Federal justice minister denies what he said on natural resources

Federal justice minister denies saying what he clearly said on natural resources, Prairie premiers release joint statement.

By Brian Zinchuk

OTTAWA, REGINA, WINNIPEG, EDMONTON – The dustup over provincial control of natural resources continued into April 11, with the federal Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti putting out a statement denying he said what he clearly said, and the three Prairie premiers issuing a statement in response.

The evening of April 10, Lametti issued the following statement via Twitter, with emphasis added by Pipeline Online:

“I am the Minister responsible for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration Act (UNDA) into federal laws and policies. Last week I met with First Nations leaders to discuss its implementation as part of a session of the AFN-SCA that was focused exclusively on the UNDA. Amongst the many questions I was asked, the Natural Resources Transfer Act was raised by First Nations Chiefs on a couple of occasions. It is part of my job to listen to those concerns. To be clear, at no point did I commit our government to reviewing areas of provincial jurisdiction, including that over natural resources. The focus of our Government’s work is to co-develop an action plan with Indigenous partners that will show the path we must take towards aligning federal laws and policies with UNDRIP.”

During a panel at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly, in Ottawa on April 5, Justice Minister David Lametti was asked by two people about provincial jurisdiction over natural resources. Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte from Prince Albert Grand Council asked Lametti to “rescind the act, The Natural Resource Transfer Act, that affect the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. That’s what we’re asking you, minister as an action item with a statement. It affects our treaty rights, of course, under the Sask First Act, that we hear about. And it’s to do with natural resources. Indian natural resources.”

Chief Don Maracle of Mohawks of Bay of Quinte said, “Canada exporters natural resources to other countries. They earn trillions of dollars in revenues from those resources. Those resources were given to the provinces, without ever asking one Indian if it was okay to do that, or what benefits the First Nations expect to receive by Canada consenting to that arrangement.”

Premiers respond, call for retraction

In response, Lametti said, “I take from Chief Brian and Chief Don Maracle the point about the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement … You’re on the record for that. I obviously can’t pronounce on that right now. But I do commit to looking at that.

“It won’t be uncontroversial, is the only think I would say, with a bit of a smile,” Lametti said.

A little after noon on April 11, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson put out the following statement:

“The Prime Minister needs to tell Canadians today that his Justice Minister was not speaking on behalf of the federal government when he said he would look at rescinding the 1930 Natural Resources Transfer Agreements with the prairie provinces and stripping away their constitutional authority and control over natural resources.​

“These agreements recognized that the prairie provinces have the same rights over resources that all of the other provinces already had. Those rights have been fundamental to the people and the economic autonomy of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba for nearly 100 years.​

“The federal government cannot unilaterally change the constitution. They should not even be considering stripping resource rights away from the three prairie provinces.​

“The Prime Minister needs to immediately retract these dangerous and divisive comments by his Justice Minister.”

Speaking to John Gormley on CJME/CKOM the morning of April 11, Moe said, “Where does that leave us? One, he either didn’t understand that, so he’s incompetent, or two, he’s actually being deceitful with the chiefs that asked the question by not providing them with the one and only answer he has available to him,” Moe said.

“I find this very disappointing. Any comments like that I find tremendously troubling.”

Natural resources revenue in Saskatchewan will account for $3.3 billion of this year’s $19.6 billion budget. Put in context, that’s equivalent of 82 per cent of all spending by the Ministry of Education.

Moe’s initial tweet about this issue had been viewed 1.6 million times in 24 hours, and 1.7 million within 26 hours. There are only 1.2 million people in Saskatchewan.