Mackenzie Valley Highway: Will the way it’s regulated change?

Federal leaders say they’re looking to declare the Mackenzie Valley Highway a project of national interest. What does that mean, in practice, for the way the highway is regulated?

Designating a project in the national interest under the Building Canada Act gives it presumptive approval under a range of federal legislation (listed here) related to things like wildlife and marine matters.

Announcing on Wednesday that consultation with Indigenous governments will begin before such a designation is made, federal ministers said the main change is that political approval will be sped up. That means, they said, the project will know it has the green light – changing the focus from whether it will go ahead to how it will go ahead.

“Every determination and finding that has to be made and every opinion that has to be formed in order for an authorization to be granted in respect of a national interest project is deemed to be made or formed, as the case may be, in favour of permitting the project to be carried out in whole or in part,” is the wordy way the legislation puts it.

While that may be true at the federal level, the people leading the NWT’s regulatory approach say becoming a project of national interest changes nothing about the existing processes.

Major projects like the highway in the NWT are permitted through the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which is exempt from the Building Canada Act’s national interest fast-tracking.

Environmental assessments like the one being carried out by the Mackenzie Valley Review Board will still go ahead.

“The federal announcement does not approve the project or supplant or replace the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act process,” said Mark Cliffe-Phillips, the review board’s executive director.

“They’re looking to expedite decision-making, procurement, financing, all those things that are well within the authority of the federal government, but that doesn’t supplant or replace the system we already have.”

However, that doesn’t mean the review board’s process is static or that the highway will face an unusually tough time being permitted.

Cliffe-Phillips said the review board recognizes the “strong public interest” in the Mackenzie Valley Highway being built.

He told Cabin Radio the aim is to produce a “coordinated, timely and efficient” process that maintains trust in the system, protects the environment, supports the long-term wellbeing of communities and respects Indigenous rights.

Even before the federal fast-tracking announcement, Cliffe-Phillips said, the review board had been looking at “various ways to make its process more efficient in terms of coordination.”

“Regardless of the designation that may apply to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the review board is still looking at doing those things, just more through the lens of land claims, modern comprehensive agreements … timeliness, efficiency, coordination,” he said.

“We were already heading in that direction, but we’re doing it at the pace of our organizations and our process and our communities.

“The consultation requirements under the [Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act] and under the land claims guarantee that the process is going to move at the pace that communities and governments in the Northwest Territories will find acceptable.”

‘Much different timeline’

One potentially complicating factor is a recent shift from a prolonged, two-phase construction of the highway toward building the whole thing in a sprint.

For years, the environmental permitting process has focused on a proposal that would first construct the highway from Wrigley to Norman Wells over many years. Once that was complete, the GNWT would move on to figuring out the stretch from Norman Wells to Inuvik.

With the transformation in federal interest that has occurred over the past year, the territorial messaging has ditched this approach in favour of suggesting that the entire highway can be built in less than five years through multiple crews working in different areas at the same time.

Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely recently wrote to the review board to address this, because trying to build the whole highway at once instead of doing phases over decades will need to be factored in by regulators.

In his letter, McNeely expressed concern that if the Norman Wells-Inuvik phase ends up needing its own environmental assessment, that could mean waiting two to four years – or more – for regulators to carry out that work.

He said that could mean repetition and duplication of engagement and studies, “reduced certainty for all parties and diminished long-term project viability.”

McNeely asked the review board to be flexible and find a way to approve the “full corridor” from Wrigley to Inuvik that would add only a “short additional period to the current environmental assessment timeline, while significantly reducing long-term regulatory and schedule risks.”

Cliffe-Phillips told Cabin Radio the review board has options to handle the full route.

He said the original proposal referred to the review board had in fact contemplated the entire route, only to be shrunk down later by the GNWT.

“So we actually began the process as the entire route, including to the point of writing the guidance to the developer on what should be included in the developer’s assessment report,” said Cliffe-Phillips.

If and when a formal request is made to consider the whole route again, he said that could mean looking again at the environmental assessment’s terms of reference, updating the developer’s assessment report – a key document – and then going through a public process to review all of that.

While talk of building the road in five years is “definitely a much different timeline than was originally proposed,” Cliffe-Phillips said the regulatory process could “potentially fit” within that kind of window.

Consultation begins

Fast-tracking the highway at the federal level is not yet a given. It needs to be accepted as a process by Indigenous governments along the road’s route.

The Sahtu Secretariat, Gwich’in Tribal Council and Pehdzéh Kı̨ First Nation have signed an agreement to work together in advancing the highway, though that doesn’t mean they will automatically rubber-stamp a move to fast-track it.

Some leaders were at Wednesday’s announcement, which Sahtu MLA McNeely described as a “very proud and historic day,” emphasizing some leaders’ view that the highway is “long overdue.”

The prospect of quickly building it “brings the reality of connection to the people that I represent in the Sahtu,” he said.

However, not all Indigenous leaders gave the fast-tracking process their immediate blessing.

By phone, Fort Good Hope-based Yamoga Land Corporation President Joseph Tobac said he was not opposed to the highway but did oppose the idea of fast-tracking if it compromised consultation.

Tobac alleged the GNWT and Ottawa had engaged with the Sahtu Secretariat about the highway but not the Yamoga Land Corporation.

“Proper engagement, consultation. That stuff is important to us and we want to work with the federal government on this,” Tobac told Cabin Radio. “That’s all we’re looking for.”

Consultation on a national-interest designation is expected to begin in the coming weeks. There was no immediate timeline provided for when that period will end and when a formal designation might occur.