Either find a solution or withdraw the four controversial amendments to the assessment act, a mining executive told a House of Commons committee Monday in Whitehorse.

“Our position is if the government is not going to come back and address the issues with the First Nations, that they be removed from the bill,” Allison Rippin Armstrong, Kaminak Gold’s vice-president, said during the day-long hearing.

The Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development held hearings in Whitehorse on proposed amendments to Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act.

First Nations have promised legal action against four of the amendments they say were crafted in the back room by the Yukon government with industry at its side and then sent off to Ottawa without any input or feedback from the First Nations.

The First Nations and many other organizations argue the four amendments will have an intolerable impact on the assessment process and the independence of the assessment board.

Rippin Armstrong told the committee Kaminak understands that while most of the 70-plus amendments were supported by First Nations, some amendments did not reflect discussions during the five-year review.

The review presented an opportunity to celebrate an historic alignment between the Yukon government and First Nations, she said.

Instead, said Rippin Armstrong, First Nations are threatening to take the federal government to court if the four amendments are included in the bill.

“Kaminak is very concerned by this development because court cases create assessment and regulatory uncertainty in addition to extraordinary delay, all of which erodes investor confidence,” she told the committee.

Rippin Armstrong said the community of investors in mineral exploration and development is very mobile.

While Canada’s political stability remains attractive, investors have never been more globalized, she said.

“If Bill S-6 is passed and challenged in court, the Coffee Project, and our presence in the Yukon, is uncertain,” she told the committee.

“Kaminak urges the federal government to resume discussions with the First Nations, to work collectively toward reaching consensus on the proposed amendments to YESAA and avoiding a court challenge.”

Bill S-6 has already been passed by the Senate, and has received second reading in the House of Commons. Seven of the 10 committee members were in Whitehorse for the hearings, including Yukon MP Ryan Leef.

The committee heard Monday from more than 20 individuals representing the Yukon government, industry, First Nations, environmental organizations, the assessment board and other stakeholders.

Premier Darrell Pasloski opened the hearings by assuring the committee the government is in full supports of Bill S-6 in its current form.

Presenting alongside Rippin Armstrong was Brad Thrall, president of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, and vice-president of Alexco Resource Corp., the company which owns the Bellekeno Mine and mill operation in Keno City.

Also present was Ron Light, president of the Minto Mine.

The chamber also supports Bill S-6 in its current form, and sees a pressing need to implement even the controversial amendments, he told the committee.

Thrall said Alexco, for instance, has gone through the assessment process 10 times in the past eight years for activities that are similar in nature and had already been through an assessment.

The company has had to go through a full re-assessment simply to extend the life of an operating permit from five to 10 years, he said.

Thrall said the time lines in the overall assessment process are growing longer and longer.

Even the time it takes the assessment board to determine if has all the information it needs to conduct an assessment is growing longer and longer, he said.

“The current uncertainty in reassessments and continued extensions of the time required for a YESAA assessment has a negative impact on our ability to efficiently plan and operate our business,” Thrall told the committee.

“And, by extension, it impairs the competitiveness of Yukon as a jurisdiction to assert certainty in the mine development and production process and attraction of scarce investment capital.”

Thrall said the chamber believes the proposed amendments will improve the areas of most concern to the industry.

Leef reminded the Kaminak vice-president that her company president signed off on a list of recommendations in 2013 as a member of the Yukon Minerals Advisory Board.

The amendments in S-6, including the controversial amendments, are meant to address those recommendations, he said.

If the First Nations are promising legal action if they’re not withdrawn, then how are the issues supposed to be addressed, Leef asked Rippin Armstrong.

The Kaminak vice-president said she heard the First Nations earlier in the day clearly say they were willing to return to the table to discuss the four amendments.