Hon. Pat Duncan: Honourable senators, I rise today to share the story of Mary Merchant.

In 1917, Mabel and Samuel McAllister were living in Argentina, and as was the custom at the time, Mabel travelled back to Scotland, through the danger of German U-boats in the English Channel, to have a baby. When Mabel was about to give birth, a family friend named Mary brought over a steak-and-kidney pie. Mabel declared the pie so good that if the baby was a girl, she would be named Mary in her honour. Born on June 18, Mary was duly named, and steak-and-kidney pie remains a family favourite to this day.

Mary was the second of four children. When the family returned to Argentina, it was to a large ranch, Santa Elena, part of the Bovril company.

In 1929, Mary and her older sister Barbara returned from Argentina to attend boarding school in Scotland. They returned to Argentina two short years later as the Argentine peso was devalued against the British pound and school in Scotland became unaffordable.

The family moved around Argentina, as her father worked a variety of jobs, including running a brewery. Mary remembers taking visitors through the brewery and explaining the finer points of making beer: “It’s all about the water.”

While at the British Hospital in Buenos Aires, training for a lifelong career as a nurse, Mary became a pen pal with a young man named Walter Merchant who served with the British Army in Burma. So began a six-year correspondence, leading to marriage in 1947. Moving from Argentina to England in 1955, the family, now composed of the couple and two children, chose Canada, where employment prospects seemed rather brighter.

Those brighter employment prospects did not materialize for Walter. Mary retrained to meet Canadian standards as a registered nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. The family settled in Cowansville in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, where Mary spent 20 years nursing at the Hôpital Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins. After her retirement, Mary lived for several years in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

In 1995, Mary began yet another adventure and moved to the Yukon. She continued her life of service, teaching community members to sew, knit, save money and especially to eat a healthy diet by avoiding sugar, the exceptions being Scottish shortbread and Christmas pudding, of course. In Whitehorse, Mary is legendary for her knitting. In one year alone, she knitted 50 pairs of socks, along with baby sets, sold to support the community.

Senators who have been mentally calculating as I shared this story will recognize that, on June 18, Mary, who recently shrugged off a bout of COVID with her traditional good humour, turned 106 years young.

Although Mary’s son, Philip, shared with me that Mary really cannot understand what all the fuss is about, it is an honour to wish her a happy birthday and share the story of a life well lived — one of service and contribution to communities in Quebec, New Brunswick and the Yukon.

Happy one hundred and sixth birthday, Mary.

Thank you, gùnáłchîsh, mähsi’cho.

Hon. Pat Duncan: Honourable senators, I rise to speak to third reading of Bill C-47.

As senators may know, Part 4, Division 20 of the bill contains amendments to the Yukon Act. The specific section amending the Yukon Act is related to the management and remediation efforts of the abandoned Faro Mine. It is notable that on the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act receiving Royal Assent in the Senate of Canada on June 13, 1898, we are discussing an amendment to the same act. This is proof that the Yukon Act — which is considered by Yukoners as our constitution — is a living, dynamic document, reflective of our times and the growth and development of the territory.

Although I will be discussing the constitutional development of the Yukon Act in greater detail once I initiate my inquiry on it, I do think it is appropriate at this time to provide a brief refresher on the constitutional significance of the Yukon Act and amendments to it, such as I’m discussing today.

The act was discussed 125 years ago. It provided for the appointment by Canada of a commissioner and an appointed territorial council to oversee the administration of the Yukon. The population of the region had exploded due to the Klondike Gold Rush, and Ottawa felt a need to set up a local administration to ensure peace, order and good government, and the regulation of liquor. The appointed council and commissioner acted on behalf of, and under the control of, Ottawa.

Moving ahead to 1979, then-Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Jake Epp authored a letter to the commissioner of the Yukon Territory advising her that she was to take the direction of the duly elected territorial council and:

request the Territorial Government Leader that he shall constitute and appoint a body known as the Cabinet or the Executive Council which will have as its members those elected representatives of the Territorial Council who are designated from time to time by the Government Leader who enjoys the confidence of the Council.

The letter included that the commissioner was no longer to be part of the council. In other words, in plain language, the first territorial cabinet was formed from a duly, democratically elected legislative assembly, a legislative assembly elected on party lines. Today, the Yukon remains the only territory with party politics.

The Epp letter was issued at the time when former Yukon senator the Honourable Ione Christensen was the commissioner.

Honourable senators, as significant as that event was, members of the National Finance Committee with whom I have had the honour to work will appreciate the importance of following the money. As important as the Epp letter was, although not enshrined in the Yukon Act, more significant to my mind, as a former finance minister, was an event in 1985: the establishment of the Territorial Formula Financing arrangement.

Previously, the commissioner would go to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development every year, cap in hand, and say, “Please, may we have enough money to run the territory for you?” With the advent of the Territorial Formula Financing arrangement, we became partners at the table on a similar footing to the provinces with their equalization payments.

Although the Yukon now had control over our finances, it was the Devolution Transfer Agreement, or DTA, wherein we truly became the masters of our own house. The Devolution Transfer Agreement gave the territory land- and resource-management responsibilities. The initial agreement was signed in 2001 by myself on behalf of the Yukon, and its implementation took place in 2003.

The DTA negotiations included many discussions about the remediation of the Faro Mine site. Once the largest open pit lead‑zinc mine in the world, the Faro Mine officially opened in 1969. After nearly 30 years of operations under different ownership and having formed more than 30% of the Yukon economy, the last owners declared bankruptcy and abandoned the mine in 1998.

Seventy million tonnes of tailings and 320 million tonnes of waste rock with the potential to leach metals and acid into the surrounding land and water were left behind. The amounts spent by Canada on the remediation of the Faro Mine site clearly show the significance of the cleanup. Last fiscal year, Canada spent over $86 million on remediation, and care and maintenance costs. For the previous two years, $92 million and $103 million were spent, respectively.

Referencing back to the formula financing arrangement, clearly with a territorial budget of $535.5 million in 2001, the Yukon could not carry the financial burden of the Faro Mine cleanup. Yet the DTA was supposed to make us masters of our own house, which leads us to the changes in Bill C-47.

The DTA identified the Faro Mine as a shared responsibility between the federal and territorial governments. Canada was financially responsible for care and maintenance and for the development and implementation of longer-term remediation plans, while the Yukon was responsible for carrying out the activities.

The arrangement soon led to major challenges in the Yukon government’s ability to influence the direction, scope, scheduling and budget of the project. The net result for contractors working in the field was delayed payments and a very frustrating process. In 2020, a transitional agreement was entered into for the federal government to carry out interim care and maintenance under delegated authority from the Yukon Minister of the Environment.

This amendment to the Yukon Act would remove the need for that delegation. It would put the governance of the project, financial responsibility for the remediation and statutory power to manage risks at the site in a single federal minister.

Honourable senators, providing this background is not the complete picture. I would like to outline for you the essential role of Yukon First Nations. While June 13 is the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act, honourable senators have heard me speak earlier this year to the fiftieth anniversary of Together Today for our Children Tomorrow.

In 1993, the Yukon and Canada signed the Umbrella Final Agreement, or UFA. Since then, 11 of 14 Yukon First Nations have concluded self-government and land claim agreements. The UFA included chapter 12, which provided for the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, or YESAA, a development assessment process that is referenced in Bill C-69, which received Royal Assent in June 2019.

It is important to include the development of YESAA as part of the UFA and the Canada-Yukon-Council of Yukon First Nations agreement, and is appropriate in discussing such items as the remediation of the Faro Mine site. YESAA provides for the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, a regime that evaluates all development projects — everything from highway right-of-ways to mines to ensure First Nations rights, the environment and the social and economic development of the territory are appropriately recognized and reviewed before development proceeds.

I will reference the timeline for the Faro Mine Remediation Project. In 2003, an oversight committee formed involving key representatives from the Government of Yukon, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Kaska and Selkirk First Nations to help develop the remediation plan. From 2002 to 2004, technical consultation sessions were held to gather input from First Nation communities. In 2006-08, the remediation options were refined following a series of consultation sessions involving the Kaska, Selkirk First Nation, the Town of Faro, governments and regulatory agencies and scrutiny by independent experts. In 2009, the remediation option was selected and signed off by Canada, the Yukon government, the Kaska and the Selkirk First Nations.

These are examples of how the government-to-government-to-government relationships work today with YESAA and on such important items as the Faro Mine Remediation Project.

Part of the Faro Mine Remediation Project is the Rose Creek diversion project. Rose Creek is located in the traditional territory of the Ross River Dena Council and the Liard First Nation. Ross River Dena Council and Liard First Nations are also two First Nations who have not completed land claim agreements with Yukon and Canada.

Stephen Mead, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources and Geoscience Services at the Yukon government told the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources about the success story of this particular part of the remediation project.

Fifteen years ago he was standing on the face of a dam when the water was coming out of a rock where it hadn’t before. There was a creek or a river that the tailings had been put in through the decades of mining. The river, at a very early part of the system, had been diverted around the tailings. The river is called Rose Creek. New contamination appeared from waste rock that hadn’t been in place before. There was a need to do some large-scale upgrades, changes and improvements to make sure the clean water flowing across the site was kept clean.

The Ross River Dena Council, to whom the area has been the main hunting, medicinal gathering and culturally important area for millennia, is very engaged in this project and has been for many years. They play a vital role in guiding the decisions made on that site. The river and Rose Creek itself have particular significance. Mr. Mead said:

There was a part of that creek where, as long as oral history can track, people gathered to collect water to make special medicinal tea. That was literally in that Rose Creek component of the system. It was very important for that work to get done in that regard.

The reason for this discussion and this amendment to the Yukon Act in Bill C-47 is because of work such as what has occurred at the Rose Creek diversion.

The people who are most affected by this amendment are those on the ground involved in the cleanup. This amendment ensures timely payment, as the contractors are dealing with one administration rather than several.

Senators, I would be remiss in offering sober second thought to the provisions in the Yukon Act if I did not also offer the opinion that the amendment is interpreted by some as a potential step backward from our devolution agreement and changes to the Yukon Act by the House of Commons voted in this place in 2002.

I appreciate that concern raised and I vividly recall the back and forth regarding the responsibility for the remediation required at the Faro Mine site. Should we, the Yukon, take it on when Canada permitted the project and, quite honestly, reaped the benefits in millions of tax dollars and mineral royalties during the mine’s operation between 1969 and 1998, and who really should be responsible for that cleanup?

On the other hand, having worked so hard to be masters of our own house in settling land claims and negotiating a devolution transfer agreement, should we really be giving Canada back control over the land in this change to the Yukon Act? As I said, some see it as a step backward in the political evolution of the territory.

This amendment allows for Canada to uphold its responsibility and allow for the federal funding to flow smoothly, with less administrative burden for both governments. And it is on this specific site only.

Indigenous rights are maintained, as all works at the Faro site have to go through the YESAA regime, which ensures the role of First Nations and First Nation governments. I would also add that the Yukon Act section 56(1) ensures that the Yukon government must be consulted before any amendments to the act are introduced. Just as we are reminded of the strength of the voice of a duly elected House of Commons, I am reminded that the Yukon government, in supporting this amendment, are the duly elected representatives of the population who have requested this amendment to their constitution.

Colleagues, I appreciate the time you have given me tonight to explain the background behind this amendment to the Yukon Act. I thank you for your time and attention. I would express to you my support for the amendment to the Yukon Act in Part 4, Division 20 of Bill C-47. I, along with the duly elected Yukon government and our member in the other place support this initiative and commend it to the chamber. Gùnáłchîsh, mahsi’cho, thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)