Bobby Kennedy Jr. has added his voice to the contingent of Yukoners who say the Peel watershed planing process has been undemocratic.

But today, Environment Minister Currie Dixon called those comments laughable.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and president of the binational Waterkeeper Alliance, is in the Yukon for a whitewater rafting trip down the Alsek River – a journey which will take him past Mt. Kennedy.

Meeting with the local media late Thursday afternoon in Whitehorse, Kennedy commented on a variety of pressing issues on the Yukon environmental scene, including the Peel.

Kennedy noted that as he understands it, the majority of Yukoners and the four First Nations involved supported the final recommended plan for the pristine watershed. It was a compromise for the First Nations, which wanted to see 100 per cent of the region protected.

The government's new planning options essentially handed the Peel over to oil and gas extractive industries, said the 59-year-old Kennedy.

"It seems to me that was not an ideal example of democracy at work.”

"Subversion of democracy” is one of the biggest challenges facing people concerned about the environment across the continent, as he sees it.

"Democracy and the environment are intertwined. Wherever you see large-scale pollution, you're also going to see the subversion of the democratic process.

"You're going to see the disappearance of local control, of planning and zoning processes that are shut down to local public and put in the hands of large industries that in the United States can easily dominate state political landscapes, and in Canada, provincial political landscapes,” he said.

Dixon was less than appreciative of Kennedy's take on the situation.

"On behalf of the Government of Yukon, we'd like to welcome Mr. Kennedy to the territory,” Dixon said in an interview this morning.

"We're always happy to have rich tourists come to the territory and spend their money.

"But I have to say I think it's a little bit hilarious and embarrassing that a rich, elitist, celebrity, activist lawyer from the lower 48 would come up here and spew such ill-informed non-sense about an issue and a process about which he clearly has no understanding.”

Dixon went on to say that Kennedy was factually incorrect on a number of his statements.

However, he refused to list which ones, saying he hadn't seen a transcript of the lawyer's comments.

"But for him to suggest that the process was somehow undemocratic and that it was driven by, I guess, oil and gas interests, I think he said, is silly at best,” he said.

Kennedy clearly doesn't have an understanding of the Umbrella Final Agreement, Dixon said, issuing assurances that the government has followed the required process.

Kennedy also spoke about hydraulic fracturing.

As a member of a New York State committee examining fracking, he urged the Yukon legislature's select committee to conduct studies and examine the science behind the controversial extraction technique.

"Initially, I was supportive of fracking. In fact, I did an article for The Economist in 2008 that hailed the potential benefits of fracking for reducing our dependancy on oil and coal particularly,” Kennedy said.

"I've been convinced not by sentiment, or emotion, but by science, that it cannot be done safely, and it's a menace not only to local environments, but because of methane releases, we now know that there is no benefit for global warming over coal,” he concluded.

Permitting fracking would be permitting a few people to become billionaires at the expense of our common assets, he added.

Again, Dixon gave little credence to the comments.

"This from the scientific mind that opposes vaccinations for children in the United States despite the overwhelming consensus of health professionals in both Canada and the United States that vaccinations are a safe option for keeping our populations healthy,” the minister said. "So again, I don't really take his scientific advice too much.”

Dixon did point to the committee's mandate, which requires the members to gain a scientific understanding of the potential risks and benefits of the practice.

Kennedy noted that over his decades working as an environmental lawyer and activist, he's learned that it's not for the sake of the birds or the bees that we work to protect our environment.

"We're protecting it for our own sake because we recognize that nature is the infrastructure of our community, and that if we want to meet our obligations as a nation, as a civilization, as a generation, which is to provide for our children the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment and prosperity and good health as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start protecting our environmental infrastructure,” he said.

Kennedy's father, the late Robert F. Kennedy, climbed the Yukon's Mt. Kennedy in 1965 as tribute to his brother, U.S. president John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated two years earlier.

That trip spurred the Kennedy family's passion for whitewater. The next summer, two years before Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, the family rafted the Colorado River, igniting a passion that Bobby Kennedy and his siblings continue to explore today.

"Some of the best water in the world is here in the Yukon, and I'm looking forward to doing it,” Kennedy said Thursday.

Following his trip down the Alsek, during which he'll be accompanied by two of his chidren, Kennedy will present a lecture on Monday evening called Our Environmental Destiny at the Yukon Arts Centre.

The talk, which will start at 8 p.m., will be followed by a reception at 9 p.m.

The event is a fund-raiser for the Waterkeeper Alliance. Tickets are still available.