21 June 1996
Honourable Sergio Marchi
Minister of Environment
Terrasses de la Chaudiere
Hull, Quebec
KIA OH3

Dear Minister Marchi:

You have now received the report of the environmental assessment panel that reviewed the BHP diamond mine proposal. CARC believes the environmental review was fundamentally flawed for the process was not comprehensive, rigorous, or fair. These matters are important not just for the BHP project but also to ensure that the up-coming review of the Voisey' s Bay proposal in Labrador is not subject to these same deficiencies. In the attachment to this letter entitled "Critique of the BHP Environmental Assessment: Purpose, Structure, and Process", we outline several significant deficiencies. CARC would appreciate meeting with you at the earliest possible date to discuss our concerns in detail. We are currently evaluating the panel's report and will share that analysis with you as soon as it is available.

This project, and the review of it, will set precedents. We urge you to take whatever time is needed to consult as widely as possible about the review process itself and the recommendations. Such an approach will go a long way towards addressing the concerns of many who believe the BHP environmental assessment is characterized by omissions, oversights, untested evidence, and too little opportunity to be heard fully.

I am writing now to suggest a number of principles and perspectives that you and your of ficials will want to keep in mind as you evaluate the panel's report and recommendations:

• The fundamental need for an environmental assessment to be a thorough and rigorous technical review of the project. As our accompanying notes show, by the Chair's own admission this assessment did not even attempt such a review.

• It is in the public interest that government demonstrate its commitment to the just, fair, and expeditious settlement of aboriginal land claims and treaty entitlements in the Slave Geological Province by adopting measures that enhance those negotiations, and thus create the local and regional capability to manage people, resources, and the environment.

• In the absence of land-claims settlements and successfully re-negotiated treaty entitlements, legally binding impact and benefit agreements should be in place before project approvals are given. Such agreements are necessary to provide an acceptable level of certainty to the parties with respect to the management of impacts and benefits.

• A formal and binding commitment on the part of governments to establish a sustainable economic development and diversification fund utilizing revenues generated by mineral development.

• Legally empowering a monitoring body that 1) would harmonize existing monitoring functions in the Slave Geological Province, 2) would identify and remedy gaps in monitoring capability, and 3) would treat traditional knowledge of the aboriginal peoples and the best scientific information with full and equal consideration, and 4) would ensure effective enforcement.

• That an ecosystems approach toward project management be adopted, including conservation of environmentally significant areas, to ensure that sustainable development objectives in the region are attained.

In your evaluation of the panel report we believe that the tests of comprehensiveness, rigour, and fairness are the key criteria. The report must clearly show that it has considered relevant issues, including the six points above, in both breadth and depth. Unfortunately, the flaws in the process have precluded a broad and detailed analysis of the project and the issues it raises. As well, the report must demonstrate clearly that the evidence presented has been subjected to the highest quality scrutiny and that all parties to the process have received fair treatment and that their views have been fully considered.

There are significant benefits to you, to the Department of the Environment, to the federal government as a whole, and to the proponent, BHP, in ensuring that environmental and aboriginal values are properly considered in evaluating the panel' s report. It will be important to

• Avoid the very real possibility of a legal injunction against the BHP project stemming from land-claims disputes or procedural errors by the environmental assessment panel. No doubt you are aware of the potential for an injunction in the Voisey's Bay project.

• Avoid approval of a project that has real potential to cause significant ecological impacts. The BHP experience at the Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea and the current charges against the company under the Fisheries Act should prompt caution.

• In light of the fact that regulatory authority and responsibility in the North is very much in flux, ensure that through land-claims, treaty entitlement, and impact and benefit agreements, the organizational capability to manage people, resources and the environment in the North is put in place.

• Ensure a sense of trust in decision-making processes involving aboriginal and other northern residents, governments, and the mining company that final decisions will reflect fairly everyone's interests, not only for the BHP project, but also for other developments soon to follow.