Bill C-69 (Historical)

An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Impact Assessment Act and repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. Among other things, the Impact Assessment Act
(a) names the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada as the authority responsible for impact assessments;
(b) provides for a process for assessing the environmental, health, social and economic effects of designated projects with a view to preventing certain adverse effects and fostering sustainability;
(c) prohibits proponents, subject to certain conditions, from carrying out a designated project if the designated project is likely to cause certain environmental, health, social or economic effects, unless the Minister of the Environment or Governor in Council determines that those effects are in the public interest, taking into account the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, all effects that may be caused by the carrying out of the project, the extent to which the project contributes to sustainability and other factors;
(d) establishes a planning phase for a possible impact assessment of a designated project, which includes requirements to cooperate with and consult certain persons and entities and requirements with respect to public participation;
(e) authorizes the Minister to refer an impact assessment of a designated project to a review panel if he or she considers it in the public interest to do so, and requires that an impact assessment be referred to a review panel if the designated project includes physical activities that are regulated under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act;
(f) establishes time limits with respect to the planning phase, to impact assessments and to certain decisions, in order to ensure that impact assessments are conducted in a timely manner;
(g) provides for public participation and for funding to allow the public to participate in a meaningful manner;
(h) sets out the factors to be taken into account in conducting an impact assessment, including the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(i) provides for cooperation with certain jurisdictions, including Indigenous governing bodies, through the delegation of any part of an impact assessment, the joint establishment of a review panel or the substitution of another process for the impact assessment;
(j) provides for transparency in decision-making by requiring that the scientific and other information taken into account in an impact assessment, as well as the reasons for decisions, be made available to the public through a registry that is accessible via the Internet;
(k) provides that the Minister may set conditions, including with respect to mitigation measures, that must be implemented by the proponent of a designated project;
(l) provides for the assessment of cumulative effects of existing or future activities in a specific region through regional assessments and of federal policies, plans and programs, and of issues, that are relevant to the impact assessment of designated projects through strategic assessments; and
(m) sets out requirements for an assessment of environmental effects of non-designated projects that are on federal lands or that are to be carried out outside Canada.
Part 2 enacts the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, which establishes the Canadian Energy Regulator and sets out its composition, mandate and powers. The role of the Regulator is to regulate the exploitation, development and transportation of energy within Parliament’s jurisdiction.
The Canadian Energy Regulator Act, among other things,
(a) provides for the establishment of a Commission that is responsible for the adjudicative functions of the Regulator;
(b) ensures the safety and security of persons, energy facilities and abandoned facilities and the protection of property and the environment;
(c) provides for the regulation of pipelines, abandoned pipelines, and traffic, tolls and tariffs relating to the transmission of oil or gas through pipelines;
(d) provides for the regulation of international power lines and certain interprovincial power lines;
(e) provides for the regulation of renewable energy projects and power lines in Canada’s offshore;
(f) provides for the regulation of access to lands;
(g) provides for the regulation of the exportation of oil, gas and electricity and the interprovincial oil and gas trade; and
(h) sets out the process the Commission must follow before making, amending or revoking a declaration of a significant discovery or a commercial discovery under the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act and the process for appealing a decision made by the Chief Conservation Officer or the Chief Safety Officer under that Act.
Part 2 also repeals the National Energy Board Act.
Part 3 amends the Navigation Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) rename it the Canadian Navigable Waters Act;
(b) provide a comprehensive definition of navigable water;
(c) require that, when making a decision under that Act, the Minister must consider any adverse effects that the decision may have on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(d) require that an owner apply for an approval for a major work in any navigable water if the work may interfere with navigation;
(e)  set out the factors that the Minister must consider when deciding whether to issue an approval;
(f) provide a process for addressing navigation-related concerns when an owner proposes to carry out a work in navigable waters that are not listed in the schedule;
(g) provide the Minister with powers to address obstructions in any navigable water;
(h) amend the criteria and process for adding a reference to a navigable water to the schedule;
(i) require that the Minister establish a registry; and
(j) provide for new measures for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
Part 4 makes consequential amendments to Acts of Parliament and regulations.

[Stephanie Kusie]

I'm getting there, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Certainly it is relevant. This is specifically relevant to both the environment and the oil sector, which I believe are the two cruxes of Bill C-69. It is all very relevant indeed.

In practice, annual withdrawals are often less than 1%. The framework also limits, monitors, and adjusts withdrawals from the river on a weekly basis.

Finally, point number six is that almost all water in the oil sands is, of course, recycled, so most water used in oil sands development is recycled, 80% in fact, for established mining operations, and approximately 94% for in situ recovery. However, some new water is required and comes from a variety of sources including on-site drainage, collected precipitation, rain and melt water, underground salt water, brackish—I've always liked that word, brackish—aquifers, and local watersheds such as rivers.

I would say, given these incredible improvements that have been made and have been recorded by the Government of Canada most recently as July 2017, as I said, I wonder if Mr. Hazell can still, in fact, agree with Andrew Weaver's comments cited earlier today:

This should concern all Canadians who took the Prime Minister at his word when he said he would build a clean, forward-looking economy. That means providing targeted incentives and support programs for industries who are embracing low-carbon solutions. Instead, the Prime Minister is doubling down on a sunset industry whose expansion puts our climate targets out of reach. We need to be investing in our shared future, not subsidizing the wealth of Texas oil companies.

Mr. Hazell, are you still in agreement with the comment of Mr. Weaver, given the information that I shared with you in regard to the incredible environmental improvements that have been made in regard to oil sands development?

Thank you.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

So you're saying Bill C-69 is flawed.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Northey, you were quite proud of the report that you and your colleagues produced, but I want to look at some testimony that we received not that long ago from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. CAPP and the investment community today see very little in Bill C-69 that will improve investment. I would say we're at a very high risk of leakage of carbon outside of Canada, so the resource won't be produced in Canada but will likely be produced in a jurisdiction with no carbon policy.

Chris Bloomer, from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said, “New projects are grinding to a halt and we have major problems as a sector and as a country accessing new markets for our energy products to the world.” He further said, “In short, we cannot see that timelines will improve; we expect them to be longer.” Mr. Bloomer goes on to say, “If the goal is to curtail oil and gas production and to have no more pipelines built, this legislation may have hit the mark.”

In a legal review by Osler and company, written about in The Lawyer's Daily—you can tell I don't have a life, because I read The Lawyer's Daily—it was quoted by the author, “there is nothing in these legislative proposals that suggests future assessments [of designated projects] will be in any way streamlined, more efficient, or more effective”, and that's compared to your review of the legislation.

Are these people all wrong?

[Jay Morrison]

One of the benefits of it, as you can see, is that it's just webbing. It's very light, very breathable, and there is no excuse not to wear it. I must confess that until I had a daughter, 10 years ago now, I would often not wear my life jacket if I was on warm waters that I could swim across. I'm a whitewater instructor as well, and I wouldn't always wear my life jacket in whitewater. These are extremely light, easy to wear. Wear them. Most people who die are not wearing their life jackets.

There are a number of strengths and potential weaknesses in the proposed amendments to the NPA in Bill C-69. Our general perception is that the proposals in Bill C-69 may, with some caveats, effectively restore an acceptable level of ministerial oversight to the right of public navigation to all navigable waters. Bill C-69 continues the use of a schedule of waters where proposed works would require ministerial permits. Ideally, and I know some of my colleagues have proposed this, abolishing the schedule would go toward restoring full oversight to all navigable waters. However, effective oversight may be realized through the bill's requirements that owners of works on unscheduled waters give notice to those who may be affected and by providing a dispute resolution process.

The caveat here is that the minister provide sufficient program resources to ensure that proponents do give such notice to all potentially affected parties, including paddlers, and that the minister does respond to unresolved disputes in a timely and effective manner. The bill should specify a time limit for the minister to respond.

Whether this new approach works as intended should be closely examined when the five-year review is done.

I should add that I'm a former senior manager with the Treasury Board and I'm very sensitive to the issue of efficiency and the cost to taxpayers. By implementing this new regime, there is a possibility that the long waiting list of projects and the cost to taxpayers can be reduced. My understanding is that is why Transport Canada has proposed this new approach.

Bill C-69 defines “navigable water” as that which “is used or where there is a reasonable likelihood that it will be used by vessels”.

In our view this is sufficiently specific that it would include waters that have been, are currently, or may be used in the future by human-powered craft. Attempts in 2009 at legislating an objective canoe-test definition of navigability—which, by the way, never was in the old NWPA—were, in my view, a failure. This bill's specific definition, therefore, represents an improvement over the old NWPA in securing the right of navigation for paddle craft.

The NWPA contained provisions that certain types of works on navigable waters—notably dams, bridges, booms, and causeways—always would require ministerial permit and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act specified that such works would require an assessment.

The proposed Canadian navigable waters act does not contain any specific triggers for impact assessment, so we urge that the proposed impact assessment act ensure that works that obstruct flows or change water levels require impact assessment and that provision be made for assessing the cumulative effect of lesser works.

Paddle Canada recommends that such works that completely obstruct navigation of unscheduled waters specify a requirement that a ministerial permit be obtained. This is not a matter of only effectively maintaining the right of public navigation, but it is also a matter of safety, especially in the case of power dams and their treacherous cousins, weirs, where in the absence of safe and reasonable portages, paddlers may sometimes take dangerous risks.

When asked by parliamentarians and officials at Transport Canada to name our main concerns with respect to works, our answer has been power dams. We are pleased that officials have responded positively to the need to mitigate the obvious dangers posed by power dams; however, the hazard also posed by weirs, or low-head dams, requires more explanation.

Weirs often involve a relatively gentle drop, sometimes less than a metre, tempting the uninformed to run the weir in a canoe or kayak or even to swim in it. The drop can sometimes set up a recirculating hydraulic that can trap a boat or a person in the foaming water until they tire and drown. For this reason, those of us who are trained whitewater paddlers refer to weirs as drowning machines. As an example, a weir on the Bow River in Calgary took the lives of 14 people over the course of the last 30 years in many different incidents until it was recently re-engineered. A Paddle Canada instructor, a friend of mine actually, recently recounted to me an incident at a day camp during which in spite of the efforts of a large, strong man who risked his life to attempt a rescue, a young boy drowned when trapped in an innocent-looking current below a weir.

Paddle Canada recommends that no dam or weir should be permitted on any waterway without provision for a safe and reasonable portage with appropriate signage.

Paddle Canada also recommends that in the case of works that completely obstruct navigation, such as dams and weirs where permits have already been granted, Transport Canada should consider the feasibility of reviewing the status of the permit with respect to a requirement to provide a safe and reasonable means of bypassing the obstacle. Of all the rivers on the historical fur trade routes from Montreal to the Pacific and Arctic oceans, the power dams on the Ottawa River stand out as exceptionally poor in this regard. Paddle Canada may be able to assist in identifying opportunities for improvement.

Similarly, we recommend that in order to give the right of navigation full meaning, Transport Canada should also examine the general legal status of portages, particularly on historical routes. Specifically, the department should be able to advise those who travel such waterways whether they have the right to walk on private land in order to bypass natural obstacles such as rapids and waterfalls. If not, the department should examine measures that might establish that right.

Many historical portages have been lost to development over the years. One of them is within sight of these Parliament buildings. The first nations portage that is thousands of years old and closest to us right now was also used by every single one of the early European explorers to bypass the Chaudière Falls. These routes are part of our shared history and must be preserved.

Our final recommendation is that because the proposed Canadian navigable waters act deals with a historic public right that is not established by any overarching document such as the charter, consideration should be given by legislators to inserting a short preamble into the Canadian navigable waters act that describes the nature and importance of this right as part of our Canadian heritage.

Madam Chair, I would like to point out to the members of the committee that while I have been involved for a long time with environmental organizations, impact assessment is not at all my area of expertise. As a certified Paddle Canada instructor who has canoed the 8,000 kilometres from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the Arctic Ocean, my expertise is in the safety and navigational aspects of this bill.

I would be pleased to answer any of your questions. Thank you.

[Jay Morrison]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Jay Morrison and I'm representing Paddle Canada today as the environment chair. I should also mention that I'm the secretary of the Canadian Safe Boating Council.

Paddle Canada welcomes the opportunity to comment on Bill C-69. We have been engaged with the public right of navigation since amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act were first proposed in 2009. Closely related to navigation rights is the question of safety, and Paddle Canada has been coordinating its work with the Canadian Safe Boating Council. Paddle Canada has several recommendations with respect to the bill.

The mission of Paddle Canada is to promote recreational paddling instruction, safety, and environmental awareness. Paddle Canada's 3,000 certified instructors teach canoeing, kayaking, and stand-up paddleboarding to more than 10,000 Canadians every year. For the millions of recreational paddlers in Canada, we are the organization that is most concerned with their public right of navigation.

The mission of the Canadian Safe Boating Council is to promote safe and responsible boating throughout Canada. The CSBC contributes to a declining mortality rate for recreational boaters but the annual toll is still much too great and most deaths are highly preventable. When you are boating, wear your life jacket.

Allow me to do a very brief demonstration.

[Stephen Hazell, Director of Conservation, Nature Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Stephen Hazell. I'm with Nature Canada. I have a long history with environmental assessment. I worked for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency when the initial regulations for CEAA 1995 were developed, so I have a long history with environmental assessment.

I wanted to say first of all that in the current bill, Bill C-69—and I'll be focusing on the impact assessment act provisions—there's a lot of good stuff. We support strengthening this impact assessment agency, requiring assessments to consider a project's contribution to sustainability, the incorporation of indigenous knowledge, and including Canada's climate commitments. These are all good things. We support the increasing transparency in decisions by requiring the minister and cabinet to provide reasons for approvals.

I wanted to focus on five areas in my comments. I want to talk about discretion and legal requirements, triggers for impact assessments under the act, the project list, getting federal house in order, and regional and strategic assessments. Some of what I say will overlap a little bit with what my colleagues have said in the previous panel. Some of it I hope will be new.

The first thing I want to say is that, leading up to 1992, the primary focus of the environmental community and Canadians generally was that we needed rules. We needed laws. We needed to know what projects were going to be subject to a federal assessment and which ones weren't. That was the key objective.

With CEAA 2012, we lost that almost completely because, with very few exceptions, there are no legally binding rules for what would be assessed and what would not. Unfortunately, this act sort of perpetuates that problem. It creates discretion at two levels.

No projects are assessed under the current proposed law unless they're on the project list. We're disappointed by that. Even if they are on the project list, it doesn't mean they are going to be assessed. They go through a whole process, the early planning process we talked about. At the end of that, the minister makes the decision whether there should or should not be an assessment. There's discretion all the way along, which just creates uncertainty for everybody. I would put it to you that it also politicizes the process.

Whereas under the 1995 law, proponents, stakeholders, and governments knew what was going to be assessed, under this law, we have no idea. We really don't. It will be at the discretion of the minister. That is something I would ask the committee to reflect on. Think about ways in which we can limit that discretion. Some ways have been suggested by colleagues in the previous panel.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is triggers for impact assessments. We're disappointed that the project list is the principal trigger for the assessment of projects. What it means is that many federal decisions that adversely affect the natural environment will not be assessed because the project list, as it's currently written, is very narrow.

Nature Canada starts from the position, and I think we would all agree, that one key function of environmental assessment is to provide good information about environmental effects and sustainability effects so that we can make good decisions. Ultimately it's about how we can make good decisions about projects. If the whole legal regime is focused on a handful of projects that are on that list, that means we're not going to get there. The decision-makers are not going to have the information they need to make good decisions.

I also want to note that the 1995 law had four distinct triggers. There was a regulatory trigger, a dispositional land trigger, a federal proponent trigger, and a funding trigger. Now, Mr. Northey may remind you that the expert panel in its report recommended that we continue with that four-trigger approach from CEAA from 1995. It was abandoned in the 2012 law.

What projects do we need to start getting better information about so that we can make good decisions? High-carbon projects—projects that we know are going to produce megatonnes or hundreds of thousands of tonnes of GHG emissions—should be assessed under the federal act so we can meet our Paris climate agreement.

There's a good example just downstream from Ottawa, upwind from Montreal, where we're not doing that. A cement plant is going to produce one megatonne of GHG emissions every year, not including all the trucks carrying all the cement. The sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions are in excess of U.S. and European standards. Who did an assessment of that project? It wasn't the provincial government. It wasn't the federal government. The little municipalities around Hawkesbury did the assessment. Their only recourse was to deny a rezoning application. The proponent, a European multinational corporation, appealed the refusal of the rezoning to the Ontario Municipal Board.

That's where we sit. A megatonne of emissions are unaccounted for and there are no interventions by either level of government to figure out how we can get those GHGs down. We're missing the boat on that. High-carbon projects have got to be on the project list, at least. We think it would be better if there was a law list, like we had in the CEAA 1995, so that any regulatory approvals under the Fisheries Act, the Canadian navigable waters act, or the Species at Risk Act would be assessed. That would be our preference, but we think we could also do it by way of the project list.

Next, I want to turn to the project list itself. I want to talk about the regulatory approach that's being taken by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency for listing projects under your new impact assessment act. We say it's unacceptable.

According to the consultation paper, the project list would “focus federal impact assessment on projects that [would] have the most potential for adverse environmental effects in areas of federal jurisdiction”. They're saying that even very bad projects with serious adverse effects in areas of federal jurisdiction may not be listed on this project list so long as there are projects that have more serious impacts. That's a problem. That means they only want to have a very select number of projects listed that would be subject to the whole process.

I want to add that I found nothing in Bill C-69 or in the proposed act that requires the approach that appears to be taken by the agency with respect to the development of these absolutely critical recommendations. We would say delete that word “most”, so that the language would read “federal impact assessments would focus on projects that would have potential for adverse environmental effects in areas of federal jurisdiction”, not the “most potential”. I would make that recommendation.

Next I want to talk about the federal house in order. The exemption of federal projects from assessment under the proposed act is simply unacceptable. As it's written now, federal authorities are required only to determine “that the carrying out of the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects”, and that factors set out in proposed section 84 be considered.

“Just trust us” is just not good enough. Let me give you an example from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. I don't know if they're testifying before the committee, but they said to go ahead and tell the story.

Since 2012, Parks Canada has made 1,600 determinations under a provision identical to the one I just read to you. Instead of doing an assessment, they're required to make a determination based on...we have no idea what. They made 1,600 of those determinations over two and a half years. Not once did they identify a project that had significant adverse effects.

These projects are in our national parks, where presumably we're a little more sensitive to what “significant” might mean. Remember that in national parks the minister has, as her first priority, the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity when considering aspects of the management of parks.

Am I over...?

Okay. I did want to say something about regional and strategic assessments.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It is directly related to the testimony that Chief Crey gave on his comments regarding Bill C-69, so my colleague is out of line.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order. I would like you to make a ruling on relevance. We're here reviewing Bill C-69. If my colleague here has an explanation about the relevance of what he's raising to what they're requesting be in this bill, then I would be happy.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I would just say that to me it seems to be a very good description of the way the relationship should happen with indigenous peoples under Bill C-69. I would like to see it taken from Bill C-68 and brought over into Bill C-69. I don't know why it wasn't done in the first place. Anyway, I'll leave this question there.

I know we've already spoken a bit about meaningful public participation, but I'd like to get your feedback on the early planning phase of public participation, looking at meaningful public participation but also alternatives and need. Can you talk about how you would define it and how you would ensure that the right criteria are in place to make it happen?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

To the motion, the uncertainty is caused by the Government of Canada and the lack of verbal and legal support, not financial support. The finance committee can be involved because the finance minister was at the table. It was a four-person meeting and he was right there. This does matter because it does affect his ministry. The decisions he will make on the financial implications for the Government of Canada, and what the Government of Canada will do to provide some type of financial support, matters to the committee here. It could be money, direct subsidies, an insurance policy, or an equity stake. We have no way of knowing that. We should find out what the implications are for budgetary matters.

Energy East, Northern Gateway, and Petronas were cancelled. Between Energy East and Northern Gateway, 1.625 million barrels per day of production are not moving through a pipeline. That's royalties, levies, and construction jobs, and that has a huge impact on the Government of Canada's bottom line. Trans Mountain moves 590,000 barrels per day. You are talking about a third of what has already been lost through your decision. Bill C-69 adds to the burden. We're talking about establishing a baseline of what the government can use to say, “This is how much money we've brought into the public coffers, so this is what the Government of Canada can do on the financial side and regulatory side to lessen the burden on the government.”

The last thing I will say is from a constituent. I think he raises a great point. Then, Mr. Chair, I'll turn it over to you if there are no other speakers. I will also ask for a recorded vote.

Darren Engels from my riding says:

When I finished university, I made the choice to move to Calgary, where I was told that the city was a built on a can-do attitude of hard-working people. My kind of place. I secured a career at a boutique investment bank that focused exclusively on the energy industry. I made it! My hard work paid off. Unfortunately, I now have a front-row seat of investment capital fleeing our country, due to an overly burdensome environment. Arguably, I cannot blame the investor for having zero confidence in Canada, given the hostile investment environment that has been created by over-reaching regulations and governments, I barely have any confidence in Canada anymore. The fact that Energy East, Northern Gateway, Petronas LNG have been abandoned, and there is real risk that Trans Mountain will be cancelled, should ring alarm bells across the country as the rule of law has been overtaken by the “green mob” that lacks facts but is well funded by foreign dollars.

The most unfortunate aspect of Canada's new reality is that I cannot honestly tell my daughters that if they work hard, good things will happen. Not in Canada, anyways. My next professional question might be: do I stay and fight for my livelihood and city I love, or do I move outside Canada to pursue the next phase of my career and protect the financial well-being of my family.

...

From my perspective, the current governments definitely do not stand up for the oil and gas industry. That is tragic, especially given that the oil and gas industry enabled Canada to survive the world-wide recession of 2008 and has employed thousands of people across the country, and provided millions upon millions of dollars to support our high-standard of living. Please, we need you to act.

Make me a proud Canadian again.

[Jamie Kneen, Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Mining Watch Canada]

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the unceded territory of the Algonquin nation. This fact needs to shape our discussions here. It's not just something that we say before we go about our business, but a reality that we need to carry through everything we do.

Like many, Mining Watch was greatly encouraged by the government's commitment to reforming environmental assessment and by the expert panel process that was created to advance that agenda—notwithstanding its compressed time frame—both in the astonishing extent and thoughtfulness of participation from the public, indigenous people, and experts alike, and in the depth of consideration that the expert panel reflected in its report.

My focus today is primarily on part 1 of Bill C-69, the impact assessment act. There are certainly important concerns with respect to other parts of the bill, as well as Bill C-68, the amended Fisheries Act, both on their own and in relation to the impact assessment act, especially regarding the assessment and monitoring of non-designated projects. I would direct your attention to the submission of the Canadian Freshwater Alliance, especially as it appears they will not be called as a witness.

This bill brings great promise and great disappointment. Overall, we find that it cannot fulfill the government's commitment to restore public confidence, and therefore, also cannot fulfill the promise of facilitating good development projects. In some respects, it represents a failure of ambition, where a stronger commitment and stronger leadership are required to meet the challenges of the 21st century. In other respects, it's just a matter of design flaws and limitations of implementation. At this juncture, it may not be possible to address the bigger structural problems, but we have the opportunity to fix many of its deficiencies.

We are greatly concerned that while this committee has heard the testimony of the responsible ministers, it has not heard from the civil servants, the government's own experts who worked diligently to develop the government's direction in the bill that is before us now. We strongly urge you to call those involved in drafting this legislation as witnesses. We're also greatly concerned that there is very little time for this committee to hear witnesses and to develop and integrate the necessary amendments in order to allow for a more thorough evaluation of some of the critical structural aspects of the impact assessment act.

The minister, through the new impact assessment agency, should undertake a short-term review of the new act and develop a package of housekeeping and substantive amendments to bring before Parliament within a year or two. As well, the proposed 10-year parliamentary review will come much too late. The legislative review requirement should be changed to a five-year ministerial review cycle.

I'll not attempt to address the needed amendments comprehensively—there just isn't enough time—but we have worked extensively through the Canadian Environmental Network, the RCEN, and its environmental planning assessment caucus, of which Anna and I are both co-chairs on a national level, which has made submissions to this committee. We endorse and support the observations and recommendations of the caucus, as well as those of its other members, and I would refer you to the caucus's written submission, as we're not actually here on behalf of the caucus.

The bill does make an important advance in setting out a broad consideration of economic and social factors in addition to biophysical environmental impacts. All of those factors are to be subject to public scrutiny and scientific evaluation, allowing decisions to be based on much more transparent reasons and justifications than has previously been the case. This is something we have advocated as critical to allowing an assessment of any proposal's contribution to long-term sustainability. The bill's inclusion of gender-based analysis is also important.

However, as I think Josh has already laid out, the bill does not provide a clear legal link between the consideration of those factors and the justification for actual assessment decisions. Neither does it establish basic criteria to provide a solid and consistent base for those decisions.

As Professor Doelle pointed out in his submission, the enabling nature of the legislation allows for good decision-making to take place, but it does not guarantee it and, without clearer requirements for justification, doesn't even encourage it. Provisions that enable action also enable inaction and do not provide certainty. It is greatly helpful in understanding the application of discretion if wherever the bill says the minister “may”, one reads “the minister may not”. This is not a question of ill will or irresponsibility, but more one of natural administrative tendencies to conserve money and energy, and natural political tendencies to seek short-term benefits.

We note that the question of discretion has been raised as a concern of all sectors, including industry representatives, indigenous peoples, public interest groups, and environmental law experts, with varying degrees of emphasis on three factors.

First is certainty and clarity, being able to know what the decision-making criteria are at the legislative level, and how they will be established at the level of individual project assessments or regional and strategic assessments.

Second, with regard to fail-safe criteria, is assurance that where benefits or, at least, no harm cannot be assured in all areas, any trade-offs will be subject to defined weighting and limits.

Third, on indigenous self-determination, is definitive protection for indigenous rights, including implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, so that impacts on treaty and indigenous rights and the outcomes of nation-to-nation processes are determinative so that the requirements are clear and knowable. I think the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement provides a clear example of that.

We urge the committee to pursue amendments to more closely tie the proposed section 63 decision-making factors to the proposed section 22 factors to include in an assessment.

This is not the first time that you are hearing this, and it won't be the last. We should include a requirement for regulations setting out generic decision-making criteria in each area, and establish a requirement for specific criteria for individual assessments, as well as making impacts on treaty and indigenous rights and the outcomes of nation-to-nation processes determinative and not just considerations.

We have made recommendations for specific amendments and provided background arguments in our written submission in seven other areas to help ensure that public participation is meaningful; that indigenous peoples involvement in any assessment processes respects their self-determination; that there are effective mechanisms to assess regional development impacts as well as policies, plans, and programs, with clear links to project assessments; that impact assessment is linked to monitoring of non-designated projects authorized under the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Protection Act, especially in relation to cumulative effects and project assessments; that energy regulators have a specific and a much more limited role in assessment processes; that international transboundary processes and international obligations and guidelines are given adequate weight; and that scientific integrity is built in, including in mitigation, adaptive management, and follow-up.

In conclusion, Bill C-69 has the potential to make important and badly needed changes in the federal impact assessment regime. Unfortunately, it does not provide clear enough direction on implementation to give us confidence that its promises will be fulfilled. It also replicates many features of the existing failed CEAA, including its limited scope of application. We have provided recommendations in key areas, and we trust this committee to do its best work to improve the bill.

Thank you.

[Bill Namagoose, Executive Director, Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)]

Madam Chair and committee members, bonjour. On behalf of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee, I thank you for the invitation to address you today with respect to Bill C-69.

[Witness speaks in Cree]

My name is Bill Namagoose. I'm the executive director of the Grand Council of the Crees, the Cree Nation government. With me today are Cree Nation government representatives Brian Craik, director of federal relations; Geoff Quaile, senior environment adviser; Kelly LeBlanc, environmental and social assessment coordinator; and Jean-Sébastien Clément, our legal counsel.

Bill C-69 must guarantee the Crees of Eeyou Istchee our treaty right under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to be active and mandatory participants in any environmental or social impact assessment of development projects carried out under federal legislation in the JBNQA territory of Eeyou Istchee. Any federal legislation providing for environmental or social assessment of development projects in the JBNQA territory of Eeyou Istchee must ensure that the assessment is conducted by the federal environmental and social impact review panel, known as the COFEX, established under section 22 of the JBNQA. To achieve these ends, Bill C-69 must provide for a carve-out or distinct regime that specifically addresses the JBNQA territory.

The Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee counts more than 18,000 Eeyouch, or Cree, occupying our traditional territory of Eeyou Istchee. This territory covers over 400,000 square kilometres and is located mainly to the east and south of James Bay and Hudson Bay. We occupy and intensively use the entire area of Eeyou Istchee, both for our traditional way of of hunting, fishing, and trapping, and increasingly, for a wide range of modem economic activities.

As a result of massive hydroelectric and resource development over the past 40 years, the Cree of Eeyou Istchee have undergone extremely rapid and disruptive cultural, social, and environmental changes. These changes have caused enormous stress on the Cree in terms of our traditional way of life and culture. Fifty per cent of Hydro-Québec power is now generated in our territory.

I will now tum to the specific issues that relate to Bill C-69 and the assessment projects in Eeyou Istchee. Section 22 of the JBNQA sets out the first environmental and social impact assessment and review regime for development projects in Canada. I want to stress that the first environmental and social impact assessment in all of Canada was a gift from the Cree. This assessment is done by tripartite and bipartite committees that assess both the environmental and social impacts of projects.

One of the main objectives of the regime is to ensure that the Crees are active participants in the orderly development of the resources in Eeyou Istchee so as to safeguard their hunting, fishing, and trapping rights, as detailed in section 24 of the treaty.

There are four joint committees established under section 22 of the JBNQA. For today's purposes, the relevant committees are, first, the federal environmental and social impact review panel, also known as the COFEX, a joint Cree-Canada panel that is mandated to review projects under federal jurisdiction. The COFEX is composed of five members: three appointed by the federal government and two by the Cree Nation government. The second is the provincial environmental and social impact review committee, also known as the COMEX, a joint Cree-Quebec panel that is mandated to review projects subject to provincial legislation. The COMEX is composed of five members: three appointed by Quebec and two appointed by the Cree Nation government.

Over the years, the Crees have been involved in litigation regarding section 22 of the JBNQA and the various federal assessment processes external to the JBNQA, including the environmental assessment and review process, or EARP, guidelines and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, known as CEAA.

The most recent litigation on these issues ended up with the 2010 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Quebec v. Moses. The Moses judgment distinguishes between the environmental review processes internal to the JBNQA treaty and the environmental review processes external to the treaty as required by CEAA. The court held that the JBNQA treaty permits only internal review process, either federal, provincial, or combined. However, an external federal review process is also required where mandated by the federal environmental law.

The federal assessment process external to the JBNQA proved problematic in the past, as they set out a regime in JBNQA territory that did not take proper account of the specific context of the JBNQA treaty, a fact expressly noted in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Moses decision. In addition, federal assessment processes were set out despite the treaty requirements that the federal laws or regulations be established by and in accordance with section 22, including the Cree right to be active participants in the decisions made for the territory.

The key message of our submission today is that Bill C-69 should provide for a carve-out, or distinct regime, to address specifically the JBNQA territory. In so doing, Bill C-69 must guarantee the treaty rights of the Cree of the Eeyou Istchee under the JBNQA, as recognized in the Moses decision, to be active and mandatory participants in the assessment of development projects in Eeyou Istchee carried out under federal legislation. The mechanism to ensure this participation is the COFEX panel already established under section 22 of the JBNQA.

The Crees have consistently urged our federal counterparts to use COFEX, established by the JBNQA, to assess all projects subject to external federal review processes in the JBNQA territory, and not to impose a foreign process.

In Moses, the Supreme Court accepted the Cree arguments in respect to the necessity to ensure Cree participation in external federal environmental assessments of projects in a manner compatible with JBNQA processes. The following sentence of paragraph 48 of the judgment sums up this view of the Supreme Court. I quote:

Common sense as well as legal requirements suggest that the CEAA assessment will be structured to accommodate the special context of a project proposal in the [James Bay Treaty territory], including the participation of the Cree.

This statement indicates that a project subject to internal assessment by COMEX, under the JBNQA, should not be reviewed by COFEX when an external assessment process is required under federal legislation. We have been in discussions with Canada since 2010, including through the dispute resolution process further to the passing of CEAA 2012, in an attempt to ensure that the changes called for in the Moses judgment are properly implemented.

What is the solution for the JBNQA territory? The solution is simple and anchored in two basic principles flowing from the JBNQA treaty and the Moses decision. One, every time an internal assessment is carried out by COMEX under the JBNQA territory for a project that has impacts within areas of federal jurisdiction or that requires a federal permit, an environmental assessment should be carried out under the proposed impact assessment act. Two, impact assessments under the proposed impact assessment act in JBNQA Cree territory should be conducted through COFEX, already established under section 22 of the JBNQA, thus ensuring direct Cree participation as mandated by the Moses Supreme Court decision.

In order to ensure certainty and predictability, we urge Canada to engage with us immediately in discussions to make the necessary amendments to Bill C-69, and section 22 of the JBNQA, to put in place the various agreements and regulations required to give effect to the proposals that I have outlined here.

On the Canadian energy regulator act, the most pressing amendment required is to clarify that the consent of the concerned Cree first nation is required when a company proposes to construct a pipeline on category 1A lands, where our communities are located, or if a company proposes to engage in related activities or take possession of such lands. This requires an amendment to proposed section 317 of the Canadian energy regulator act.

In conclusion, Bill C-69 proposes a measure of consultation and accommodation with respect to first nations. However, the JBNQA, as affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Moses judgment, goes further by providing the Crees with the treaty right to full and mandatory participation in environmental and social impact assessments and reviews carried out in JBNQA territory.

We are available to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[Joshua Ginsberg, Barrister and Solicitor, Ecojustice Canada]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee members, for inviting Ecojustice to provide suggestions to the committee on Bill C-69.

Ecojustice is a national environmental law charity providing free legal services to Canadian conservation groups, concerned citizens, and first nations. Lawyers from Ecojustice appear across the country before courts and tribunals at every level, including with respect to environmental assessment, which will be the focus of my comments today.

I am an Ecojustice litigator and a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa faculty of law and director of Ecojustice's environmental law clinic at the faculty, where I teach environmental litigation, including with respect to environmental assessments. My comments today are informed by those various hats.

The points I propose to focus on are the following: first, the discretion to exempt projects from an assessment; second, the importance of clear requirements for decision-making; third, environmental justice; fourth, assessments of federal projects; and finally, review and appeal.

I've submitted a brief touching on other aspects of the proposed IAA as well as the proposed energy regulator act and the navigable waters act, which I commend for your review.

One of the most consequential effects when the 2012 legislation replaced the previous Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was the shift from a triggers-based approach to a project list approach, which limited potential assessments to a short list of major projects under federal jurisdiction. CEAA 2012 reduced the number of project assessments to dozens annually, compared with the former legislation that applied to thousands of projects annually. Even then, the 2012 act added an off-ramp whereby the agency could exempt projects from assessment. That discretion has been used 27 times since the current act came into force, or about five times per year. It is a regular part of agency operations.

Here are just two examples of exempted projects as a result of that discretion: a gold mine located near Timmins, Ontario, with an ore production capacity of 4,000 tonnes per day, where the minimum production capacity to trigger a federal assessment is only 600 tonnes per day; and a crude oil storage facility with capacity for 6.64 million barrels just outside the municipal border of Edmonton, Alberta.

The proposed IAA does not remedy this exclusion problem. It retains the discretion to exempt projects from a list that will likely only include those with the most potential for adverse effects in an area of federal jurisdiction, according to the government discussion paper on the subject. To be clear, I am not suggesting that any particular project ought not to have been approved. However, projects make the list because they have real potential for adverse effects, like toxic heavy industry in proximity to communities, like the two I mentioned. Failing to assess those projects undermines public trust in the process. Communities should get a full picture of the potential adverse effects of the project and ways the project might be improved. Not assessing such projects also undermines efforts to tackle cumulative effects, which is a core purpose of the bill.

We, therefore, recommend that section 16 of the act be amended to allow the agency to exempt a designated project from assessment only if it determines that there is no potential for impacts on areas within federal jurisdiction. In other words, if the presumption of federal jurisdiction that led a project to end up on the list in the first place is rebutted, it doesn't need an assessment. Otherwise, an assessment ought to take place.

The lack of clear criteria in the existing legislation has resulted in an interpretation by the courts that decision-making on assessments is based on nearly unfettered discretion. The assessment report is merely one input in an indeterminate sea of considerations that are never made public. The law is so vague that the Federal Court of Appeal concluded that decisions are, “based on the widest considerations of policy and public interest assessed on the basis of polycentric, subjective, or indistinct criteria”. In other words, after all of the evidence and public participation that goes into an assessment, there's no guarantee that it will do anything to influence the final decision.

What's more, courts have doubted whether the law imposes any standards for the content of the assessment report. According to some jurisprudence, it is doubtful whether the report is even required to contain substantive consideration of environmental effects, even serious ones like the release of liquid effluent from a nuclear reactor into Lake Ontario. The prevailing standard is “some consideration,” no matter how cursory or disinterested in relevant evidence that consideration may be.

To its credit, the proposed impact assessment act does try to do more than avoid acute harm. It requires politicians to consider the extent to which a project contributes to sustainability, including environmental, economic, health, and social factors. It also incorporates a consideration of Canada's climate commitments and indigenous interests, and it mandates reasons for environmental approvals.

However, the IAA should do more than require that factors be considered, since judicial history shows that mere consideration provides no enforceable standard. To avoid uncertainty as to whether the decision will really be based on the legislated factors, we suggest that proposed section 63 of the act be amended to ensure decisions are “based on” the legislated factors rather than simply taking them into consideration. That would be a significant change in law and accountability in the system and would help ensure that decisions that are tied to the EA process are evidence-based.

While the decisions should be based on the proposed section 63 factors, it's important to note that those factors are incomplete. The section should include bottom lines that place an outside boundary on ministerial or cabinet discretion so that all participants in impact assessment understand the minimum expectations. For example, the law should prevent the minister from deciding that adverse effects indicated in an assessment report are in the public interest if the evidence suggests otherwise. The minister should not make a positive public interest determination where adverse effects do not offset some more severe effect, or unless—as you heard from Professor Stewart Elgie yesterday—the benefits substantially outweigh the adverse effects. A project should also not be found in the public interest if evidence suggests it will result in the crossing of a dangerous ecological threshold or will substantially hinder Canada's ability to meet its international or national environmental, climate change, or biodiversity obligations. These bottom lines should not be reduced to optional considerations, which is currently the case with the proposed legislation. Proposed section 63 ought to be amended accordingly.

The bill also does not recognize that in Canada, vulnerable populations such as low-income populations, indigenous communities, and socially marginalized groups are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards while also disproportionately lacking access to environmental benefits. In other words, environmental approvals often lack environmental justice.

Let me provide an example from some of our work. In “chemical valley”, located just outside Sarnia, Ontario, sirens can blare at any time of day to warn people to stay indoors when all-too-frequent pollution incidents occur.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a motion that I tabled March 29, which I think is ample notice, and I intend to move it now. Just to remind the clerks—because they're looking at me, and the analysts are too—it's the one dealing with the Trans Mountain pipeline, because I had a feeling back then that there might be a suspension of the work on the pipeline. The motion I gave notice for back on March 28 was the following:

That the Standing Committee on Finance undertake a study over a period of four meetings to review the tax revenue losses to the federal government, including but not limited to royalties, personal and corporate income taxes, and levies, as well as review the fiscal impacts, including loss of business and economic activity, resulting from the construction delays of the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline, that the Committee review the potential long-term federal benefits, including employment opportunities that the project would generate, and that the Committee would report back to the House and make a recommendation as to whether or not the Government of Canada declare the Trans Mountain expansion project to the national advantage of Canada and invoke Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution of Canada.

I won't read it in French because I know we have interpretation services, so I'm sure they're able to catch all of it—they're nodding to me over there. The reason I tabled the motion originally is that I was really worried that the pipeline would not be approved. It was approved in the sense that the company was given regulatory authority to deal with it and legal authority to go on with it, but it hasn't been given any political backing almost whatsoever. I'm going to draw the attention of the committee to the news release that Kinder Morgan put out on their own project. I think it has valuable information in it when it talks about the deadline they've set for themselves of May 31 and the potential paths forward that they kind of itemize and go through. In it they say:

The uncertainty as to whether we will be able to finish what we start leads us to the conclusion that we should protect the value that KML has, rather than risking billions of dollars on an outcome that is outside of our control.

To date, we have spent considerable resources bringing the Project to this point and recognize the vital economic importance of the Project to Canada. Therefore, in the coming weeks we will work with stakeholders on potential ways to continue advancing the Project consistent with the two principles previously stated.

This is a news release that they put out on the Canada Newswire on April 8, 2018. It goes into a lot of detail on what they see as the problems with the current regulatory and legal environment, because, let's face it, they're being harassed legally and through regulation by B.C.'s NDP government. That's their biggest problem. They're facing a situation where they have government approval to proceed with it, but they're being harassed through the courts and the regulatory process, and they feel that they cannot place the entire company at risk for the project.

I will mention that it was interesting to go Natural Resources' website to see what Natural Resources Canada's views are of the prospects of the energy sector. This is from Natural Resources Canada. It says here that “government revenues from energy were $12.9 billion in 2015”. What I've been saying in the parts of the country I've travelled to, including my own riding and Vaughan that I was in last week, is that we basically need, at this point, two and a half Trans Mountain pipelines to be approved and built in order to balance the budget in the future. That's where it ties it back into federal budgets. I think the revenue generated by the Trans Mountain pipeline is of immense value to the federal government because, on the Liberal side, they will be unable to meet the promises made in the 2015 election unless they see more of these projects built. This is where Trans Mountain becomes critical to actually reaching a balanced budget. In terms of those numbers, this motion speaks to figuring out what exactly, and how much value there will be to the federal coffers over the next five, 10, 15, and 20 years as the construction is completed and the pipeline comes online.

I know that the government has said—and there are no members of the government here, just government caucus members—that it's going to table legislation. I assume this will be done far before May 31, the deadline the company has set. So, they're going to table the legislation, and there's some type of financial or insurance consideration that is going to be given to Kinder Morgan.

Now that's of interest to me because I'd like to know what those considerations would be. I also think it's incumbent upon the finance committee to give advice to the government. I have only asked for four extra meetings to be assigned for this because I know that we have to get into the details of an important budget implementation bill that we have to review. You probably heard at question period that there will be a lot of questions to ask of the government about some of the estimates changes and the impact on the spending to be approved in the budget.

However, this is how important the TMX is. It is of vital importance to the federal government to ensure that this project is built, completed, and made operational and then to have more such projects happening in the future. We know there has been massive capital flight from Canada—$86 billion, the largest loss since at least 2010. These are immense numbers that hurt the attempts of the federal government to balance its own budget.

Not to be piffy, to say that the budget will be balanced and the pipeline will be built without then putting in a comma and completing the sentence by saying what you will do, how you will do it, and how you will get there.... That's the important stuff; that's what everybody wants to know. That's what the journalists are talking about.

Constituents are coming to me. I probably get now hundreds of phone calls, emails, and contacts a week through social media from people talking about the TMX pipeline, energy, and what is going on, because it involves their jobs. I come from the constituency of Calgary Shepard, in the deep southeast part of the city, where I have a lot of white-collar and blue-collar oil and gas workers.

This motion is important because we could be providing the government with vital financial information to influence the legislation it is going to be proposing before the House. Then we would be debating it, of course, but there is no way to tell which committee it will go to. I hope the government will consider, but it might not, whether it should invoke section 92.10(c) of the Constitution Act of Canada.

I did some research on this subject. I know there are constitutional law experts in Canada, so I'm not going to go through all 470-plus times that power has been used in Canada, but it has been used many times—including, I'm sure it will please the chair to know, for grain elevators. Grain elevators were in fact federalized by the federal government at one point, along with much of the work surrounding grain elevators—the bylaws, the construction, the roads, a lot of what's involved. That was news to me; I didn't know this. That would be an interesting aspect to look at.

There is also a Senate bill before the Senate, from independent, elected Alberta Senator Doug Black, that deals exactly with this matter.

I think the finance committee has a unique opportunity from the financial perspective to make a pitch to study the issue, look at the federal impact—the employment numbers, the corporate income taxes, the levies, the royalties that the federal government could be receiving—if this project is completed on time, and also if it's not, What would be the loss to Canada if this project does not go ahead; if Kinder Morgan says, because of the regulatory and court harassment it's facing from the B.C. NDP and the lack of support from the federal government, which is exactly what they've said has happened, that they will not be pursuing the project?

That's how this all ties into giving a yea or nay on the use of this part of the Constitution. If the government is going to invoke it, how should it invoke it and for what reasons should it invoke it? I think the reasons are financial. It's a benefit to members of the government caucus, I think. Here is free advice on my end that is also of benefit to the Liberal government—the ministers, the members of the executive. If they want to balance the budget, they have to see this project through, and this will be a mechanism through which to do it.

I'm only asking, as I said, for those four meetings. There are numbers available from CAPP and others on what it would look like if the project didn't go through.

One thing I want to mention is Claudia Cattaneo's view of this—she's an expert in this field—on April 5 with regard to Bill C-69. Aside from legislation, because it's not important to this motion, there is the regulatory version faced by Kinder Morgan and other projects, because it comes as a basket. The cancellation of the Kinder Morgan pipeline could precipitate others' cancelling their projects.

I think this is another avenue by which the committee through this motion could undertake a study, with four meetings, and make some recommendations to the government respecting a yea or a nay on the Constitution. Then we could have our piece on it before the government tables the legislation. They could have our view of it before that happens. I know the time is short, but it's the time that has been given to us by Kinder Morgan.

She said that “The message couldn't be clearer than in the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association's recent response to Bill C-69” that “investors have tuned out and moved to jurisdictions where governments aren't kneecapping their companies to meet commitments on climate change.” She says there's an opportunity cost involved. What is that opportunity cost? I think we could look at much of that question through this motion and then determine it.

Trans Mountain's project was announced May 23, 2012. We're almost in May 2018. It's almost six years now from the moment of announcement to the moment we're now facing, when the pipeline could be cancelled.

Some members know, of course, that I was born in Poland. We fought World War II from start to finish, I think in the same time span, and yet here in Canad we still don't have the Kinder Morgan project completed. It's startling to me that a nation-building project like this could not be done in the same timeline during which previous generations were able to fight a world war. It's stunning to me. I don't make the comparison lightly, but it's interesting to note how long it has taken the company to get to the point where they're now saying they can't proceed because there are too many regulatory and court-related burdens for them to continue.

I'm hoping that members on the opposite side will hear me out on this. I'm just going to shuffle through the examples that I want to give you. Off the top of my head, as I said, there were grain elevators; the Cape Breton Development Corporation was federalized; and the government divested Teleglobe as well.

This is a section of the Constitution that has not been used in almost 30 years. Perhaps the chair can correct me, because I know he has a long memory of things that have happened here in Parliament, but it's a section, nevertheless, that is available for use when the government wants to declare something to the national advantage.

I think it's worth our time to take four meetings to study the issue and provide recommendations to the government. That's purely on the fiscal side, to study the impact to the budget and future budget years. We could invite experts to appear before us both from Kinder Morgan, and National Resources Canada, if it has done the assessment already. We could also invite others, like Alex Pourbaix, who issued a statement basically saying that there are 200 environmental and legal conditions attached to the approval, and they've been trying to meet them over the past two years. I saw a stat put out by the British Columbia government that about 1,187 permits are required by the pipeline, although it could be 1,178, as I may be getting the last two numbers in the wrong order, and something like only 200 or 300 have been approved so far. It shows you how much more permitting there is imposed upon the company for a project that is approved by the federal government.

On behalf of my constituents, I'm interested to see this motion passed, for us to have this debate, and to hear from expert witnesses in the field who can inform us on what the financial repercussions would be of this project not proceeding. We're seeing headlines like, “As investors blast Canada's pipeline ‘gong show,’ Ottawa must take action”. That's Chris Varcoe from the Calgary Herald. In here, he has quotes from Steve Kean, the Kinder Morgan CEO, who is saying, “It's not a bluff” or a ploy but that they're seriously considering cancelling the project. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be impacted, because this is product: feedstock that is moving through the pipeline. Those jobs on the back end, in production and the white-collar jobs, a lot of which are in Calgary, will be impacted directly by this. It will hurt even more of their confidence. Whatever confidence was returning will be hurt by this.

I don't think four meetings is unreasonable to set aside for a study of this motion. If you could just give me one second, I want to—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I think you again flagged some things that I have addressed, whether it's Bill C-45, C-68, or C-69. This bill has significant implications for all those other three bills and that is something that I don't think we've perhaps looked at or addressed very well.

I do want to talk about Kinder Morgan because I think it's a pretty good example of some of the challenges that we have. I think a mining project is somewhat easy in terms of free, prior, and informed consent, identifying whose territory it's in and ensuring that the rights and titles are respected and acknowledged and the projects move forward.

You talked about concerns from your community, Mr. Richardson. I have chiefs who run down that pipeline and who are saying, “We took it to our community. They voted 85% for it. One-third of the pipeline is going through our territory.” We have communities along the whole pipeline route, and it's more than just the benefit agreements. They've taken it to their communities and 85% is not 100%, but it is significant.

What we have is rather like Canadians in general. We have a complexity of very strong feelings on this particular issue. How will government ever, if we have something like Bill C-262, align all those important considerations? Again, I look at the communities, the Shuswap people who are predominantly in one area.

It's difficult. It's complicated. I know we were grappling with it until midnight last night. It's important and I worry about where we're going to end up in terms of making sure we respect rights while still being able to move forward with things that are important for everyone who lives in this country.

Maybe we'll hear from Mr. Newman and then Mr. Richardson.