Natural Resources Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Janet, could you give us Ezeflow's story in the brief time I have left?

[Janet Annesley]

Ezeflow is a Quebec-based manufacturer that manufactures steel and other fabricated parts for the oil sands. It's a case where they were able to access, as Jay has outlined, a growing market that provided an opportunity for their business to grow.

What I love about meeting some of these entrepreneurs, whether it's Prevost or Ezeflow or others, or Watson Gloves in Burnaby, is that they're just so excited about their business. They love employing people locally. They love delivering value. It's not necessarily about the oil sands at all. It's about the fact that they can do what they do well, and that is so rewarding.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

For Watson Gloves, just briefly, can you tell us a little about them? Do we have any jobs numbers for these guys?

[Janet Annesley]

We're calculating some of the jobs numbers now. Unfortunately, the reporting.... A thing that the oil sands don't do well, necessarily, is track all of their contracts between the construction owners and the engineering procurement and construction management companies and those types of things.

Watson Gloves and also a boot company in Vancouver, which we're more recently developing a story around, are both family-owned businesses that develop very nice leather goods. In the case of Watson Gloves, they still make these gloves by hand in Burnaby. They've turned their business from making a consumer glove more to making a work glove. As for the boot company in Vancouver and their Dakota boots, Johnny Depp loves to wear them. They have a fashion boot but they also now have turned their attention towards creating a work boot. It's a family-owned company that has been in business for many years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Crockatt.

We close the meeting today with Ms. Duncan for three minutes or so.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

In those three minutes, I will give you, Ms. Allan and Mr. Priaro, a chance to respond to the question that you didn't get a chance to respond to before, which was about whether you think it's fair to say that there would be major extrapolated benefits to Canadians if we started pressuring companies to upgrade and refine in Canada.

[Robyn Allan]

I think, Ms. Duncan, absolutely there would be tremendous benefits. If we can serve the eastern Canadian refinery market with light oil that they can put in their refineries without having to make increased investments, then that will create energy self-sufficiency in Canada. It will provide more jobs, more diversification, and a stronger economy. There's no question about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Priaro.

[Michael Priaro]

Well, I have a vision. What we need to do is bring large volumes of partially upgraded or upgraded bitumen to eastern Canada. We may eventually have an opportunity to bring as much as two and a half million barrels to a major pipeline hub near Montreal, where we could expand the existing petrochemical industry and help ensure that the refineries in Montreal and Lévis, Quebec, have a source of feedstock for literally hundreds of years into the future, and to take some of that oil to Saint John and allow Irving Oil to expand their refinery to 600,000 barrels a day to allow them to export more refined products to the U.S. eastern seaboard and Latin and South America. That would also provide an opportunity for the petrochemical industry to grow in Saint John.

I would also like to see an extension of Energy East to Canso, Nova Scotia, and perhaps with a spur to the moribund Dartmouth refinery. Canso is an ideal port for the export of large volumes of upgraded bitumen, Syncrude conventional oil, in particular to India. The shortest distance from Edmonton to India's west coast, where the major refining centres are, is through Canso and the Suez Canal.

I think there's great scope to not only provide energy security but also create some major industries in eastern Canada if we can get an Energy East line and an Energy East line 2 going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

I would like the committee to think about whether they want to take any action on the three witnesses who have requested to appear.

I'd like to close the meeting today by thanking all of the witnesses very much for being here today.

Thanks very much to all our witnesses today: Jayson Myers, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters; from the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, Roger Larson, president, and Emily Pearce, director of government relations; from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Janet Annesley, vice-president; by video conference from Vancouver, Robyn Allan, economist; and by video conference from Calgary, Michael Priaro, professional engineer.

Thank you all so much for your input here. This information will help us in our study. Thank you very much.

Mr. Calkins, did you have something to add?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Chair, did you not ask us for advice on these three witnesses who wanted to appear?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes. I'm just putting that to the committee. You can come back to the next meeting with your thoughts on it.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

At the next meeting you'd like to discuss this? Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Sure.

The meeting is adjourned.