs and facts and figures like you

3 did.

4 During the previous hearing,

5 and I've read the reports and the testimony, there

6 were fairly dire economic predictions made at that

7 time. Here we are some years later, would you say

8 the economy of the region is stable or improving

9 or deteriorating?

10 MS. KUNKEL: I think since 2010

11 we've had time to adjust. We haven't seen 4

12 thousand people lose their jobs in forestry.

13 We've seen stabilization there. And in addition

14 to that there has been a lot of investment by the

15 provincial and the federal government in this

16 region to diversify the economy.

17 So we're starting to see

18 outcomes from some of these investments. And, as

19 I mentioned recently, Geoscience B.C. got funding

20 to do more exploration work. We're starting to

21 see a lot more things come on board, starting to

22 see more development in terms of tourism,

23 agriculture. We're starting to see a lot more

24 things coming on board. So there has been a

25 stabilization. 277

1 Workforces and people are also

2 retiring and a lot of people are not being

3 replaced. So we're not seeing massive holes.

4 Does that answer your question?

5 MR. SMYTH: It helps. I can't

6 help but remark on the irony of Geoscience B.C.'s

7 investment, it's for natural resources, it's for

8 mines and minerals and geothermal.

9 MS. KUNKEL: They are investing

10 to find the resources. That was where I started

11 my PhD thesis from, and that resource is out there

12 in this region as well.

13 MR. SMYTH: There's another

14 irony there, a geothermal find requires a

15 transmission line and would we not hear the same

16 concerns about a transmission line?

17 MS. KUNKEL: Some of the things

18 they're looking at is how communities who are far

19 from the grid can use it to achieve sustainability

20 without actually being connected to the grid. So

21 what you end up having is a mini-grid in a small

22 area. If we take the (Native being spoken)

23 community as an example, they have a diesel

24 generating system which is not linked to the main

25 grid but contained and it literally services that 278

1 community.

2 So the point of having

3 geothermal for remote is not to link them but

4 their own sustainability, and you could have

5 energy development, green house for agriculture,

6 and you can have heating for homes. It's a

7 resource that can be used for several things.

8 MR. KUPFER: Obviously your

9 time with the women provided you with a great deal

10 of understanding of their culture and we deeply

11 appreciate that and I'm sure related to your own

12 background.

13 During this time did you do a

14 survey, for example - official or otherwise - to

15 find out what they would want to have for future

16 opportunities for their future lives, or are your

17 comments coming from your observation of what they

18 told you they wanted, or did you systematically go

19 through it?

20 MS. KUNKEL: Part of my

21 research is I worked with economic development

22 officers within the community and they're

23 different from the women. My work was to try and

24 understand the culture, but the economic

25 development offices were the band offices and some 279

1 tribal council and they are the ones who bring

2 forward the development that the community has,

3 and part of the work that I've done with those

4 groups of people, they are looking for development

5 that is sustainable for them, not the boom and

6 bust cycle. And they are also looking at

7 development that utilizes the current skills that

8 the people have, because if you're investing in

9 training it takes time to get your return on

10 investment. So they're looking for things that

11 people can do for now.

12 Tourism is something that most

13 of the community are looking at because that uses

14 the skills they have today. And with eco tourism

15 it's in line with a lot of their values because

16 they can continue the traditional activities and

17 it doesn't disturb the landscape.

18 MR. KUPFER: So then your

19 research is not expressing what they want, but it

20 comes out of your discussions with them and the

21 economic development officers?

22 MS. KUNKEL: My research looks

23 at how the values effect the resource development

24 consideration. So just looking at the values that

25 the people have, if, for example, I was to propose 280

1 a geothermal power development at Fish Lake, the

2 answer I would get would be the same as this new

3 mine being proposed at Fish Lake because those

4 values they get at those site is not compatible

5 with that type of development.

6 If I propose a geothermal

7 development at a different location I would have

8 to look at the values at that location to

9 determine if it's compatible.

10 MR. KUPFER: Your research

11 didn't look at what they wanted at this particular

12 location?

13 MS. KUNKEL: At this particular

14 location I did not look at what they want.

15 MR. KUPFER: Thank you.

16 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: You said two

17 or three times in your presentation, and I'm just

18 reading from your conclusion, that the impact of

19 New Prosperity Mine on Aboriginal people will be

20 different from the impact on others within the

21 region.

22 Based on your research - and

23 this is always a challenge for any academic - in

24 25 words or less, what's the difference, and with

25 an emphasis on what is the effect on Aboriginal 281

1 people? And my purpose of 25 words or less is

2 just hit the highlights.

3 MS. KUNKEL: I won't count my

4 words, but I'll try. Aboriginal people are coming

5 from a social economic background which is

6 different from the other communities. There's a

7 gap in the economic status from where they're

8 coming from and where the other communities are

9 coming from.

10 In addition, the communities

11 don't have the upfront infrastructure in place.

12 So take Williams Lake as an example, we do have

13 economic development infrastructure and community

14 infrastructure in place. Those communities don't

15 have that. The people are not already trained.

16 They don't have the ability to adapt straight away

17 and it's going to take time to adapt and, in

18 addition, the other communities are not being

19 asked to give up important resources like what the

20 Aboriginal communities are being asked to give up

21 at Fish Lake. Does that (unintelligible) for you?

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: It'll do.

23 One last little question. You identified the need

24 for some upfront infrastructure development siting

25 three-phase power as an example. I think I 282

1 remember clearly earlier in the hearing some of

2 the folks from Xeni Gwet'in said that they were

3 most proud of the fact that they didn't have, they

4 didn't say "three-phase power", but didn't have

5 any links to the grid.

6 So I'm just trying to reconcile

7 the two views. Could you help me on that?

8 MS. KUNKEL: They can have

9 three-phase power developed for them remotely

10 without the connection to the grid, because we do

11 have other resources that can be used for power

12 production. And I have to commend them, that

13 particular community, for what they're doing.

14 Their using solar and wind. And in addition to

15 that they have diesel sort of back up. So they

16 are already using resources to develop power right

17 now in place.

18 Now, if we take the lack of

19 three-phase power as an example, if we use (Native

20 being spoken) at Anaham Lake, they have a mill

21 which right now is operating on diesel. They are

22 not as competitive as the neighbours down the road

23 like Canfor for or (Native being spoken) because

24 those people are using power from the grid. So

25 they're paying more for power there because of 283

1 diesel generators than the competitors in town.

2 Not having this infrastructure

3 in place means we're not helping them with

4 development because that becomes, for lack of a

5 better word, "competitive disadvantage" for them.

6 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

7 very much. The Panel has no more questions for

8 you. Thank you very much for your presentation

9 and answers.

10 The next item on the agenda --

11 those of us who feared getting through this agenda

12 were unduly worried. We have made it.

13 The next item on the agenda is

14 Proponent's response to information presented in

15 this session. So Taseko.

16 PROPONENT RESPONSE TO INFORMATION PRESENTED:

17 MS. GIZIKOFF: Thank you. I'll

18 get started here so we can close.

19 I have a few points and then I

20 will pass the mike to Brain, then Krysti and I

21 think Carl closes with a final comment.

22 With regard to the IRA from

23 this morning regarding the dust modelling and the

24 copper prediction, I had promised to provide Mr.

25 LaPlante the IR reference. There's three of them. 284

1 IR45, SIR 42/45 and response to request for

2 additional technical information health effects in

3 the local study area.

4 With regard to Trojan pond,

5 there was some questions there, and Trojan pond

6 developed in 15 years from a biologically inactive

7 water body into a productive lake with a well

8 established aquatic ecosystem and fishery. After

9 a further eight years the Trojan system remains

10 sustainable with small annual nitrogen additions.

11 As we noted earlier, somebody

12 commented that Trojan has an average depth of 4

13 metres and a maximum depth of 8 metres. The depth

14 in the New Prosperity TSF supernatant pond at

15 closure is estimated to be approximately 13 metres

16 and the maximum depth is estimated to be 20

17 metres.

18 The final (muffled) would

19 depend upon the final tailings deposition strategy

20 prior to closure.

21 Just one other comment with

22 regards to me showing that slide. The intent was

23 to illustrate in that case the successful fishery

24 along with boating in a tailings storage facility,

25 I wanted to clarify that New Prosperity has to 285

1 date only been proposed for potentially recreation

2 and water fowl and wildlife habitat upon closure.

3 Depending on the final design of the water courses

4 upon closure fish may occupy the tailings storage

5 facility seasonally but we have not accounted for

6 that or credited that in any way in the

7 reclamation plan.

8 With regard to Titi's

9 statements just now on the status of the local and

10 regional economy, I wanted to state these

11 statements are not consistent with the stated

12 perspective of the local government, nor the

13 written provincial government perspective in their

14 mid-term timber supply report dated June 2012

15 where significant downturn is predicted,

16 significant loss of jobs in the forest sectors by

17 2020, and the only opportunities for

18 diversification in that report is mining.

19 With regard to navigation and

20 Transport Canada's statements indicating that they

21 have insufficient information on navigation and

22 use around little Fish Lake, it appears that they

23 are seeking a specific study or survey. I'd like

24 to remind that Transport Canada there is a vast

25 record of documentation on the Chilcotin's use in 286

1 the Fish Creek watershed which Taseko uses as a

2 reference. We have documented in Taseko's

3 engagement record starting from the 1990's onward

4 in our appendices to both the 2009 and 2012 EIS

5 documents.

6 Taseko has built summaries of

7 issues and concerns from their numerous file and

8 records at our disposal from meeting minutes and

9 notes from community meetings, and provided the

10 summaries to the Tsiloqot'in in specific letters

11 asking them to confirm their interests with regard

12 to the previous project which also included the

13 loss of the Little Fish Lake.

14 In addition we have the Pane's

15 past hearing transcripts from the 125 submissions

16 from Tsiloqot'in members as summarized by Ms.

17 Larcombe and in the Ehrhart English report on use

18 specific to this area.

19 During the previous review

20 participants would have been able to discuss all

21 aspects of the project, including aspects to

22 navigation in the watershed.

23 The things related to

24 navigation that were presented were TNG's concern

25 over replacing navigation value by providing 287

1 access to other lakes in the region, Catherine

2 Hower's story about navigating to the island in

3 Fish Lake using a raft, people mentioning using

4 Fish Lake for recreation, fishing and boating or

5 rafting in general.

6 From all this information we

7 have no documented evidence of anyone navigating

8 in Little Fish Lake as per our response to IR51.

9 Regardless we could be conservative and assume

10 that Tsiloqot'in do now and future generations

11 might navigate, to some extent, on Little Fish

12 Lake periodically for fishing or pleasure.

13 It would be Taseko's conclusion

14 that the permanent loss of ability to navigate is

15 still not significant using CEAA's guidelines

16 considering other regional opportunities

17 available, considering all on site mitigation,

18 including enhancing access and the dock for

19 navigation in Fish Lake and the ultimate

20 reclamation of the tailings storage facilities

21 which would enable navigation plus other

22 opportunities for off site compensation if desired

23 by the nation. Brian.

24 MR. BATTISON: The two comments

25 relate to the Health Canada discussions. 288

1 As agreed to by Health Canada

2 this morning, selection of country food

3 consumption rates will not alter the determination

4 of the significance of project effects on human

5 health.

6 The selection of country food

7 consumption rates is important in programs where

8 the objective is to determine the overall safety

9 of country foods, and while it's appreciated that

10 local communities need to understand whether

11 consumption and rise rates should be applied to

12 local country food supplies. This determination

13 of base line food safety really is not part of the

14 EA process.

15 To follow on from that, Health

16 Canada was questioning information be provided on

17 the overall increase in exposure and the Panel

18 also noted this morning there is a distinction

19 between the percent increase and the absolute

20 increase in exposure.

21 I'd like to remind the Panel

22 that, in fact, that information was provided in

23 the latest submission to the Panel, I believe

24 about the 17th of July, where the total exposures

25 and total risks associated with those for base 289

1 line and for project plus base line have been

2 provided.

3 MS. GIZIKOFF: I forget I had

4 one more thing to add to follow up to Brian's

5 statement.

6 Doing consumption studies and

7 further country food sampling to set base line in

8 preparation for permitting and monitoring can be

9 done should the project be approved, as per our

10 comments in the last Panel review proceeding.

11 They were the proceedings of the general hearing

12 session dated March 27th, 2010, volume 9 on page

13 1574-1574, and it was an exchange between the then

14 chairman and Mr. Rod Irving.

15 MS. SMITH: Thank you. So

16 there may be a little bit of redundancy in my two

17 points.

18 There's been a lot of

19 discussion about labour shortages and bringing

20 skilled people from other places from the country

21 into the area to fill these positions. I wanted

22 to point out we've invested previously, and will

23 continue to invest, in education and training and

24 partnering with those in the community. We

25 realize it is competitive out there. We recognize 290

1 there are some barriers to bringing skilled

2 people, or growing skilled people in this region

3 in, but our view is if we invest locally these

4 local people will likely stay and result in higher

5 retention rates for us and for those that stay

6 here, train here and go to work here, provide part

7 of our community as well as the community in the

8 region.

9 So there was another statement

10 in regards to un-trained people and low wages and

11 them not being able to be employed by the mine.

12 We recognize there's multiple barriers to training

13 and employment. It was just mentioned that

14 transportation to training is a barrier, which is

15 why we've funded and leased the van for BCAMPTA so

16 that they can drive out to the communities and

17 bring those individuals in to training.

18 We work with local school as

19 earlier as elementary, high school and in

20 post-secondary to encourage people to head into

21 the mining sector. Although in some of those

22 positions you will need to go outside for

23 training, our hope is that they come back into the

24 region, and this remains part of their community.

25 We work with co-op student and summer students. 291

1 We hire and train young new graduates as well.

2 Not only that, coming back to

3 that un-trained aspect, we have individuals that I

4 know personally have worked in the local food and

5 beverage industry in town that we've hired on site

6 with limited and no experience. We have 8

7 trainers on our Gibraltar site and their

8 responsibility is to grow and continue to train

9 our employees and we invest in them.

10 So that's my closing piece.

11 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.

12 Earlier today in questioning by the TNG, Ms.

13 Gizikoff was asked to clarify the methodology used

14 by Taseko to assess cultural impacts or what

15 factors had been considered by Taseko in relation

16 to Aboriginal heritage or culture or words to that

17 effect.

18 The EIS states very clearly

19 that it assessed impact on both current uses of

20 lands for traditional purposes and physical and

21 cultural and heritage resources. These are

22 factors mandated for consideration under section 5

23 of the Environmental Assessment Act 2012. Taseko

24 has been guided by the requirements of that Act in

25 the preparation of the EIS and, in the end, the 292

1 Panel is also to be guided in the conduct of it's

2 assessment in relation to the requirements of that

3 Act.

4 Taseko's analysis of these

5 particular impacts, including an explanation of

6 the framework used for the assessment, is set out

7 in some detail and several places in the EIS at

8 pages 403, 1225, 1296 and 1303. There are other

9 as well.

10 There is also extensive

11 relevant information in the Aboriginal interest

12 section which starts at page 1230. In each case

13 the EIS makes clear the assessment is done using

14 the CEAA reference guide determining whether a

15 project is likely to cause significant adverse

16 environmental effects. That requires

17 consideration of several factors; one magnitude,

18 two, geographic extent, three, reversibility,

19 four, duration or frequency and five, ecological

20 context of any impacts.

21 Further, at page 1225 the EIS

22 discusses how Taseko considered and applied CEAA's

23 1996 reference guide on physical and cultural

24 heritage resources. The EIS, at page 1225, also

25 discusses in some detail and with, I believe, full 293

1 candour, the challenge in segregating "physical

2 and cultural heritage." Assessment from "current

3 use of lands for traditional purposes." It also

4 notes the limitations of the CEAA guidelines on

5 physical and cultural heritage resources which are

6 noted in the guide itself. Despite this, the EIS

7 goes on to include considerable information and to

8 undertake this analysis in as an objective and

9 informed a basis as Taseko was able, especially

10 one recognizing that the TNG declined to respond

11 to Taseko's question for further communication.

12 These are complex issues and we

13 don't believe it is fair or appropriate to expect

14 Ms. Gizikoff to explain all of this in a response

15 to her question. Moreover, the tenor of the

16 question was to suggest that Taseko had ignored

17 questions of assessing effects in relation to

18 current uses of lands for traditional purposes and

19 physical and cultural heritage resources, and that

20 is simply not true.

21 I want to offer a brief comment

22 on spirituality, and we've heard a lot about that

23 in the last day or two. It is important to

24 remember why we are here, it is for the Panel to

25 complete a specific task assigned to it under the 294

1 Canadian Environment Assessment Act 2012. The

2 scope of the Panel's mandate is broad. It is

3 certainly not limitless.

4 The Act does not contemplate

5 assessment of impacts on spirituality and we don't

6 know how anyone could assess such a personal and

7 subjective matter. The CEAA guide does make some

8 reference to sites of cultural significance, and

9 the impact on sites has been considered in the

10 EIS. Further, while we have no desire to debate

11 the spiritual values of anyone, we are compelled

12 to ask why such issues were never raised until

13 only just a few years ago. Indeed, in all

14 Taseko's early engagements, including when the LOU

15 existed, and the TNG mining co-ordinator had been

16 funded by the company, there appeared to be

17 willingness on the part of the TNG to consider

18 mining the Prosperity deposit.

19 And to be clear, though, they

20 were very consistent, and have been in voicing

21 their concern about the loss of Fish Lake. Taseko

22 heard the concerns regarding Fish Lake, but it

23 heard nothing about the spiritual value of the

24 area as a whole. Indeed, based on discussions to

25 that point, Taseko was encouraged to believe if 295

1 Fish Lake could be preserved the development of

2 the Prosperity deposit could proceed.

3 Based on all of that when the

4 economic barriers to the viability to the New

5 Prosperity objection were resolved, Taseko set

6 about developing the proposal now before this

7 Panel which preserves Fish Lake and accommodates,

8 to the extent possible, Aboriginal concerns, as

9 those concerns had been expressed at least up to

10 that time.

11 The final word on the

12 alternatives assessment. In our view, the

13 consultations that took place between Taseko and

14 First Nations before the previous hearing and the

15 processes and discussions that took place during

16 the previous hearing are all part of an extensive

17 consultation process. Indeed, this hearing is

18 part of that process.

19 We've heard a great deal about

20 Aboriginal culture and heritage and resources so

21 far and there's certainly more to come. We don't

22 believe Environment Canada properly reflected

23 these aspects of consultation in it's alternatives

24 assessment. Moreover, it appears that a massive

25 effort by Taseko to accommodate Aboriginal 296

1 interests, at least as presented previously, have

2 not been properly assessed by Environment Canada.

3 Those conclude my closing

4 comments. I should add I do have two procedural

5 points or questions that I want to raise before we

6 end for the day.

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Anything

8 else from Taseko Mines Ltd.? Why don't we proceed

9 to your procedural points now, Mr. Gustafson.

10 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you. The

11 first has to do with timing of the undertaking.

12 Taseko will certainly provide it's responses to

13 all outstanding undertakings before the deadline

14 specified and some have already been provided with

15 the possibility of one exception.

16 I spoke with Greg Smyth. I had

17 hoped he would be here to explain in more detail

18 why it might not be possible to complete that work

19 in a timely fashion to meet your deadline. It

20 isn't simply a question --

21 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Which work?

22 MR. GUSTAFSON: This is the

23 modelling work. It isn't a question of plugging

24 in a parameter and pushing a button. There's an

25 optimisation exercise involved. He explained it 297

1 to me, but I had thought he would be here to

2 explain it to you.

3 The point I'm going to make is

4 this: If we can't meet your deadline and

5 determine that we can't do it, should we down tool

6 on that or will there be a little flexibility if

7 it can be done as close to that is as possible?

8 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: The

9 flexibility is certainly there. Just let us know

10 when you do expect it and, in accordance with my

11 request, as soon as possible would be ideal.

12 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you. We

13 will certainly do that.

14 The other is a question, maybe

15 two questions of clarification around the Fish

16 Lake site visit. I understand that the itinerary

17 is to include a visit to the Taseko River and I

18 just want to request a complete itinerary so we

19 know all stops and sites to be visited in

20 conjunction with the Fish Lake visit.

21 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I'm going to

22 go by memory and Livain will correct me if I err.

23 As I understand it, there are two stops, first the

24 Taseko Lake out flow, or in flow. I'm not certain

25 which. Out flow. I thought it was out flow but I 298

1 didn't want to preclude the alternative, and

2 secondly the mine site. I think that's correct.

3 MR. MICHAUD: Yes, the mine

4 site will be the north end of Fish Lake.

5 MR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.

6 That's very helpful. And the information provided

7 to us regarding the site visit isn't clear,

8 although this may be assumed, that Taseko will

9 have the opportunity to provide information and to

10 comment or speak and I just wanted to be clear we

11 will have that opportunity.

12 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I think the

13 intent is first that the site visit is a part of

14 the community hearing. And so, in large part, the

15 community hearing procedures will be applied,

16 although I promise not to go on very long.

17 Second, however, the TNG will sort of be primary

18 presenters there with all other parties being able

19 to pose questions to engage in some discussion and

20 Taseko will certainly be afforded that

21 opportunity.

22 Indeed, there may be

23 circumstances in which a question to Taseko from

24 the Panel, for example, may be a wise way of

25 obtaining some information. Where is this to be 299

1 located? As an example that jumps to mind. I

2 think that's a the plan. I must admit I haven't

3 worked through the details of whether I will say

4 the light may flash and the like, but that's the

5 intent. Perhaps we could hear from TNG as well.

6 MR. LAPLANTE: Two points

7 clarification, one is - and I just mentioned it to

8 Livain now - I hadn't seen the notice until today

9 but I strongly suggest we begin at 9:00, not at

10 10:00 in order to have a more fulsome day. It's

11 due to the nature of the road. It's fairly

12 slow-moving from the out flow back up to the rec

13 site and so our request is it begins at 9:00, not

14 10:00. The second point of clarification --

15 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Let me just

16 respond to that. The Panel has no difficulty with

17 the timing at 9:00. We should make a point when

18 people register for that of being sure they

19 understand that. Taseko is all right with that?

20 MR. GUSTAFSON: I've confirmed

21 we're okay with that.

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

23 for that. Sorry for interrupting. Go ahead.

24 MR. LAPLANTE: I know you

25 probably didn't mean it, but it's the "proposed" 300

1 mine site, not the mine site.

2 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Mia culpa,

3 or in the vernacular, my bad.

4 MS. STUMP: Mr. Chairman, would

5 you like me to repeat my name again?

6 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Yes, please,

7 so we make sure we get it might.

8 MS. STUMP: My name is Fanny

9 Stump speaking on behalf of the Tsiloqot'in

10 National Congress. The voice of the Tsiloqot'in

11 tribe hereditary, spiritual and resources and

12 cultural protection people. I will read this

13 statement for the sake of clarity.

14 Several issues have arisen at

15 these hearing session that require presence of the

16 ultimate mandate and authority - person - from

17 Taseko Mines Limited to clarify and commit to.

18 Like I said before, accordingly, we hereby request

19 that the chair, Panel Chairman, direct and, if

20 necessary, summon the Chairman of the Board of

21 Taseko Mines to be present and accountable when

22 the panel hearing session move to Tsiloqot'in

23 Tribe, Denais Indian band next week. This

24 provision is addressed in section 2:5, public

25 hearing procedures. (Native being spoken). Thank 301

1 you for your consideration of this request. End

2 of submission.

3 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you

4 Ms. Stump. Just before we deal with your request,

5 I'm not sure that Taseko was finished over here

6 and I wanted -- it was not my intention to cut you

7 off. I was going to come back. If you're done

8 we'll move on. If you have other matters in your

9 response then let's deal with those first.

10 MR. GUSTAFSON: We concluded

11 our response, thank you.

12 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: In that case

13 we have a motion that we compel the Chief

14 Executive Officer of Taseko. And before we deal

15 with that request the Panel will seek advice from

16 interested parties, obviously Taseko in

17 particular, on what we ought to do about the

18 request.

19 Would you like to go last on

20 this matter? So do we have any other parties who

21 wish to comment on the request to the Panel to

22 compel I think it was the Chief Executive Officer

23 of Taseko, the Chairman of the Board of Taseko

24 Mines Limited?

25 MR. GUSTAFSON: With respect, I 302

1 think what we'll need to do is take the question

2 away and find out whether there's any chance,

3 logistically and otherwise, that the Chairman

4 would be available to attend on this short notice.

5 Presumably, had the request been made some time

6 ago, we would have been able to think about it and

7 make arrangements.

8 In the circumstances I think

9 we'll need to go back and see whether it's even

10 possible.

11 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Thank you.

12 In fact, I erred. I jumped past the invitation

13 part of Ms. Stump's suggestion and so I think it's

14 fair to say that I think I have her organization

15 correct. The Tsiloqot'in National Congress has

16 requested his attendance and if you could get back

17 to us, we'll have to deal with it next week.

18 MR. GUSTAFSON: Can we have

19 some clarity as to the purposes? Is he to be

20 subjected to a cross-examination or a grilling or

21 otherwise?

22 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: I was going

23 to go there myself. Ms. Stump, could you help us

24 with the purposes of having him appear?

25 MS. STUMP: Only if you have 303

1 authority to make statements.

2 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: The question

3 is what would be the purpose of having him attend

4 this session? Why would you want him to be there?

5 MS. STUMP: I'm a biological

6 mother, and he is a parent company.

7 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: That's the

8 reason provided. So you can work with that.

9 MR. GUSTAFSON: We'll consider

10 the question.

11 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: If it comes

12 to it, the Panel will deal with that request at

13 the next hearing day, which would be Tuesday, and

14 you can advise us what you have discovered by

15 then. Anything more, Miss Stump?

16 MS. STUMP: The other day I

17 asked for the transcripts, how is it going?

18 CHAIRPERSON ROSS: Again, in

19 this case, I don't do that. So I'll refer you to

20 our Secretariat and you can get that clarification

21 on that. That we can help you with. Looking

22 around for more process matters I'm going to move

23 to my closing comments and then to the closing

24 ceremony. My closing comments will be slightly

25 longer tonight, but not much. 304

1 This is the end of the topic

2 specific sessions of this hearing. I guess I have

3 two different thank you's for today's speakers and

4 questioners, one thank you for the helpful

5 information, two thank you for being succinct.

6 That would allow some of us and some of you to get

7 away for the long weekend. And we appreciate

8 that.

9 We do appreciate especially the

10 important information that we have received today.

11 I remind you that the hearing continues with the

12 community sessions starting next week on Tuesday,

13 August the 6th to 8th in Xeni Gwet'in, the

14 community band hall from 9 to 5, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

15 at that location. And I don't believe I have

16 anything else at this time.

17 So if we could have the closing

18 ceremony now that would be appreciated.

19 --- Closing ceremony

20 --- All the foregoing non-English words, when

21 spellings not provided, are represented

22 phonetically.

23 --- Whereupon the hearing was adjourned, to resume

24 at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 6th, 2013.

25 **************** 305

1 C E R T I F I C A T I O N

2

3 I, COURTNEY MIDDLETON, a certified Court Reporter

4 in the Province of Ontario, hereby certify the

5 foregoing pages to be an accurate transcription of

6 my notes to the best of my skill and ability.

7

8 Je, Courtney Middleton, un sténographe officiel

9 dans la province de l'Ontario, certifie que les

10 pages ci-hautes sont une transcription conforme de

11 mes notes au meilleur de mes capacités.

12

13

14

15 Courtney Middleton,

16

17 Courtney Middleton, CSR, RPR

18 Certified Court Reporter.

19

20

21

22

23

24

25 306

1 C E R T I F I C A T I O N

2

3 I, SANDRA BRERETON, a certified Court Reporter in

4 the Province of Ontario, hereby certify the

5 foregoing pages to be an accurate transcription of

6 my notes to the best of my skill and ability.

7

8 Je, Sandra Brereton, un sténographe officiel dans

9 la province de l'Ontario, certifie que les pages

10 ci-hautes sont une transcription conforme de mes

11 notes au meilleur de mes capacités.

12

13

14 Sandra Brereton,

15

16 Sandra Brereton, CSR, RPR

17 Certified Court Reporter.

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25