Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of the committee.

My name is Laurie Swami, and I am the president and CEO of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or the NWMO. It's an honour to appear before you today to discuss how the NWMO works to engage with indigenous communities and how we align with indigenous knowledge in the work we do.

I would like to begin by acknowledging we are meeting today on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

The NWMO's mandate is to implement Canada's plan for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel in a manner that protects both people and the environment. There is national and international scientific consensus that used nuclear fuel should be managed in a deep geologic repository in a location with a willing and informed host community. Our future site will safely store nuclear fuel for the long term, so it's important that the NWMO's siting decision is made based on the best available knowledge, including both western science and indigenous knowledge. Incorporating indigenous knowledge into our work is a humbling learning journey that requires non-indigenous decision-makers like me to ensure we are working with indigenous peoples in a way that honours and lifts this work up.

While we are still on a learning journey, there are a few lessons I want to share, based on our 20-plus years of work.

First, before we can create policies that incorporate indigenous knowledge, we must understand what indigenous knowledge is. This requires trust and good relationships. The starting place for NWMO's learning has been building relationships with indigenous communities and knowledge holders, who have been our incredible teachers in this process. We have a council of elders and youth that has acted as a crucial resource to help us approach our learning journey in the right way. Each year, the NWMO holds an indigenous knowledge and western science workshop with indigenous knowledge holders, elders, youth, scientists and industry professionals to deepen this work. These relationships have been the foundation on which we have built policy to incorporate and respect indigenous knowledge in our work.

Second, the lessons indigenous knowledge and western science offer us are complementary, yet we must embrace each as a fundamentally different way of knowing, seeing and moving through the world. While western knowledge gives us a framework for generating knowledge through experimentation, the knowledge it creates is sometimes not complete, is often inaccessible for indigenous peoples, and often places us alone as humans at the centre of its findings.

Western science and ways of knowing are one way of knowing, but they are not the only way of knowing. Indigenous knowledge offers a potentially diverse perspective in which humans are part of a greater relationship with the environment, a relationship that gives us insights into the workings of the world and the ethics of our decisions. Both ways of knowing provide us with valuable, complementary insights from different perspectives. When we consider decisions that have long-term impacts on the environment or communities, we need both of these perspectives.

Third, respecting indigenous knowledge requires us to understand systemic barriers that make policy and relationships difficult. Respecting indigenous knowledge requires that we always remain aware that western concepts of ownership and intellectual property don't align with indigenous knowledge, which is meant to be shared in the community and across generations. If we listen to indigenous knowledge holders and communities, we can overcome barriers by generating policies based on fairness and respect, ensuring that our relationships will last.

In closing, indigenous knowledge cannot be an afterthought when working on major projects like ours. However, policy-makers and decision-makers need to be aware of the importance that relationships and trust play in learning about and engaging with indigenous knowledge, and in generating policy on respectfully incorporating indigenous knowledge into decision-making.

I look forward to answering any specific questions on how the NWMO aligns with this important knowledge in our work.

Meegwetch.

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