Environment Committee on May 13th, 2009

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

If you want to be involved with having input on how that resource is being developed, and the tools to do that are CEMA and RAMP, which is funded by the industry and is for NGOs, aboriginal communities, and government, and everybody is sitting at the same organization and providing input, and if you are not participating in a tangible way at those organizations, how can you be part of that organization in a positive way? In what way are you going to be participating in the system to make sure that the resource is being developed in a proper way?

When was the last time you looked at the RAMP web page?

[Simon Dyer]

There are different multi-stakeholder opportunities. There are environmental management opportunities through groups like CEMA and RAMP, which doesn't have a management function but has a monitoring function. I think it's fair to say--you might have heard it speaking to other stakeholders--there is a real sense of consultation fatigue.

Pembina Institute has four staff to work on oil sands issues. We have to be very choosey about where we invest that time. After choosing not to participate in RAMP, we invested substantial amounts of time in CEMA from 2002 to 2008. We participate in both negotiating directly with companies and appearing at regulatory hearings. We also invest time in trying to get information that's not really publicly available out into the public discourse through our oil sands research that you can see on our website.

We participated in good faith through the CEMA process, and I think that process failed. When we left that process we provided a list of recommendations on ways to improve environmental management that would bring us back to the table.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

My suggestion is that it is important that Pembina be part of that process. That's the mechanism for input and monitoring. When I first started studying the oil sands, one of my main sources was Pembina and how you've been critiquing it.

I'm looking back at a lot of your recommendations from 2005, and I don't think your position has changed since then. You said:

If oil sands development is not curtailed or aggressively managed, Canada will have to shoulder its responsibility in the global effort to reduce emissions by requiring the industry to implement technologies that cut the emission intensity of production, or to offset GHG emissions by investing in emission reductions elsewhere.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Warawa, could you please go quickly on this?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I will.

You also quoted the then environment minister, Stéphane Dion, saying:

There is no environment minister on earth who can stop the oil from coming out of the sand, because the money is too big.

Is that when your frustration level got to the point where you thought you were going to remove yourselves and withdraw from the mechanisms to oversee?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Please be brief, Mr. Dyer.

[Simon Dyer]

No. I think we can continue to work on solutions and dialogue with industry and government, but we're obviously choosey about where we invest our time.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We have time for two-minute questions from the members who haven't had a chance yet.

I have a very pointed question. You mentioned that 11 million litres of water are seeping from the tailings ponds per day.

[Simon Dyer]

That is a projection based on a review of the environmental impact assessment.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

So you don't have the data to really back that up with 100% accuracy. Can you get that data from the RAMP website? Other people today told us it was all on the website.

[Simon Dyer]

RAMP's focus is not on tailings and seepage.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is it on water levels mostly?

[Simon Dyer]

Yes, it's on that and river quality.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Robinson, you said you can get data but it's a multi-layered process. You have to go to the company first, and if they refuse then you need to go to the Alberta government. So you can get it but it just takes a while.

[Barry Robinson]

You can get data--not the raw data, but the annual groundwater reports and annual service water reports of the companies.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

So if we're not happy with RAMP we can just go to the companies individually, and maybe with a 60-day delay get it at some point.

[Barry Robinson]

You can get the final report but not the raw data.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. That's it for me.

Do any other members on the government side wish to ask a question?

Go ahead, Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you very much.

I've had a chance to read the submissions from each of your groups. You've made a lot of recommendations on how to construct the regulatory and fiscal frameworks to address both current and future development of the oil sands resources. You've given recommendations on methods of extraction or processing, and how to make improvements there.

I want to come back to the question Mr. Warawa posed that was answered by Mr. Dyer. Am I to draw from your submissions that you support the development of the oil sands resource in principle, and it's just a question of how we do it? I'd like the three groups that haven't commented to say whether we can draw that conclusion from your reports. Then I have a quick follow-up.

[Tony Maas]

I can be brief, because I can be clear that we don't have a firm position on that as an organization. As I said in my opening statement, at this point in time we feel that we don't have the sufficient information to actually form that position, and personally, I'm not as well versed as some on the technology and other aspects of the project.

[Barry Robinson]

Our position probably is pretty much parallel to Pembina Institute's position. On the areas flagged, it seems strange that now we are doing a land use plan, after so much oil sands development is already under way. It would seem that's the cart before the horse.

If I could respond to Mr. Warawa's comment--

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'd like to hear Mr. Chapman, though, if I could, on the question I asked.

[Ken Chapman]

The Canadian Boreal Initiative is supportive of the responsible, sustainable development of the oil sands, and conservation offsets are an opportunity to actually do real-time reclamation as a substitute while we're waiting for the other technologies to come forward. So there are other ways of addressing the problem as well.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I have a quick question, then, leaving off where you've started, and I'd like your comment on this.

I come from as far south as you can go in Canada. Middle Island, for example, is in my riding. This was my first chance to come half a continent to see the oil sands in its development. I admittedly have some mixed feelings about it. One of my concerns, briefly, is the change in topography with respect to the mining operation.

I'd like your comments on the idea of compensation lakes and wetlands, the relationship between groundwater impacts and surface water. There's obviously a permanent change to the topography. It's not going to look exactly as it was. There may be shifts in where the wetlands are located and things like that.

What are the effects in the relationship between groundwater and surface water? If you could comment on that for me, it would be great.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Can you comment on that quickly, Mr. Chapman?