Natural Resources Committee on May 11th, 2006

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Do I have any time left?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, David McGuinty]

You have roughly three minutes.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Three minutes. That was pretty--

[Richard Fadden]

I'm speaking far too quickly.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Maybe you could explore that a little further.

Let's see, do I have another? Oh, I know.

You talked about many of the programs that are continuing and some new ones that will be introduced. Could you give us anything about what you've explored so far that you think would be programs you might introduce, or describe which direction we're heading in? Or is that...?

[Richard Fadden]

Mr. Chairman, I wish I could, but I think there's a custom of the House that when we're developing proposals for ministers, we do not discuss those proposals, so I apologize, but I really can't. It would perhaps be a question better directed to the minister.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Fair enough. That means I still have two minutes.

New, emerging technologies and new energy sources are one of the things I would like to explore a little further, and how you see this subject. I think research and development is where we're headed. Will there be a significant allocation of resources to that and a continuation of those programs? I think those are important, and we want to make sure those are the ways we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

[Richard Fadden]

The relatively short answer to that, Mr. Chairman, is that if you're going to reduce greenhouse gases, there are fundamentally two ways of doing it. You can take the way we use fossil fuels now and “clean them up”, to use the vernacular; there's a whole bunch of research and development that can be used to do that. The other way is to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels by using renewable resources—solar, wind, tidal, biomass, nuclear. Mr. McGuinty mentioned that I didn't mention nuclear, but we think nuclear is a very important part of this package.

It certainly would be the view of the department, and I think Mr. Lunn would agree, that we have to do both. We have to work on cleaning up the use of fossil fuels, but also to significantly encourage the use of renewable resources. That again is part of that package that I was talking about that I can't talk about. Quite consciously, we are moving on both fronts, and I hope Mr. Lunn might be able to talk to you about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you very much, and you're right on time.

Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you ever so much.

I have just a few questions. I'm trying to get a bit of an idea of where to go in the future on questions, so these may be very broad, and you may not be able to answer.

I'm a little bit curious, on energy policy, how much has been developed and what's going forward. I know you can't speak on specific things for the minister, but I would be curious to know, having questioned the previous minister in the previous government, or the stand-in minister, just how far advanced you are, as far as recommendations for the minister are concerned, in developing a national energy framework—we won't say “national energy policy,” but national energy framework—or something of that accord.

It's as to what level of development—and I know you can't be broad, but with as much detail as you could give—you have reached with recommendations to the minister.

[Richard Fadden]

I think it's fair to say we're relatively advanced. The department has been doing some work on this for some time now. As is the tradition, we slowed down during the electoral campaign: we didn't consult, and things of that nature. But we have had some consultations with principal stakeholders and we've tried to give the provinces a very general idea of where we're going. We've talked to the minister about it in general terms, and he not unreasonably wants a detailed briefing and wants to develop a sense of whether the new government wants to shift some components of it.

I'm looking at Mr. Brown, who knows more about it than I do, but I think it's fair to say that some time during this calendar year we would certainly be ready to give the minister or ministers a package.

Is that fair?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

What would be the breadth? We're talking here about the demand side; we're talking about every last industry—everything from LNG to wind to biomass to oil to gas. Are we talking about a total, comprehensive package here?

[Richard Fadden]

The way we're hoping it will be accepted is to start by the articulation of a number of principles—the open market principle, the respect for provincial jurisdictions, the focused use of federal power and federal money, the use of the sustainable or responsible development principle—and then start working our way through what I call modules. You have a nuclear module, an LNG module, a renewable fuels module.

I think what is to be decided, though, is the level of detail the ministers will be comfortable with. Unless this is a very lengthy document, it will provide parameters, for example, for the development of a renewable fuels policy or a nuclear policy. The idea, though, I think, would be to articulate principles and then provide a framework for the further development of modules dealing with subsectors.

The basic idea of this, as I'm sure you know, Mr. Chairman, is to try to provide for industry, but also for civil society, a measure of certainty, so that they have some idea of the basic policies of the government as the government moves forward over the years ahead.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I take it we're also looking and comparing. Other countries--France and Germany, for example, who are neighbours--are doing things in a very different manner.

Because the United States is one of our major markets, I'm assuming that's part of the component. Are we also looking at how we could export, exploit, or whatever? Is that very much a part of the package?

[Richard Fadden]

Yes.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I will swing over to a completely different topic. I'm a geophysicist by trade, so I'm very curious as to the situation on the Geological Survey of Canada. I'm a little concerned that their human resources may be a little lacking.

If you're not from the industry, you don't understand how long it takes to mature a really good geologist and geoscientist. I was wondering if there might be any comments on what could be done to improve the strength. Are there projects going forward, such as a cooperative mining strategy?

[Richard Fadden]

I think you've put your finger on a significant problem, not only for the geological survey but for most of the scientific components of the government.

As you know, there's this demographic bulge moving through the public service and society generally, and we are in fact worried about what will happen over the course of the next couple of years when people start retiring.

We're trying to develop a program to deal with these issues. NRCan, for example, has what's called a scientist emeritus program in which we have a couple of scientists who are over 80 years of age. They stay on after their retirement and continue to work in return for an office, a computer, and a lab.

That's one way we're trying to deal with keeping people on who have a lot of knowledge, but we're going to have to come up with other devices, as is the public service generally, because at some point we really are going to face a significant problem with retirements.

In terms of more detailed programs, I apologize, I just don't have it on the top of my head. We'd be more than happy to make other officials available if you'd like a more detailed briefing.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I very much appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, to help with time, I'll yield whatever time I have left to Mr. Paradis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

It's about four or five minutes.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

A little earlier, it was said that the solution to reducing greenhouse gases lay in part with technology. How can this technology be useful? In practical terms, what type of technology is the department thinking of adopting to solve this problem and what does it generally want to accomplish?

[Richard Fadden]

It's difficult to give a detailed answer. I will try to give you a more general one.

Greenhouse gases are essentially caused by carbon dioxide, or CO₂. The energy sector produces more CO₂ than any other sector of society. We believe that the best way to solve the problem is to develop systems which could capture CO₂ and store it. The technology to do this already exists, but the government and the private sector must invest more to develop it further.

The greatest progress we could achieve would be to basically capture and store the CO₂ produced by the energy sector.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Fine.

It was said a little earlier that it might be a good idea for the committee to study the issue of fresh water. I personally care a great deal about this issue. Solutions were proposed in answer to questions raised by Ms. Bell. I would like to know how far this file has progressed. Has the previous government taken any measures at all or are we still at the starting gate?

[Richard Fadden]

Mr. Chairman, the public service has certainly conducted inter-departmental studies over these past few years. For our part, we have certainly kept our minister informed, but we were still not ready to produce a major coordinated and integrated report. We did work on this file, as did the departments of Fisheries and Oceans and of the Environment.

I don't know if my colleague, who is more familiar with the water file, would like to add a few words.

[Frank Des Rosiers]

This is one of the best files because we are not starting from scratch since the expertise is already out there.

It is fair to acknowledge that over the last 10 or 15 years, efforts and intentions in this area have decreased on both the scientific and political levels. More recently, following trends we observed in the Prairies in particular, with agriculture and recurring droughts in British Columbia and Ontario, as the deputy minister mentioned a little earlier, we've noticed that people are becoming more interested and more concerned again about this issue.

There is an obvious relationship with climate change. As temperatures rise, evaporation and drought occur. This situation in turn triggers all kinds of unknown factors which really didn't exist even 20 years ago, not only in public awareness but also among experts. The last time the federal government studied that matter was at the end of the 1980s with the Pearse Commission. But since then, there have been relatively few federal initiatives.

The provinces have made various efforts. We noted that this was the case for Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. Today, Alberta is very interested in this area and is in touch with the resources sector, and in particular with stakeholders in the oil sands. But more can be done.

I would like to mention in passing that the Senate committee chaired by Mr. Banks published a report on this very subject last winter. So there is a basis from which you could build.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

We did kind of go over a little bit because I interrupted Mr. McGuinty at the start, and it got to about nine or ten minutes for that first round.

I'm going to try to get back to five minutes for this round, Roy. That was the standard procedure. We're not going to get everybody in if we don't do it that way.

So you can begin, for five minutes.