3 long-time Ekati mine monitoring board members removed

The Northwest Territories government, Dominion Diamond Corporation and the federal government are removing three long-time members of the board responsible for monitoring Dominion's Ekati mine.

The move comes in the middle of an environmental assessment of Dominion's proposed expansion of the mine and at least one aboriginal group says the change is going to weaken the assessment.

Last week, three of the seven members of the Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency — chair Bill Ross, Kim Poole and Laura Johnston — were notified their time on the board will end next month.

Four aboriginal groups appoint the remaining four members of the board.

None of the three departing board members live in the North and Environment and Natural Resources Minister Michael Miltenberger says that's why they're being replaced.

"There's capable Northerners who have all sorts of background," he said. "If these three incumbents, God forbid, were hit by a bus or struck by lightning and we had to carry on, we would carry on. We can make a nice smooth transition. There are lots of people who can get up to speed. It can be done."

Todd Slack, Yellowknives Dene First Nation's director of lands and environment, says he thinks the quality of the environmental assessment is going to suffer.

Ekati is on land traditionally used by the Yellowknives. Slack says the First Nation relies heavily on the analysis the agency does of often highly-technical reports.

"You're losing really effective subject matter experts," he said. "Bill Ross — he wrote the book on cumulative effects, or at least a book on cumulative effects. Kim Poole is a wildlife specialist that the GNWT hires to help them understand their caribou information. Laura Johnston is a water quality specialist."

Ross has served on the monitoring board since it was created. He has been chair for 12 years. Poole and Johnston have been with the board for nine years.​

Dominion says the mine expansion could extend the operating life of Ekati by 10 to 20 years beyond the currently scheduled closure in 2019. Company officials say they need timely approval of the project to avoid running out of kimberlite to process and having to shut down the mine before the new pipes can be mined.

"If it extends mine life and gives us an extra four or five or six years, however many years, that's an enormous amount of contribution to our gross domestic product," says Miltenberger, who is also Finance Minister.

"We have a $3.6-billion GDP. The mines up there currently contribute half of that. If those mines suddenly shut their doors we'd be having a very different conversation, a much bleaker conversation."

Miltenberger says the money at stake had nothing to do with the decision to replace the three board members.

Earlier this year, the territorial government accepted a new form of security for the mine. It was the first time a surety bond has been used as security for a large-scale resource project in the N.W.T.

Dominion has some powerful connections to the government. Its vice-president and acting CEO, Brendan Bell, is a former cabinet minister. He served with Miltenberger on cabinet. Dominion's manager of permitting for the expansion is Richard Bargery, a former principal secretary to cabinet.

Miltenberger refused to say who — Dominion, the federal government or the territorial government — initiated discussion of removing the three members of the Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency.

Miltenberger says he "has an idea" who the new board members will be, but would not give any names.