Environment Committee on May 13th, 2009

[Ken Chapman]

I need 30 seconds, sir.

Protected areas options in Alberta's northeast have been identified by conservation organizations, first nations, and industry through the Cumulative Environmental Management Association, who are appearing here later. They have identified potential sites in the oil sands region that have ecological value and minimal conflict with petroleum resources.

Finally, we recommend that the committee support the initiation of a strategic environmental impact assessment of the full range of direct and cumulative effects from present and proposed oil sands and heavy oil projects in the Mackenzie River basin.

Other priorities for consideration--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Chapman, thank you. I know the members will want to ask you questions, and I'd like to leave enough time for that.

Mr. Trudeau, you have the first question.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you.

To follow up, I'm probably stealing a question from Mr. Warawa here, but I believe the RAMP testimony was that Pembina had pulled out last year from RAMP. You are saying it was six years ago. Where is the discrepancy there? Did you pull out in name and not in fact?

[Simon Dyer]

That's a great question.

The Pembina Institute stopped attending RAMP meetings and withdrew from the association six years ago.

It came to our attention last year, rather alarmingly, that our name was still listed on the website, at which point we contacted them and reminded them that we are not a member of RAMP and to please take our name off the website. Perhaps that is the reason for the 2008 thing, but we have not participated in that process.

We have serious concerns about the absence of federal government leadership, access to data, and the direction of monitoring. That's why we chose not to participate in that process.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

We're here on a trip to try to separate fact from fiction and to get a sense of what impact the oil sands development has on water. The one thing that seems to be coming up is an issue of discrepancy between the different groups' understanding, views, and even research into it, from the anecdotal evidence and traditional knowledge of the aboriginal peoples, who are saying one thing, to what the NGOs and various scientists are bringing forward as facts and concerns, to what industry itself is bringing forward as a demonstrable fact. So we're in a position of having a little difficulty figuring out what he said, she said, they said, we said, and who's right.

You mentioned a need for transparency and for a comprehensive cumulative overview that is properly monitored and pushed by the federal government. It surprises me that the data is still not transparent. Can you talk about the lack of availability of the science?

[Simon Dyer]

I think it's relatively straightforward. The data is not available for a number of reasons. Most of it is collected by industry. Some of it is collected by the Government of Alberta, and the Government of Alberta clearly doesn't have the capacity to manipulate that data and make it publicly available.

There's a real lack of transparency on things such as reclamation. Industry talks about the first reclamation, of Gateway Hill, last year. There have been repeated requests for information about the status of that reclamation process, and nothing is provided. I think it comes down to a real lack of resources from both the provincial and federal government to actually ensure that data is collected and made available to the public, the people who need the data.

The problem with RAMP, of course, is that there's data being collected there, but as you heard, you have to be a member of RAMP to get access to that data.

The federal government should be leading these processes. They shouldn't be warming a single chair as part of a multi-stakeholder committee; they should be leading these processes and making sure the data is available to Canadians.

I think the lack of information is a black eye for Canada. It certainly contributes to some of the concerns about oil sands development. If data were available, I think that would go some way to allay concerns, but there are real issues beyond.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I'd like to give everyone a chance to respond to the transparency issue.

[Tony Maas]

I fully agree with Simon. I would suggest that this is a persistent problem around water issues and not limited to the Athabasca or the oil sands, the ability to access data around fresh water. In part, it's because there are multiple jurisdictions involved in this. I agree wholeheartedly that this is a role, and I would say a fairly safe role, for the federal government to play.

We were, at one point, world leaders in integrated freshwater science in this country, as I'm sure you might have heard David Schindler say yesterday. I know I've heard him say it a number of times. In fact, we are falling off the table in that respect.

There is a significant opportunity here for us to build the research science and also rebuild the monitoring capacity that we once had in place. The oil sands seem to be a logical place to start on this, given that it seems to be ground zero around water issues.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Do you have a legal perspective, Barry?

[Barry Robinson]

I would just reiterate some of the difficulties of getting information. For example, there is a disclosure information regulation under Alberta's Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. If you want information that's been produced by the company, you must request it from the company first and wait 30 days. If they don't respond, then you can request the same information from the government.

In requesting groundwater reports, for example, we got a response from one company that actually sent us their data. With the other ones we had to wait 30 days and then ask Alberta Environment, so it ended up taking 60 days to get a report that we knew was sitting on Alberta Environment's desk.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Much has been made of the issue around flow and seasonal variability. Is phase one of the existing water management framework enforced and in play yet? Some of the studies we saw yesterday suggested that far from being 5% of the time in yellow and 5% of the time in red, they were under limited situations significantly more often that. Has that proven to be the case?

[Simon Dyer]

Certainly the amount of time the river is spending in the red and yellow zones is increasing through time, and as withdrawals increase you'd expect that to continue to push the river below the line. It really is important. The 5.2% of median flow that Tony talked about is the median weekly flow; the actual withdrawal could be any number, based on how low the flows close up. So there really is no protection for the river in those extremely low-flow periods.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Around most of these multi-stakeholder tables where the federal government has a seat, is it there mostly as an observer or an active participant, or is it overseeing the process? What has the government's level of intervention been?

[Tony Maas]

I can speak on a limited capacity to the phase two framework, but I don't sit at the table on behalf of our organization.

The federal government, through DFO, is actively involved in developing the science, helping with the science, and participating in the decision-making process. The current process under way is a complex process of trade-offs, and a lot of science is being imbedded in that. However, at the end of the day what comes out of that process is a recommendation to provincial and federal regulators. At that point--assuming from our perspective that the recommendation is beneficial in ecosystem protection--it still lies with legislators to make sure it is enforced, resourced, and implemented as an effective plan.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We have to move on to Monsieur Ouellet now.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Maas, you mentioned in your presentation that the river levels were falling because of climate change. That's something we've been told since we've been here. Climate change is having a direct impact on water quality and river levels.

The decision whether to regulate greenhouse gases is really a federal jurisdiction. What specific measures could we take to limit climate change in this region?

[Tony Maas]

Thank you for your question.

I am not a climate change expert with the WWF. My portfolio, as it were, is freshwater. I recall from the earlier sessions that you brought up an interesting point, however, that the emission of greenhouse gases from the oil sands industry, as well as the downstream use of that product—and let's be clear, it starts at the extraction side of things—is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, when you take it along the life cycle. So it is in fact a driver of the change that we're seeing in the river.

What I can maybe speak to more clearly is whether there is some discrepancy around how to look at what's happening in the river, and to look at past trends in river flow and what they mean for the future. We saw this morning that there are some very differing opinions on how to do that. If we look at a longer-term record, we may not see the same trend.

The approach that we take, and which our scientific experts inform us is the best approach, is to look at the period from 1970 onward. That's because it's the point in time when the IPCC determined that the forcing of global climate change became a human-induced impact. It suggests there was a significant change in what was normal at that point, and that's the trend we should be looking at. In fact there's a report put forward by a bunch of global experts on climate impacts on stream flow, and they use the term “stationarity”. In the past, we've assumed stationarity, meaning we assumed that the future would be like the past. Their overarching conclusion from their paper is that in fact stationarity is dead, that this underlying or fundamental premise of freshwater management planning is no longer valid as we move forward with climate change.

I know that doesn't quite answer your question about addressing the greenhouse gas emissions, but....

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

That's interesting. Thank you very much.

My question is for whoever can answer it.

We've talked about water pollution, but there's one subject we haven't addressed at all: vandalism on oil and crude pipelines. These acts, which some have characterized as terrorism, caused the explosion of some pipelines last year. In those cases, there is definitely pollution.

Would you have any information to provide us on that subject?

[Tony Maas]

I can start there, though I can't provide you with specific information on what occurred from pipeline leakage or fracture or issues in that respect. But again, it raises an interesting and important point that I intended to include in my brief, but I didn't want to give you guys a tome.

We use a concept called water footprint or virtual water in a lot of our work. Monsieur Ouellet, you alluded to it this morning when you talked about the water that's embedded in a barrel of oil. In fact, when you follow oil sands bitumen along its supply chain, you realize that in fact we're having impacts not only on the Athabasca River, but on others as well. As the bitumen moves to the North Saskatchewan River basin and Edmonton and Upgrader Alley, we're having impacts on the water use in that river basin. And then when we pipe that, as we're planning to, or are already doing, to the Great Lakes basin, we displace that issue to an area that I'm sure is as close to your heart as it is to mine.

So we're in fact having impacts along a number of watersheds, and the virtual water concept helps us to understand that. But it's an important point to recognize that when we start to extract this resource, by the time it gets to its end use—in fact, even before it gets to its end use, because we're still talking only about the products that come out of the refiners—we're in fact impacting a number of watersheds and a number of areas of important freshwater habitat and resources across the country.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you very much.

Do I have a little time left? All right, thank you.

Mr. Chapman, I get the impression you're painting a very broad, very nice and very accurate picture, but perhaps you lacked precision. Is that due to the fact that you're afraid to talk about industries? I would like to ask you to talk about them specifically because that's where these oil sands come from.

Based on your experience, could you tell us what recommendations could be submitted to the federal government as part of this committee's study to change matters?

[Ken Chapman]

It's not so much that we have any difficulty talking about specific companies, but the major role, in terms of the boreal, for the federal government is to deal with inter-jurisdictional conflicts and to help resolve those; to help with aboriginal communities and health issues there, sustainability issues there, in large portion; and in habitat: migratory issues, fish and wildlife, and biodiversity. I think there's a fundamental role there to play.

There are competing interests on the land. It's interesting that the Alberta land use framework organized itself around watersheds. I think that showed great insight, and I think it's something that should be seen as positive by this committee, as a way to participate in these activities, but it's a very large problem. The impact of oil sands on the water issues goes all the way to the Arctic, and it happens all the way into urban areas, as you've just heard; it goes into Canada and all the way into the United States.

So it's a very large issue. I think that rather than be specific, I'd rather see you take a philosophical approach and find how you can help deal with those inter-jurisdictional issues and the natural biodiversity issues, and primarily, a place to start is on aboriginal issues.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.

We'll now go to Ms. Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Dr. Dyer. The Pembina Institute, including yourself, has been involved in the review of oil sands projects for well over two decades. Is that correct?

[Simon Dyer]

That is correct, but I got thrown out of school before I completed my PhD.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'll still call you Dr. Dyer. You look very learned.