Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 9th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Krause.

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to move into a series of questions that might help Canadians understand where we're going with energy. This last exchange is too reminiscent of things I see on Glenn Beck's show on Fox News.

Mr. Caron, can you help us understand? You're the chair of the 53-year-old National Energy Board. You have a tough job; it's a tough mandate. You're under a lot of pressure. Recently you've had ministers of the crown, to whom you report, make spurious allegations about radical groups, and that's tough. I'm sure that as a regulator it's also tough to let it roll off your back.

Can you help us understand? Maybe the most important question could be how to improve. I think Mr. Anderson alluded to this. We are all interested in improving regulatory processes. That's why successive governments have built five- and seven-year review mandates into the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and the Species at Risk Act. We know that as parliamentarians we have to contemplate improvement.

Can you help us get a couple of ideas of how we might be able to improve? Is there an inordinate influence, as Ms. Krause implies? Maybe it's not in your regulatory process—if there is, I'd like to hear about it. I think her comments are targeted more at public influence. How can we improve the process to make sure that Canadians have confidence in the decisions we're making?

[Gaétan Caron]

The only influence that NEB is itself subject to is the influence of the records it gathers by listening to Canadians in an open and transparent way. We are a quasi-judicial board. We do not report to a minister. We report through the Minister of Natural Resources for the purpose of reporting to Parliament.

I'm not an officer of Parliament; I need a minister to report to you as parliamentarians.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I stand corrected.

[Gaétan Caron]

The influence of public statements and opinion polls doesn't apply to us as a quasi-judicial board, because it is our duty to listen to Canadians through the processes we have, which, with few exceptions, are essentially transparent and accessible to all.

I must say that on the process we administer, I will credit the legislators of 1959. They gave us an NEB Act that is essentially unchanged, except for a few bells and whistles from the early days. My suggestion to you as parliamentarians is that the process is working, provided that the people like us are able to administer your act and to do it with the desire to keep improving the process.

If we felt happy about the process, I think you should question us hard. We should never be happy about anything, especially when it comes to public safety.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Let me ask you what three fronts you think we can make progress on within the ambit, the four corners, of the parameters of your statute.

[Gaétan Caron]

I don't have opinions on how my statute could be improved, because--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I don't mean your statute. I mean the way you operate.

[Gaétan Caron]

I'll give you the first one. It's actually happening already. I find that when we look at environmental impact assessments, sometimes there is too much time spent on process. I'd rather have our environmental specialists look at content.

For instance, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, you have the concept of screening, comprehensive studies, and panel reviews. Those are administrative requirements that are helpful from a process standpoint. But at the NEB, it doesn't matter to us whether a project is being screened, is a comprehensive study, or is a joint panel review. The same people will look at the same thing and look at the same environment. The less time we spend on process, sir, the more time we have remaining for content.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's number one.

[Gaétan Caron]

That's number one.

The other improvement I've seen us administer, and we're still learning along the way, is that we now have a participant funding program. We're one of the few institutions in Canada without a program--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

It is sometimes called intervenor funding.

[Gaétan Caron]

Yes, exactly. In our case, we call it participant funding. Our act did not allow for that. Parliament fixed that a few years ago. Now we're learning the hard way to make it efficient and are going to the right people for the right amount of time. We're applying ourselves to that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I suppose you're drawing on provincial experiences across the country.

[Gaétan Caron]

We're drawing from best and not so best practices. That's right. We are learning from both sides.

You're looking for number three. I'd say that it is safety, pipeline safety in particular.

In my opening remarks I talked about the focus on management systems. Our recent study on offshore drilling revealed that the best way to promote safety on platforms, and the best way to protect the environment and ecosystems, is with the concept of a safety culture. Now, it may sound a little soft to talk about culture. It is a difficult concept to describe. But safety culture is driven by rigorously documented management systems that start from the top of the organization. People know about them. Safety culture is what people do when nobody else is watching. I think we can continue to progress on that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Could I ask Mr. Reid and Monsieur Caron to answer this question?

We have been hearing about, and there seems to be almost unanimous support for it, what some describe as a national energy strategy. Some call it a Canadian energy strategy. Mr. Reid, you raised greenhouse gases twice in your very succinct and good brief. Would that be helpful in terms of the work we do? How might that improve the work done in the case of a specific Mackenzie project?

Monsieur Caron, how might that be helpful in terms of the overarching responsibilities you have as a regulator?

Mr. Reid, can you start first, perhaps?

[Robert Reid]

Personally, I support a national energy strategy. It would establish for Canada a strategy--I hate to use the word “policy”--for energy utilization that would take into account both economics and the environment and would strike a balance for Canadians as a whole.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

It would include climate change and greenhouse gas reductions.

[Robert Reid]

Yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you.

Monsieur Caron.

[Gaétan Caron]

The existence of the content of a policy, you'll remember, is something over which we cannot have an opinion. Our job is to administer policy through the legislation.

If there were a change in energy policy or strategy in Canada, it would become one more of these things that are out there, transparently affirmed, from which intervenors and companies and NGOs and aboriginal people can draw when they speak to us. For us, what matters is what Canadians tell us in an open and transparent context.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty.

We go now to Mr. Trost for up to five minutes. Go ahead, please, Mr. Trost.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question will be to the National Energy Board.

In some of our notes here from the Library of Parliament, they've noted that Enbridge applied in 2008 for the reversal of crude oil flow within a segment of Line 9 from Sarnia to the North Westover Station. You've just now basically started having hearings on that. That, to me, is a bit of an illustration, which I need explained to me, of why regulatory changes take so long.

Could you very briefly explain why things take the time they do? You were talking with Mr. McGuinty about how to speed it up. Quickly use this as an illustration of why it's taking this long, and tell us maybe what we could do better for you.

[Gaétan Caron]

Normally it's a good case study to speak briefly about. I'd like to correct a fact. The application by Enbridge called “Line 9 Reversal, Phase I Project” was August 8, 2011.