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organizations (Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project 2009). A clear divide appeared
between those regions where a land claim had been signed and those that had no such agreement yet.
In the first case the Aboriginal organizations supported the pipeline project, while in the second there
was widespread opposition (Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project 2009; National Energy
Board 2010). The NEB, for its part, held public hearings from 2006 to 2010 in 15 communities (NEB
2010).
In December 2009, the Joint Review Panel submitted its report and concluded “that there are reasonable
grounds for expecting that the Project would make a positive contribution to sustainability provided that the Panel’s
recommendations are fully implemented” (Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project, 2009). In
November 2010, the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories responded to the JRP
report and accepted 88 of the 115 recommendations. One month later, the NEB issued a decision to
approve the project and, finally, on March 11, 2011, almost eight years after the project proponents
had filed the pipeline project, the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline was granted federal cabinet approval.
However, by that time it was no longer financially viable because the natural gas price had dropped
from $15.38 per MMBtu in December 2005 to $4.57 in 2011 due to increased American production
of shale gas.
The Mackenzie Gas Project (MGP), thus, received approval through a lengthy and complicated
process, which took over seven years from the time the project was officially tabled. The land claim
and water boards did not, however, slow down the process conducted by the Joint Review Panel. In
fact, most of the delays were due to the extensive public consultations taking place and to the need to
review the project through two processes: a local one for the Mackenzie Valley and the NWT and a
federal one through the National Energy Board. Finally, the MGP had support from all of the
Aboriginal groups that had signed land claim agreements, and all of the groups that had not were
opposed. Therefore, it could be said that the land claim agreements are, in fact, facilitating approval
of development projects.
The federal solution: streamlining and recentralizing the regulatory process
In the NWT
During MGP public hearings, the federal government mandated a special rapporteur, Neil McCrank,
to review the regulatory system in the North with an almost exclusive focus on the NWT. In March
2008, after consultations with many stakeholders, a two-day roundtable was held in Yellowknife to
hear the opinions of other stakeholders, with 80 people being present (McCrank 2008). The McCrank
Report recommended two options: transform the regional boards into administrative regulatory
bodies that would no longer have quasi-judicial power or merge all the land and water boards into a
single board, the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (MVLWB). If that second option was to
be chosen, the report further recommended that the federal government reach agreements with each
party in order to make amendments to the land claim agreements before amending the MVRMA and
that the MVLWB have final decision-making authority (rather than the Minister).
Resource Development & Land Claims