Natural Resources Committee on March 27th, 2014

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

You will have to ask the people in the industry.

In any event, the statistics on work accidents, illnesses or the back pain that people experience show to what extent people are in better health than in the past, as shown by the figures in the image and the twenty or so other similar illustrations.

Today, to work in the resources industry, you press a button or pull a few levers. In the past, people had to use axes, shovels and picks. I honestly believe that things are better now than they were back then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Moore.

We have now Mr. Calkins, Monsieur Blanchette, and Ms. Block.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Calkins, for up to five minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Great. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Chief, I'd like to chat with you for a second. You mentioned in your testimony that you're under the impression that the provincial and federal governments are continually lobbied to work against the interests of first nations. Could you provide us the names of the individuals or anybody you're aware of?

I've been a member of Parliament for eight years. I've been on the environment committee, and the fisheries committee. As a matter of fact, I travelled to your community with the environment committee a few years ago. I'm a member of the natural resources committee now. Every single witness who I've heard come before here, whether they're a department official or an industry official, or whether they're from a first nations, has advised us that they want to involve and create opportunities for neighbouring or adjacent first nations communities to realize the potential benefits of the economic impacts of development in their areas.

You seem to be giving me a different story, completely different from what I'm used to hearing. You allege that there are all these lobbyists and so on down here. I don't know who they are. Could you tell me who they are?

[Chief Allan Adam]

CAPP, for instance, sent representation to Ottawa in regard to changing the regulatory system when Canada came out with Bill C-45. We know of the individual who went there, but in regard to the name, under the freedom of information act that was taken out.

CNRL sent representation to Ottawa, to the energy sector minister, I think it was, in regard to that, and lobbied them to make drastic changes to the environmental system, to make it a lot easier for the regulatory system, for them to get easy access to their what you would call approvals for their projects.

The same goes for the Canadian pipeline association that continues at this point in time to lobby government officials to push both the northern gateway pipeline and the eastern pipeline that's going through Ontario, and everything.

It's a continuous process that happens today.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

How do you know this, Chief?

We've had CAPP appear before this committee, the environment committee, and other committees testifying to completely the opposite. I'm just curious as to how that works because it doesn't seem to add up. I know that you've done your access to information request. I'm not sure what that tells you.

You're adjacent to the oil sands. Your community is as close as any community is to Fort McMurray, other than Fort McMurray itself. I've been up there several times, I've flown over the communities, I've looked at all of the oil sands sites, the mining sites, the in situ sites.

I've flown over the Fort McKay band and it looks like there are a lot of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 square foot homes being built on reserve in the Fort McKay band.

I'm on the Fort McKay Group of Companies website right now and I'm following their Twitter account. It says:

We're hiring permanent full-time materials handlers, come visit us for the Alberta Works job fair.

We're hiring 90 Heavy Equipment Operators! Camp is provided on a 14 & 7 schedule.

They're providing accommodations for all of these workers. It goes on:

We're hiring a Materials Handler for our Mail Room on our Logistics team!

What has the Fort McKay band done in order for this group of companies to create all of this economic wealth?

Granted, they are more proximal, but everybody in Canada seems to be.... I'm on the airlines all the time and people are flying from all corners of this country to go work in northern Alberta in order to take advantage of the opportunities there. You're as close as a community can get. It's a short flight. What are you doing to ensure that you're capitalizing on all of these opportunities for your people?

[Chief Allan Adam]

As I said, we're working hard in regard to trying to capitalize for our people.

Fort McKay has done great things and there are great opportunities for their first nations people because they are pretty much in the centre of, how do you say, the drop-zone in regard to how the economic resources are being developed in that area. I can't speak for Fort McKay First Nation. They have a chief and council that represent them well, and we as a nation are trying to represent our people in a similar fashion, yet we're the only nation in this region who are off the reserve and are not benefiting from the full potential we should be benefiting.

I don't think there are more ways than one that—[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We'll suspend the meeting until we get reconnected.

We'll reconvene the meeting again. That was a quick reconnect. I apologize again, Chief, for the interruption.

You had about 15 seconds left in Mr. Calkins' questioning time.

We're you asking a question, Mr. Calkins?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I think Chief Adam was going to explain the difference between the situation for his band and the situation for the Fort McKay band, insofar as economic opportunities are concerned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay.

Chief, you just have a few seconds left. Go ahead please, sir.

[Chief Allan Adam]

I think it's pretty ironic at this point in time that we have to play off two first nations against each other because of the fact we're known in that area.

Like I'm saying—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That's not what I'm trying to do, Chief.

I want you to be every bit as successful.... I'm not trying to create any controversy between yourself and the Fort McKay band. I represent the first nations at Maskwacis, Samson Oil and Gas, and these kinds... I know you know who these people are. That's not the intent of my question.

I'm sincerely asking what barriers you may have to achieve the same kind of economic potential that Fort McKay has, just as an example. I'm not trying to drive a wedge between you and anybody else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

A very quick reply.

[Chief Allan Adam]

The barrier that we're having is that we're having a hard time obtaining contracts and moving forward as a nation with industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Chief.

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

We go now to Monsieur Blanchette, for up to five minutes.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

What I am hearing today is quite interesting. We are talking about the industry benefits in the energy sector, but Ms. Dobson, you had started to talk about something very interesting: the relative importance of the oil industry within the Canadian economy.

Do you have comparable figures for the other energy sectors? After all, we are basically speaking about the energy people need to live in a modern society.

Do you have that kind of information? I'm thinking of hydroelectricity, for example, which is a fixture in Quebec and Alberta.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Who is the question directed to?

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

It is for Ms. Dobson.

[Dr. Sarah Dobson]

Unfortunately, I do not have those other figures off the top of my head. We do have a branch at Pembina that does work on clean energy or clean electricity opportunities. I'd be happy to try to look into those numbers and table them at a later date.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much. I think it is important to know the relative importance of the various energy supply sectors. If we want to truly assess the benefits of one industry in particular, it is very important to be able to compare the other industries in the same sector.

As for the entire renewable energy sector and energy conservation sector, it would also be very interesting to have a true picture of how each group in the energy sector supports the Canadian economy.

My next question is for Chief Adam.

You spoke a lot about the difficulties the projects are currently causing you. Since the benefits are not on the table, in your opinion, you surely have a general idea of what could be done to rectify the situation or, in other words, so that your nation benefits from these projects overall.

What conditions do you think should be met so that your nation can benefit from these projects? You briefly mentioned education, but I would like you to provide more details on these aspects.

[Chief Allan Adam]

I think in more ways than one, the thing that continues to be a burden on our first nation when it comes to economic benefits or IBAs in the area is the fact that industry does not want to pay impact benefit agreements to the first nation. They feel it's a burden to them in regard to how they do their development in our area.

We're trying to say that impact benefit agreements are a need because they benefit the first nation. There are benefits when it comes to social, housing, and education programs, and every other aspect, and creates employment in the community where the first nations people don't want to work in the oil and gas sector. Therefore, it's a great benefit when we have those impact benefit agreements. Not all of the impact benefit agreement money that comes into the first nation is being depleted as fast as it comes in. We are developing a trust fund. We're saving it for future generations. The resource is non-renewable. Our trust fund meets the demands for future generations to come.

That's why we need to have an impact benefit agreement with industry. Industry can't continue to say that these impact benefit agreements are going to be a prime example in regard to how we are getting dollars from Canada because of our contribution agreements where we have to provide a mechanism for.... Pretty much we have to ask for the money when we're trying to put it in one area to make it as simple as possible for access of those dollars to flow through to our community.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Chief Adam, you spoke a lot about the idea of preserving the benefits for your community's future generations. Could you explain to me what you mean by that, what you intend to do and what you expect in that regard for your community?

[Chief Allan Adam]

I think in more ways than one we're headed down the road to a self-sufficient first nation and how we conduct ourselves just as the people here in Canada do.

We're trying to lead by example in regard to how first nations could develop in this region through economic prosperity and through IBAs in general. Right now, what we see in our area is we're having to do heavy investment in our own business group to meet the demand of the industry. Because we're investing heavily into our business group, we're not getting the full potential of the opportunities that come from it to the first nation.

Therefore we need impact benefit agreements to maintain and sustain our nation at this point in time. We're trying to develop those impact benefit agreements that will also sustain and enable us to have a trust fund for future generations, because we know for a fact that it's a non-renewable resource and we need to capture on it because it's happening in our traditional territories.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Chief.

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette.

We'll go now to Ms. Block, for up to five minutes, or you can take the three minutes after that, if you want to. Go ahead, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Chair, I'll take the five minutes and pass the three minutes on to my colleague Mr. Leef, if there's time.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. It's been a real pleasure to hear from all of you.

As we go through this study and talk about the cross-Canada benefits of developing oil and gas, it's important that we also hear about the challenges. We've also heard, though, about the resilience and resourcefulness that can be applied to those challenges to turn them into opportunities. At our meeting on Tuesday, we heard from witnesses who said they'd rather be dealing with the challenge of economic growth and prosperity than not having those opportunities at all.

I appreciate the opportunity to hear about the challenges. It's one of the reasons we introduced the responsible resource development plan, which seeks to ensure that we strike the right balance between developing our resources and protecting our environment. We continue to invest in alternatives through Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

I guess my questions would be directed to Mr. Holm and Mr. Desrochers.

When you mentioned the combination of forces, I think you were answering a question by one of my colleagues across the way. I want you to talk about the combination of forces that you were referencing, because it's my understanding that those who are working in developing our natural resources, our oil and gas, understand that it's not necessarily an either-or, but a both-and.

I'd like both of you to speak to that, please.

[David Holm]

My recollection of my own answer is that I did speak to the combination of forces that are impacting some of the social issues and the social licence and greenhouse gas emissions issues that are obviously important to our business. Those combinations of forces clearly are global.

There is a concern about air quality and what we're doing to our environment. That's coming from around the world. That's coming from social groups, but it's also coming from very traditional sources and from those would-be international investors that are putting pressure on the people in these industries to ensure that they are being good environmental stewards or are at least answering for what they're doing environmentally. I think that is going to be a very important force on the industry, and for a variety of reasons, and it's probably very helpful to our business, because by the same token, these are people who can invest in technologies that we think will help with some of these issues.

We do think government policy is important. There is a cost to using carbon. I think that should be recognized in policy, so there is going to be a government role as well, and clearly there are stakeholders that are impacted. We've heard from the chief today about his circumstances with regard to living in the region of the oil sands. Those are also voices that are very important.

It's a combination of things that's going to get us to a place that makes some good sense.