11 Compensat

11 Compensat ion Charles Eikland testifies at Destruction Bay (Yukon Indian News) Legislative Assembly member Hilda Watson listens to comments of Haines Junction residents (Yukon Indian News) Board chairman Ken Lysyk converses with Father Henk Huybers, Burwash Landing (Whitehorse Star) David Morrison, lett, representing the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce; Margaret Thompson, centre, national Native Women's Association of Canada and David Joe, counsel for the Council for Yukon Indians at formal hearings in Whitehorse (Whitehorse Star) oo _o,r _. ° 148 Introduction The terms and conditions under which this project may be permitted to proceed must ensure that benefits to Yukoners will endure at least as long. Having studied the probable social and economic impacts of the proposed pipeline, the Board has scoubstantialncluded thanegt,ativonebalance,impact othen lifprojecte in thewYuill konhave. a Beyond Regulation Although the implementation of a wide range of regulatory measures should keep the negative impact within acceptable limits, the majority of the benefits of In this report, the Board has recommended or this project will accumulate south of the 60th parallel, suggested various measures to guarantee that some whereas all of its burdens will be borne by the Yukon tangible benefits, such as employment opportunities, and its people. As necessary as planning and will be made available to Yukoners. However, the regulation is to limit the project's adverse affects, they extent to which the redistribution of benefits can be will not, by themselves, be sufficient to compensate achieved through regulatory measures is limited. Yukoners for losses arising from the construction of the Modification of the project itself to maximize benefits in pipeline, nor can they adequately redress the the Yukon could become counterproductive after a imbalance of burdens and benefits, point, because the project might become much less profitable, while offering only slight further benefits to The Board proposes that a more equitable distribution Yukoners. The Agency, described in Chapter 10, will of burdens and benefits be achieved by compensating ensure that Yukoners receive the benefits that can be Yukoners through a Yukon Heritage Fund. This fund achieved through reasonable modification of the would support projects and programs designed to project and the imposition of certain obligations on the improve various aspects of the quality of life for the Applicant. people of the Yukon. It is important to distinguish the purpose of the Briefly, the Heritage Fund is a recognition of two Heritage Fund both from compensation to individuals things. First, despite every effort to minimize the for damage suffered, and from the increased revenues adverse impact of the project, there will still be a to government that will finance expanded or new substantial negative impact on the quality of life, and services in response to the pipeline. Foothills has on the natural environment of the Yukon. Secondly, the assumed liability for direct damage done to individuals, Yukon is being asked to provide the assets of its and has suggested that an accessible and expeditious location, and its social and administrative process of providing compensation to them should be infrastructure, to a project from which it will not benefit developed. In Chapter 6, we have made some in any substantial way. The Board has concluded, recommendations on this subject. However, it is therefore, that the Yukon and its people ought to be important to recognize the limits of compensation to compensated for these unquantifiable - but very real - individuals. Compensation for damages to the detrimental effects. All possible steps must - and will - individual cannot be extended to generalized claims for be taken to minimize the negative aspects of the compensation for damage to the social fabric of the project by regulatory measures and responsive Yukon. Compensation to the individual is, by its nature, government programs, but the Yukon must be given limited to forms of damage that can be quantified. To substantial financial resources to support projects and limit compensation to Yukoners to losses that can be programs that will assist Yukoners and confer benefits quantified fails to acknowledge a much greater loss - on them. These projects may, perhaps, be completely the impairment of the quality of a special way of life. unrelated to the pipeline project itself and designed, This loss cannot be assessed in financial terms. not as a response to any specific impact, but to improve aspects of the quality of life in the Yukon. The Heritage Fund will be quite separate from the resources needed for the mitigation, minimization, or Not only are the benefits to Yukoners of the proposed avoidance of specific social and economic impacts. pipeline relatively limited, they are also primarily Each level of government will require funds to support short-term. What Yukoners require, as compensation its efforts to keep the negative impact of the project to for accepting the project, are not merely these a minimum. We have discussed this topic in Chapter 6, short-term benefits, but the means to ensure that they which deals with government revenues and expenses will gain from the project in the long run. The negative and appropriate levels of taxation. The programs of the impact of the project will not be limited to its period of various levels of government do not represent payment construction; it will continue for many years afterward, to Yukoners for the unquantifiable losses they will 149 suffer as a result of the project; these programs merely must, of course, also be borne by Yukoners. If the help to limit the damage of the project to the Yukon, project is not completed or if it becomes uneconomic not to improve the quality of life there, because of cost overruns, it would not only be the financiers who bear the loss; an incomplete or an It is because compensation to individuals and uneconomic project would leave Yukoners with the increased government programs will not adequately burdens already described and even fewer benefits. compensate Yukoners for the unwelcome changes this project wilt bring to them that we recommend the Furthermore, the Federal Power Commission failed to creation of the Yukon Heritage Fund. The fund offers state what is perhaps the greatest risk of all. Although the possibility of going beyond simple responses to the the Board has concluded that the negative impact of negative impact of the pipeline project. It will support the proposed pipeline can be kept within acceptable positive steps that Yukoners, on their own initiative, will limits, we cannot be sure of the exact limits of that want to take to restore, maintain, and enhance the impact. It is the Yukoners who must bear the risk that quality of life in the Yukon. this impact has been underestimated, and it is the Yukoners who must bear the damage to their way of life and to their environment from any underestimation of the impact. Indeed, it is reasonable to argue that the The Yukon Heritage Fund thosepersonswhowhareo bebeingar theaskedgreatestto putriskstheirin thisway projectof life onare the line, not just their money. There can be no doubt that the people of the Yukon should be compensated We have explained why we think Foothills should for their risks on exactly the same principle as those capitalize the proposed Heritage Fund for the benefit of bearing other forms of risk. all Yukoners, but some elaboration of each of these points may be useful. Yukoners are being asked to offer the geographical location of the Yukon to a project from which they will The impact of the proposed pipeline on life in the derive few benefits. We know that different areas Yukon will be massive. During construction of the derive benefits from different forms of natural riches. pipeline, there must be a highly centralized regulatory For example, jurisdictions that have substantial mineral authority that will, of itself, impose unwelcome or petroleum reserves derive important financial restrictions on the freedom of Yukoners. The focus of benefits and royalties from these resources, and no the regulatory authority will, of course, be centred on one would question this right. Geographical location the project, not on the aspirations of Yukoners. But the may equally be regarded as a natural endowment and, project and the regulation of it will require a indeed, geographical location in the form of canals or re-ordering by Yukoners of many priorities, and the harbours is recognized as a proper source of revenue. devotion of various services and goods to the pipeline Commissioner Pearson alluded to this principle in his for the duration of its construction. The energies testimony. devoted to the pipeline cannot be recaptured or restored; the time that Yukoners must spend The concept is there that we're providing the overland responding to the project and its impact is time forever link to get Alaskan gas out to the U.S. consumers, and it lost to them. The project will seriously interrupt a way is not our gas, so it's pretty tough to share in that, but of life that is based on harmony with the environment there are the lands, the Yukon, that are being used and it and a pace of life that is determined by the seasons, is development, it is resource development so there's a not by the pressing demands of a huge economic concept there of resource development indeed (45-6o80). development. The population and the political base of the Yukon will be irrevocably changed by this project. Not only are Yukoners being asked for the advantage Its social and economic impacts will not end with of their geographical location, but also for the use of construction; they will linger on. their infrastructure of roads, services, and communities. Heavy demands on this infrastructure will Yukoners are also being asked to bear certain risks, work to the detriment of the people of the Yukon, and The United States Federal Power Commission, in its again compensation is due to them for such damage.

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