Evidence of meeting #56 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was well.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Engineer, Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas
I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the regulations in B.C.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. That's understandable.
Have we ever done CBM in a wild salmon watershed before? Has coal-bed methane ever existed within a watershed that also has wild salmon in it?
Vice-President, Western Canada Operations, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
I would say not that I'm aware of.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Last question. When a company comes forward with the process to get a licence for CBM, does it have to submit long-term plans for the project? Do the assessment people have any sense of how long the project will last and its total scope on the company's initial application?
Vice-President, Western Canada Operations, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
I'll let you answer in a minute, but I guess when a company first is trying to decide the merits of the project, they will probably want to drill one or two wells to understand the nature of the resource there. So in some respects it's a bit evolutionary. There are challenges to being able to say how big this project is going to be from the outset. Notwithstanding that, we've seen the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board in the last little while, and indeed the Government of Alberta, require a more comprehensive planning process on the part of not only one company but groups of companies that might be operating in the area. So—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
So just to understand that, because of the nature of this particular extraction, when a company comes forward with an application and the community has been made aware of it, by its nature, we don't actually know the full scope. It may be 100 wells; it may be 1,000 wells or more.
Is there any requirement, as it is built into legislation or law right now, that the company has to disclose its total impact or the total plans for wells?
Vice-President, Western Canada Operations, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
I guess the point I would make is the company doesn't know that at the outset. As it learns that, then it does get into that kind of consultative process.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right. But in order to receive—just to be clear—permission from the government to go ahead with the project, the company can say that because of the nature of the project, it doesn't know how many wells. Once the government says yes to going ahead with the project, is there then any restriction on the numbers of wells that can go ahead, or is it now up to the company's discretion?
Engineer, Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas
No, absolutely. In the approval, the number of wells is restricted, and if we want to have additional wells, we actually have to apply again in order to add additional wells.
NDP
Director, Pine Lake Surface Rights Action Group
Yes, initially, if a company was going in to do one well as a pilot, they would apply for one well. If the thing proved out, they would apply for another well and another well and another well, and more compressors and transfer sites and whatever. The thing builds. There is no—
NDP
Director, Pine Lake Surface Rights Action Group
There is no plan. It's one well at a time. They're evaluated one well at a time, but there's no stopping this.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
I'd like to thank our witnesses for appearing today. We will ask Tim to do a summary of this, and we'll discuss that on Thursday, if we have a moment.
Thank you very much. Thanks to our witnesses, Mr. Pryce and company, and thank you to Mr. Schwartz and Ms. Ernst.
We'll excuse you now and go on to the motions.
If I could just remind...yes?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Could we have a two-minute break so that we can see the pictures?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
They have to be translated, Mr. Warawa, because there is some written material on them.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Before we go on to a new item, maybe we can have a quick break.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Yes, I think we should just move on.
If we could go on, I'd just like to remind members that there are two motions here. The first motion does impact on the second motion, and I would also like to make sure that everybody remembers that we did have a future business meeting, and at that future business meeting, we did decide to deal with three one-off subjects, of which we've done one today.
We have witnesses already, airline tickets, etc., for the 15th and for the 17th, and of course then we have a break week. So if we're going to change that, which these motions would, that poses some problems for us. Anyway, if we could carry on, we'll begin with Mr. Cullen's motion.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just as our guests are leaving, the notion that I have.... This is one of those unfortunate moments when I wish we had a subcommittee. My instinct on this is to say that while we have some interest in looking at Bill C-377 expeditiously, we are also supportive, in concept at least, of Mr. McGuinty's motion to do some assessment of what the government's plans have shown.
What we're interested in doing is, in a sense, suggesting a calendar that will work for all committee members. We know that we have some commitments to witnesses coming forward; some might be more flexible than others. The ideal for us is to set out a calendar that will take us to at least the first week of June, because I think it gets very sketchy after that.
As I said, we're supportive of the concept of this motion that Mr. McGuinty has brought forward and are prepared to adjust our own. This is the problem with making these calendar decisions as a group of 12. It's not very quick.
I'm going to suggest that a responsible person from each of the parties come forward and sit with you with a proposed calendar later today or after caucus tomorrow to work out something that gets both of these things accomplished and gets the minister here as well.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Cullen, I did point out to you that we did have a rough one here, which I'll just go through quickly. It's not written in stone, obviously. I'm quite happy to meet with one member from each party.
Basically, of course, we have put off Bill C-298. It is hoped that we could deal with that on Thursday and thus get that private member's bill dealt with.
As I mentioned, on May 15 we have CO2 sequestration, and on May 17 we have my favourite subject, garbage gasification.
I would then propose that our next meeting date would be Tuesday, May 29. Hopefully, we could get the minister, which would accomplish what Mr. McGuinty—