Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

To his point of order, then—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

You have the floor.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

To the comment that was just made—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

The floor is yours. You can speak while you have the floor.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I want to speak to the point of order. Then I'll come back to my—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

The point of order is not debatable.

If you have a point of order on a procedure—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Okay, I will go that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

The point is that I'll probably be interrupted; nevertheless, as far as the comment that Mr. Angus just made is concerned, to everyone here, there are lots of times when drive-by smears are presented by Mr. Angus that have to do with our energy and with different things that are done. Now knowing the precedent that you simply stand up on a point of order to say that a member is being unreasonable, I suppose that if that's what we need to do every time a comment like that is made, then we could do that.

That isn't the way that I am. I want to talk about the issues that are here, but to be interrupted.... I really care about the members, and I'm so happy that we were able to get the witness testimony here so that we have a chance.... We can talk to them and we have talked to them and we can get them to give commentary to the clerk to expand upon some of those things. Yes, it makes it more complicated for us, because we don't get a chance to ask questions; nevertheless, it is important that we have heard their testimony, and we have been respectful in all ways when it comes to that. I'm pleased with that.

To get back to where I was when discussing the Germans and the reality on the ground, when they were talking about how they were going to have to get back into coal production because they could not get the natural gas coming from Russia, and when the other countries as well were talking about changes that were necessary because they could not get the natural gas that they were getting before, we had a chance to be there. No, we wouldn't be able to get there in the next few years, but at least we could have made that effort and we could have given some certainty to them that Canada, which has the best oil and gas production record in the world, would be there. That is something that they appreciated.

I've seen this in the last number of years, and of course the discussion here is if a carbon tax is the best way to do.... We've heard from some of our witnesses. The U.S. isn't in that. We're making comparisons, and we're trying to ask if Canada has an opportunity to sell around the world.

We've heard testimony about how Biden, in his first week, decided that he wanted to push environmental issues. The first environmental thing that he did was cancel Keystone XL. Cancelling Keystone XL meant that instead of being able to take our heavy oil down into either Chicago or to the gulf coast so that we could produce the diesel that comes from that heavy oil and make sure that market was strong, we now find that they're going to Venezuela.

These are the kinds of things that happen when you have short-sighted environmental goals. That is the issue that we really have here: those short-sighted environmental goals.

We are losing opportunities. All of these countries have come to us and said, “We want your product, but we want to see that you're on side with industry”, and all we ever say is, “No, that's not really necessary.” I'm just dealing with some of the things we've looked at even today, such as the idea that clean electricity is going to be our greatest asset.

I live in central Alberta. It's freezing up right now. There were 15 centimetres of snow this morning. It will be -15°C or -20°C in the next couple of days, so freeze-up is there.

When we ask our local vehicle dealerships how their electrical vehicle sales are going, they laugh. They say, “That is not what we can do here. This is absolutely crazy”. I can go through a myriad of issues they have had because we can't produce the natural resources that we require. We've had testimony this morning about critical minerals and about how we will need six times more than what we're producing by 2040, and 20 times more lithium and that sort of thing, yet we still stand up and say, “We will make sure that we will have our electric vehicles and we will have this grid.”

Exactly how are we going to get that grid, unless we do as we have done, sadly, for too many years, and that is to bring in the products that are built in countries that don't care about the environment and buy them. Either that is the situation we have, or the new ones that are going to be mined are going to be mined in places outside of Canada, because as was mentioned here, it takes 16 years for a mine to become operational, if we're lucky. No matter that we have these great goals; how are we ever going to do that? That becomes part of the energy mix that the world wants. It wants us to be able to produce energy, and people are so short-sighted that they indicate, “Oh well, we can just get rid of oil and gas”, as if that's going to happen in the rest of the world.

Well, what are the other products? Just go through the whole list of products because of hydrocarbons and the relationships that exist. It is so short-sighted to simply say, “Oh, but we believe because our government put its signature on the bottom of this declaration that we must continue and follow through.” Is no one paying any attention to the relationships that exist?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We had the discussion when the folks from ATCO were here. I asked, “How much money has been put aside for the reclamation for your solar panels and your windmills that you have in operation right now?” Within six miles of my home, there are 53 windmills that have been there probably 15 to 20 years. Eventually they will have to be reclaimed, or things will have to happen to them. They get built by hydrocarbons. That's how they get built.

People say, “We will have windmills, but we want to get rid of hydrocarbons.” It is illogical for people to say that, but they continue to say it. They continue to get applause around here, because that's the new way of the world.

The same thing happened with the arguments that looked at other renewables. In Alberta we have quarter sections of land, pieces that are half a mile by half a mile, and for dozens of them at a time people are saying, “Well, let's put solar panels on these things.” Does anyone understand what is required for that? You need to have a steel grid structure in order to have erect these things. You then have to have some way of transferring the power from every one of those solar panels into a main grid, and then move it into the main collection area. Does it not take energy to make that happen?

Usually what happens is that some proponent builds it and then sells it to somebody else. This why the farmers' advocate in Alberta was telling a group of farmers, “You be very careful about anything you sign with these companies”, because it is not like oil and gas. If there's an oil well or whatever, or some system in there, we have a system whereby we can regulate it and we know what is going to happen. We don't have that assurance when it comes to the renewables, which is the reason.... Of course, Albertans were slammed by that as well, because now they want a moratorium on renewables in Alberta. Isn't that awful? No, it's responsible. It's responsible to take a look at exactly what is taking place in the system, and unless you've got ways of assuring landowners that it is being done right, then the other argument is all politics. It is all those types of things.

The other aspect is the relationship of the energy return on the energy involved to produce something. I have been saying for a long time that we have to measure everything from the first shovel we use to dig it up to the last shovel we use to cover it up. If you take solar, if you take windmills, if you take oil and gas, and if you were brave enough to talk about that for the areas that we flooded so that we got hydroelectric power.... There is no one brave enough to talk about the effects of dams, and so on.

If you were to take all of that together and then ask what is best in this community and what is best in another community, I think you'd start to recognize how significant our environment is, but also how diverse. It takes six hours to fly from one end of this country to the other, through six different time zones, and yet people within 100 miles of the 49th parallel and below think they understand how our country works and make decisions on it. That is very frustrating.

Then we talk about the relationships with our indigenous people. Well, I'm sure they would love to have.... They might be lower-paying jobs, but I'm sure they would love to have these good union jobs. They've got great jobs right now in oil and gas, and they've got massive billions of dollars in investment, and this is where their strengths are. That's where they lie, but here we have built in an eco-colonialism that is saying, “We know best. Don't worry, folks. We here in Ottawa, and those of us who hug the 49th here, know exactly how best you should manage your lives.”

These are the issues that I believe we have to make sure we bring out so that people know exactly what is taking place. When we talk about our liquefied natural gas—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'm sorry, Mr. Dreeshen. We are running at the end of our time for our committee—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I'm prepared to start up again next day if that's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Colleagues, we are at the end of the meeting.

First of all, I want to thank the witnesses so much for providing testimony today. You can provide a brief to the clerk if there's something you may have missed or if you have further information that would benefit this study. Please feel free to provide a brief to the clerk. Thank you so much for attending.

Colleagues, I want to highlight that on Wednesday we have in our first hour a panel on this study on clean energy. We will be reserving the second hour for committee business because our committee has a number of important bills. One is coming our way and another one is being voted on today. We do have to establish a committee business plan moving forward. That will be the second hour of our meeting on Wednesday. I hope everybody is well prepared to have a robust discussion on committee business moving forward.

Now is it the will of the committee to adjourn? I have a yes—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

On a point of order, are you suspending?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We're adjourning. The meeting is adjourned.