Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 Committee on May 28th, 2012

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm sorry, that wasn't the question I asked.

The question I asked was whether you think politicians have the necessary expertise to gather, synthesize, and analyze the vast amount of data. It is a very specific question.

[David Collyer]

I think they have expertise in public policy, and I think public policy is relevant to decisions that are being made about pipelines and other matters.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

That's not the question. Could you answer the question, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Go ahead, Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Just because Ms. Duncan is not getting the answer she wants doesn't mean she should be badgering the witness. I think we've had a very productive committee hearing, and we should continue to move forward in that manner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Ms. Duncan, the witness has attempted several times to answer your question. I'm not sure that he's going to be able to give you an answer that is different from the one you already have.

If you have other lines of questioning, I'd encourage you to move on.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm guessing that my time is up. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

No, you have a little bit more time.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Collyer, as you're probably aware, a team of Environment Canada's smokestack specialists, who travel around Canada measuring emissions and analyzing data to help industry, are being affected. They recently conducted research supporting federal efforts to produce a credible monitoring plan for pollution from Alberta's oil sands sector. Are you concerned that the cuts would jeopardize the government's plan to create a credible monitoring plan for the oil sands?

[David Collyer]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that we're not seeing any reduction in the amount of federal government engagement in environmental monitoring of the oil sands, so I'm not concerned about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Collyer, and thank you, Ms. Duncan.

We now move on to our five-minute round, starting with Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Mr. Myers, I want to go quickly to you. You talked a little bit about the current process being a barrier to investment. I have two questions.

First, can you comment a little on some of those barriers to investment? You also talked about world-class manufacturing, world-class resource development, and world-class environmental processes and stewardship. Do you see that this bill limits any of those objectives?

[Jayson Myers]

With respect to your first question, and building on what Mr. Collyer said, the issues around investment and the mobility of capital today are issues that affect resource development in every sector: resources, upgrading those resources, infrastructure development, and manufacturing and services.

These issues about an efficient regulatory process and the additional costs and uncertainties that are built into an inefficient regulatory process have major impacts on investment decisions and the return-on-investment calculation companies are making on a worldwide basis.

We are competing with jurisdictions such as Australia, for example, or Brazil, or many other countries in terms of where companies are going to put their investment. Anything that can be done to streamline regulatory processes—not to prejudge the outcome of those processes but to build a more efficient process, which I think will also be a more effective and a more certain process—I think is going to be beneficial for those investment decisions.

On your second question, I don't think there's anything in this bill that would undermine the effectiveness of our environmental process. This is, as Mr. Collyer was saying, a series of initiatives that, in my mind, simply streamline the process we're already going through. They will make it a much more efficient one and a much more certain one, from the point of view of investors.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Smillie, I'd like to bring you in on the conversation here. Thanks for giving me the thumbs-up on that.

What would you assess are some of the challenges and problems your organization has encountered with the current regulatory system as it is? Do you see that this legislation as proposed is going to achieve the balance going forward that we need?

[Christopher Smillie]

The challenges we currently face are that there's uncertainty around when folks will actually be needed on the ground to build things. If there's a 12-year or 15-year regulatory dance for a major project, we can't look at our training scope and say we need to have 4,600 electricians or 4,600 boilermakers or 10,000 carpenters at a certain time.

At the end of the day, and because we're further down the food chain from some of the planning that goes on with Mr. Collyer's companies—we're trying to change that a bit—we are expected to have a workforce ready yesterday, as soon as we get the call from our construction employers.

What this would do, from our understanding, is it would give certainty around timing. It's either a yes or a no. When we're workforce planning, we can take a look at Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Newfoundland and say we're going to have unemployed workers because we know the Lower Churchill is going to be done in 6.6 years. We're able then to go and grab the workforce that's necessary, be it in B.C. or in Saskatchewan.

When we're looking at our labour force planning for the future, either a yes or a no is a good thing. The uncertainty around knowing whether the project will be approved.... I think the Mackenzie gas line approval started before I was born. That gives you a sense of it. I mean, how do you plan for workforce development on a project like that when it takes 32 years or 33 years?

We see this as a way to partner with industry to know what's going to happen and when, and then we can work on our training system to make sure we're pumping out enough people to meet demand.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Ten seconds.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

From your trades perspective, have you seen projects in certain regions of the country filter all through...and the benefits?

[Christopher Smillie]

In terms of training more people and being able to partner with industry to say this is what's happening in sort of a logical process, absolutely. We're contractually obligated to provide labour to some job sites, so it would definitely help with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much, Mr. Smillie.

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

We've now moving on to Ms. Ambler, for up to five minutes, please.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Myers, Mr. Smillie, and Ms. Carpenter.

I'm curious to know what percentage of the average project is devoted to environmental assessments. I guess I'm trying to get at how energy is currently expended by a proponent of a project. You may not have exact numbers, but I'd like even your thoughts on whether it's too much or too little. I have a feeling that one of you might have some numbers on that.

Mr. Myers.

[Jayson Myers]

I think probably Denise is in a better position to give you an example of how much might be expended on a nuclear project.

Let me say, with respect to some smaller enterprises, that we'll not have to now go through this convoluted system of proposals that can take an environmental assessment that's done at a provincial level and seek equivalency on the basis of that. There are a lot of small businesses that go through that.

In many cases, it's a hard argument to make; there are no clear costs because the project never goes ahead in the first place. I think those are some of the costs we sometimes forget. These aren't just costs that larger companies have to go through before the projects get under way; this is also very much an issue about clearing the ground for some smaller businesses that are making proposals and who now don't have to go through this convoluted process.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Sort of a spillover effect.

[Jayson Myers]

That's right.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Ms. Carpenter, go ahead.