Oilsands hearings due in Wood Buffalo in May
CAROL CHRISTIAN // April 16, 2009
Fort McMurray Today staff
The federal hearings on the impact of oilsands development on fresh water will be heading to the Wood Buffalo area next month, prompted by the urging of Edmonton MP Linda Duncan.
While hearings have been held in Ottawa since they resumed in March, hearing from government witnesses first, it was a bit of a battle to get them to Alberta, a victory that Duncan says was hard-fought.
“They wanted to, of course, have the usual tour of the tarsands, and I said, ‘I don't agree to that unless you also go to Alberta and hear from Albertans.' We fought for a long time. They finally agreed to go to Fort Chip ... They only wanted to go to Calgary and Fort McMurray,” said Duncan. “They have finally relented, and we'll have a two-hour informal session in Fort Chip. We will also be coming to Fort McMurray.”
In her “relentless” battle, Duncan advised her colleagues the only way they could really see the impact from the oilsands is to fly over the Athabasca River.
The all-party committee is expected to be in Fort Chip and Fort McMurray on May 11, in Edmonton on May 12 and in Calgary on May 13.
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development recently passed a motion to relaunch the water study more than a year after its original launch date of January 2008. In June, the study was back on — briefly — before the summer hiatus and federal election again stalled what Quebec MP Francis Scarpaleggia, committee vice-chairman, likened to a fact-finding mission. He told Today at that time that over the past couple of years, federal Liberals have been hearing how oilsands production uses up a lot of water, a tailings pond may be leaking, and aboriginal communities have concerns about the development.
Between two and four barrels of water are taken from the river to produce one barrel of synthetic crude oil. According to figures released by Alberta Environment, oilsands operations took 78 million cubic metres of water from the Athabasca River in 2006. However, existing and approved operations are licensed to take almost five times that amount: 363 million cubic metres.
As part of this study, the committee is to invite, among other witnesses, representatives from Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada, the Alberta government and the Nunee Health Authority of Fort Chipewyan, as well as ecologists Dr. David Schindler and Kevin Timoney and representatives of the Keepers of the Athabasca and the Pembina Institute plus various industry representatives.
Draft witness lists for the Edmonton and Calgary visits include Chief Alan Adam, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and Chief Roxanne Marcel, Mikisew Cree First Nation, both of Fort Chip, and Chief Albert Mercredi, Fond du Lac, Sask. First Nations representatives from the Northwest Territories are also expected at the hearings. Industry representatives include Suncor Energy, Syncrude Canada, EnCana, ConocoPhillips Canada, Devon Canada, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Oil Sands Developers Group. Non-government organizations include the Pembina Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, Ecojustice Canada. Alberta Sustainable Resources Development and Energy ministries will also be represented. Individuals will also be appearing, such as Arthur Lucas, dean and professor faculty of law at the University of Calgary, and author Andrew Nikiforuk.
However, no witness list has been established for the Fort Chip and Fort McMurray visits because they are considered too informal, and don’t require an official transcript.
Duncan isn't sure if O'Connor will be allowed to testify at the standing committee hearings, even though he has asked to appear.
“Hopefully they will find time for Dr. O'Connor to testify, and his colleague.”
Duncan was present at the March 12 hearing when Health Canada's Dr. Wadieh Yacoub, medical officer of health and director of health protection with the First Nations and Inuit Health branch in Edmonton, said O'Connor, did not report cancer to the Alberta Cancer Board in a timely manner.
Duncan said she was disturbed by Yacoub’s statements.
“He was alluding to the fact that there was something inappropriate that Dr. O'Connor had done,” she said.
When O'Connor first revealed the elevated cancer rates in 2006, he was immediately labelled a whistleblower. Health Canada filed four complaints against him, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta was asked to investigate. Three complaints have since been dropped, though the complaint of causing undue alarm in the community remains.
Acknowledging O'Connor's followup with colleagues to ensure he had followed proper protocol, Duncan, a former chief of enforcement for Environment Canada, said, “There isn't even any obligation for them to report, so suggesting he had not … They're talking through both sides of their mouth at once.”
General practitioners, as explained yesterday by O'Connor, and confirmed by Dr. Liam Griffin, do not diagnose cancers. With a “strong clinical suspicion,” patients are referred to specialists who ultimately diagnose the patient. It's that specialist who then reports the case to the Alberta Cancer Board.
“I got criticized by some of the committee members for taking him (Yacoub) on,” said Duncan, who wants to see the hearings on CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel, Canada’s independent, commercial-free politics TV.
During some questioning at the March 12 hearing, Duncan had asked Yacoub about past requests from the community for health studies. He replied that as soon as Health Canada was informed by O'Connor of his concerns specifically in March 2006, “we immediately reacted by proposing and working to implement a cluster investigation. We assembled the team to respond to that study immediately. That work ultimately resulted in the Alberta Cancer Board's study that was released in 2009. That is the only study we have been approached to deal with.”
He added he had no other information that suggested they would work together on any other study.
“And as you probably know, the public health system in Alberta is a seamless system, so if any other concerns had come through any other agency we would be collaborating.”
Health Canada declined to comment.
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