Working with Fort Chipewyan

• The Government of Alberta acknowledges the community’s concerns on health and environment issues and is taking action to help address them.
  
  
• Officials from Aboriginal Relations, Health and Wellness, and Environment have visited Fort Chipewyan many times to build relationships, hear concerns and collaborate on solutions.
  
  
• Through Alberta’s historic Protocol Agreement on Government-to-Government Relations, Premier Ed Stelmach has formally met three times with the Grand Chiefs in Alberta, including the Grand Chief and Vice-Chief of Treaty 8, where Fort Chipewyan is located.
  
  
• A Letter of Intent was developed in 2009 providing an important framework for ongoing dialogue and collaborative action on Fort Chipewyan issues. In it, the three Fort Chipewyan Aboriginal leaders and the Alberta Government identified four priorities to ensure the sustainability of the community:
  
  
  • community health and wellness;
  • land-use and stewardship;
  • community-based environmental monitoring; and
  • dialogue process for regulatory issues.
  
  
• Only two of the three Fort Chipewyan Aboriginal leaders signed the Letter of Intent. As a result the framework is currently on-hold.
  
  
• In spite of partial community agreement on a relationship framework, the Alberta Government continues to work with First Nations in the region in a number of ways
  
  
  • development of a community-led, community health assessment.
  • undertake a Contaminant Load Study to examine the effects of air emissions, land disturbance and the potential for seepages or spills; and
  • development of an Aboriginal community-based traditional food study out of the University of Alberta.
  
  
• Alberta is building a first-rate monitoring system that can report exactly what the environmental impacts are in northeast Alberta.  A group of independent and well-respected experts are working on this comprehensive monitoring system – air, land, water and biodiversity – for the oil sands region. The panel met for the first time in February 2011 and will report back to the Minister of Environment by June 2011.

Last updated Feb. 5, 2013