Question Period Note: Supplementary Estimates (A) 2018-2019 NA

• These Supplementary Estimates include adjustments totaling $274 million.
• This funding ensures that the Department will be able to continue to make concrete steps to address the needs of Northerners and Indigenous peoples.

Background

CHARS:
The Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) is a major crown project being built in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. As per the requirement of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station Act (s.25), this facility will become the headquarters of Polar Knowledge Canada, which is responsible for advancing Canada’s knowledge of the Arctic and strengthening Canadian leadership in polar science and technology.

Funding related to the assessment, management and remediation of federal contaminated sites

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) is responsible as owner of last resort in the Territories for a number of contaminated sites in the North that were abandoned by former operators. Most of these sites are abandoned mines, and CIRNAC works closely with territorial governments, Indigenous partners, and other stakeholders to remediate these sites.
Since 2005, the primary source of funding has been the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan, a 15-year program administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, which has been renewed with an additional five years of funding ($1.16 billion) starting in 2020. CIRNAC will utilize this funding in order to address the contamination at its smaller-scale sites, while the larger abandoned mine projects will be funded through the CIRNAC Northern Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program.
Budget 2019 provided CIRNAC’s Northern Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program with $2.2 billion in funding over 15 years starting in 2020 in order to remediate the eight largest abandoned mines in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. These eight projects are the Faro, United Keno Hill, Mount Nansen, Ketza River, and Clinton Creek mines in the Yukon; and in the Northwest Territories, the Giant, Cantung, and Great Bear Lake group of mines.

Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS)
• The construction of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station campus is nearing completion. Two accommodations buildings and a field maintenance building are in use. The main research building is partly operational and is expected to be completed before April 2020. An outdoor storage structure was completed in November 2019.
• The funding of $3.6 million dollars included here will primarily be used for the existing construction and consultant contracts managed by Public Services and Procurement Canada for the completion of the construction of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station.
• Polar Knowledge Canada is operating the Canadian High Arctic Research Station and will become the owner upon completion.
• The project’s Inuit Benefit Plan is valued over $73M.

Funding related to the assessment, management and remediation of federal contaminated sites
• The funding for the Northern Contaminated Sites Program in Supplementary Estimates A is related to a late re-profile from 2018-2019 to 2019-2020 totalling $34.9 million.
• The re-profile will provide funding to ensure that planned remediation activities at the following sites remain on schedule: Giant Mine in the Northwest Territories; Resolution Island, CAM C Matheson Point, CAM E Keith Bay, and FOX D Kivitoo in Nunavut; and the United Keno Hill Mine and Faro Mine in the Yukon.
• Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada is committed to managing contaminated sites in a cost-effective and consistent manner, to reduce and eliminate, where possible, risk to human and environmental health and liability associated with contaminated sites. To date, the Program has completed the remediation of 59 sites,