Natural Resources Committee on March 1st, 2011

[John Carruthers]

You'll definitely need more boats. We would anticipate you'd need in the order of 220 ships a year to service both the crude oil we would be exporting to the Pacific Rim and bringing condensate back into Canada.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

So it will have an impact on the tanker zone. So if you have more, you'll have the potential for more problems on the coast.

[John Carruthers]

Just to be clear, the tanker exclusion zone relates to ships carrying crude oil from Alaska to the state of Washington. Today it does not preclude tankers from going in and out of our west coast. In fact, they do so today and have done so for decades. So there's no impact on that.

It does increase traffic, but as I mentioned, we anticipate 220 tanker calls a year. That is just over one a day in terms of both in and out, but that's not a significant increase on the activity you'd see in the Prince Rupert area. It is more than what's on the Douglas Channel today, but again it is restricted to one a day.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Alan.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentations today.

Chief Derrick, are you aware of the proposal through Encana to develop shale gas, to convert it to liquid natural gas, and to bring it by pipeline to Kitimat? Are you familiar with that project?

[Elmer Derrick]

Not as familiar as I am with other....

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

All right. Then perhaps after some reflection on it....

The direction I'm trying to go in is that it seems to me that first nations people have legitimate and in fact court-inspired rights. You have emphatically declared what you believe those to be and that there should be dialogue.

[Elmer Derrick]

I don't think they're court-inspired rights. They're rights we have from our own laws.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

All right. I'll certainly acknowledge that. I think both, but let's just leave that for the moment.

We heard from Mr. Robert Reid, who is the president of Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline LP, who gave testimony similar to yours and also indicated the added value that he could see in that endeavour. You in fact have said that the chiefs support the development, obviously conditional upon the safety of clear water, your food systems, and so on and so forth.

Do you work with other first nations entities where it appears that all of your rights and all of your concerns are all one and the same?

[Elmer Derrick]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that all the rights are one and the same because of the locations where we are.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Okay.

What I meant was that the opportunity is there to deal with poverty issues, to deal with issues that have been long denied to first nations people, and that you have a first right to demand.

The thrust of my questioning is that you have Mr. Carruthers here, and I guess I'm going to try to redirect Mr. Carruthers.

Mr. Carruthers, as a corporate entity, do you feel the same compelling and urgent need to share the opportunities with first nations and aboriginal peoples, and are you in fact using instruments to achieve that?

[John Carruthers]

Correct. It is very important that we provide long-term sustainable opportunities for the impacted first nations. It's very important to us that we do that.

Through the dialogue we have had with the nations that are along the right-of-way, we've developed an economic package that we think would be very positive for the affected communities. That starts with an opportunity to be an equity owner and it also goes through to jobs and procurement.

The feedback we got in meeting with the communities was that many of them did not have funds to invest and to become joint equity partners, so we took that back and facilitated the funding such that they could be long-term partners with us, regardless of their financial capacity. So that's made available to them.

We've looked at commitments that we were able to achieve in our other construction in Alberta and across Canada and have made commitments for hiring, such that we would expect that 15% of the workforce during construction would be aboriginal and that we would see some $400 million in procurement benefits that would go to aboriginal communities. We brought the aboriginal communities and the historical contractors together in Vancouver to start sharing those opportunities and looking for opportunities to work together over the long term.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

We go now to the Bloc Québécois, Monsieur Carrier, for up to seven minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Welcome to our committee.

I am a substitute member of the committee. I find your presentations very interesting.

Mr. Derrick, I listened to your presentation. As you know, I represent a constituency in Quebec, which is also recognized as a nation, so I do somewhat share your concerns. I do not know your nation very well, but I think that I understand that you have some demands, some criticisms, regarding the project. However, they do not seem very well presented. I would like to give you the floor so you can tell me how you are being affected by this project. I have a map of the pipeline in question, but I do not know what land belongs to your nation.

Will the pipeline go over your land? Are you located on the coast; does that make you concerned by the potential pollution that the wreck of an oil tanker would cause? Could you explain that to me? I would also like to know whether you were consulted at all when this project was being developed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Derrick, I think the question was directed to you.

[Elmer Derrick]

In the process of arriving at a project, it is important for us to realize the establishment of legislative objectives by the crown. The role of this committee and the role of Parliament is critical in enabling things to happen over the long term. The courts set up a process whereby the Supreme Court of Canada reflected on the establishment and the role of legislative objectives in respect of infringing or dealing with titles and rights. The crown, unfortunately, has not heeded the voice of the courts. It has not heeded the direction that the courts gave the country for dealing with major issues, like elevating the objectives of legislation and focusing on legislation that will enable dialogue to take place within the community—not just within Parliament, but in the community as a whole.

Our wish is for the crown to heed what the courts have said about setting legislative objectives, so that all of us can reflect upon the future of this country. Part of what I see with energy security for this country is transmission lines that go from east to west, as opposed to going north to south, as they do now.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Was your nation consulted on the development of this project? Are you in favour of it? I see that you have a sound philosophy on the needs of the country, but I would like to know whether you were consulted.

[Elmer Derrick]

The whole purpose of consultation is to overcome certain things. There are things we fully recognize, and the thing I personally recognize is that the courts cannot say that Gitxsan title is stronger than crown title. I can never expect that from the courts. The courts have come back and said that the Gitxsan titleholders can decide to what uses the lands may be put. That's from paragraph 166 of the Delgamuukw ruling. That whole process of consultation is necessary to engage the titleholders from the aboriginal community and the crown titleholder.

Once we arrive at a project, we can properly reflect on each other's interests without getting to the point where the crown recognizes the titleholder or the crown doesn't engage in dialogue, and projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline can't be advanced.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I think I have enough time to ask Mr. Carruthers one last question.

I note that the current study deals with energy security in Canada. In the presentation on your project, the focus is on exports. You want to focus on the Pacific Rim and emerging Asian markets. So you would prefer to focus more on export markets than on energy security in Canada. Would you agree with me on that?

[John Carruthers]

Yes, the project is very much focused on ensuring that Canada gets full value for its resources. It is an export project. What we're working from is a world-class resource. The oil sands themselves would have 170 billion barrels of oil. So it's certainly a world-class resource that will be available for a long time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, Monsieur Carrier.

Mr. Cullen, go ahead please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.

Elmer, I'll go first to you. The Canadian government has set up the oil and gas commission. For this particular project, it's set up a joint review panel process. Is this adequate consultation, in terms of the federal government's role in regard to the Gitxsan, to satisfy the chiefs you represent?

[Elmer Derrick]

The joint review process is just one process that exists. The opportunity to be with this committee is another part of the process of dealing with an issue that's important to our hearts, and that's energy security. There are other processes that are ongoing. We meet with the different people who work not just with the pipeline company but with other people who are involved in development activities who come to our office. I think it's important that all those meetings take place.

In terms of the formal consultation, the consultation we expect as titleholders has to involve the crown. The crown really has to step up to the plate and talk about where it's taking our country, and it hasn't done that.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's a good question and is part of why we're doing this study.

Mr. Carruthers, it is your policy to have a social licence to operate, correct?