Environment Committee on March 5th, 2009

[Steve Burgess]

Certainly.

Ordinarily, as we mentioned previously, the oil sands is a provincially regulated resource, and the primary regulator there is the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, which conducts assessments of oil sands projects from a regulatory perspective, whether they be mines or otherwise.

The federal process is triggered when there's a federal decision to be made with respect to the project--typically, regulatory triggers for oil sands projects. So whenever our process is triggered at the federal level and the provincial process is triggered, then we conduct a joint review. I would say, in the case of the oil sands, virtually all of the projects that are assessed federally are also assessed provincially, and therefore we routinely conduct joint reviews for those projects. Those include, for example, Muskeg River Mine back in 2000, the Jackpine oil sands project in 2004, the Kearl project, which we talked about previously, Muskeg River Mine expansion, and a range of others.

Certainly if you're interested we could provide you a list of projects, but there are many of them. There are probably, I would say, in the order of at least 25 or so projects going back to 1999.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. We are out of time, Mr. Braid.

Typically the next question would come to me, but I will be giving my time to Mr. Trudeau, who I believe wants to split with Mr. McGuinty.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I have a quick question on DFO.

Fisheries and Oceans has a mandate to prevent killing of fish outside of fishing...and it can't harm, destroy, or alter a habitat. Any time a project proposes to do either one, it automatically triggers an environmental assessment. When the environmental assessment comes back and says it's going to do this, at what point is DFO able to enforce and prevent projects from happening? At what point does the minister have to step in and waive DFO's right to block projects like that? And has it happened?

[Ian Matheson]

I think what your question gets at is this: when are the cases in which there's a significant environmental impact? That's the term we use to distinguish between what we can live with and what we can't.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Who decides what you can live with?

[Ian Matheson]

It's a scientific analysis, looking at the impact of the project. As I mentioned, in the last four projects that we've looked at, we decided, on the basis of cumulative effects, that the environmental impact could be significant. It's a question of the likelihood of there being a significant environmental impact, and that triggers a process that is in the environmental assessment--a panel process, typically, but it's not always. It's a complex piece of legislation.

Let's take the case of a panel. It's that process that allows a panel to look at it independently and to provide recommendations to the federal government. DFO, as the decision-maker, provides our advice to cabinet. It's a cabinet decision that is taken as to whether to accept the panel recommendations or not. And really that's the mechanism for weighing economic, environmental, and social needs.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

That's fine. Thank you.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Can I follow up? I want to go back, if I could, to CEMA. I know you don't work with CEMA.

CEMA is an NGO with 44 members. It was set up in 2000 precisely to deal with the complexity of the challenges inherent in pursuing further development in the oil sands. I understand there have been well over 100 reports issued, and eight management frameworks have been developed for each of your respective agencies or departments to work within.

On October 23, 2008, CEMA wrote to the Alberta government asking for major clarification of whether CEMA actually was in charge. The Alberta government had been bringing in its own land use management plans. It had been bringing in all kinds of new approaches to the region, which were running afoul of, so to speak, or in contrary directions from what CEMA was actually putting forward.

I thought that when CEMA was created in 2000, it was created precisely to address the question, who's in charge here? I thought CEMA was the place where people basically surrendered a certain amount of their sovereignty as agencies, departments, and orders of government to say, if we're going to do this, we have to do this together; we have to do it from a watershed management perspective; we have to do it from an ecosystem management perspective. I'd just like to get some sense, some insight, into whether CEMA is in charge of this development process, or is this a number of federal agencies and departments, provincial agencies and departments, and territorial agencies and departments, who are simply not working together and are working at cross-purposes with each other? I thought we were vesting in CEMA, through a sophisticated 21st century multi-stakeholder process, the jurisdiction to tell us what is working and what's not working.

Can anyone answer that or give me some insight?

[Ian Matheson]

I'll take a stab at it.

CEMA is, as you said, a multi-stakeholder organization set up to advise, as I've been told, the Alberta government in its decision-making process. It's a discussion forum to see whether they can reach consensus on how to manage the issues related to the oil sands. In cases where consensus cannot be reached, and I'll give the example of the water management framework, it was the two decision-making authorities--the provincial government and the federal government--that actually decided what the water management framework should be.

On the basis of that example, I don't think we could say that any authority has been devolved to CEMA. The governments still retain the decision-making authority and are exercising that authority where CEMA cannot help.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So it's about taking it all under advisement, then.

[Ian Matheson]

CEMA is an advisory body.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have to go now to Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much. I'm interested in matters similar to what Mr. McGuinty was asking about.

As I understand it, CEMA was set up as a kind of advisory group on watershed management, and I understood that it was to consider all aspects of watershed management. Now, I may be wrong about that, so if I say anything that's not correct, let me know, but I understand that includes both water quantity and water quality, and that one working group of CEMA came up with the water management framework, which in phase one, at least, deals with water quantity only. But there's a phase two, and I thought at some point somebody said that phase two might also address water quality.

So I would like to have a thorough understanding of both the process and the content of the water management framework. I would like to believe that the process was open and consultative and brought in all the stakeholders, and that the content will ultimately address both water quality and quantity. I'd like you to describe that to me, please.

[Ian Matheson]

To begin with, the watershed issues related to oil sands are one element of what CEMA looks at. It's the one that I talked about, because that's my world. On the water management framework, that discussion began in one of the working groups of CEMA, but it was concluded by the provincial and federal governments working together.

The considerations as to what to look at in a water management framework include hydrology, biology, geomorphology, water quality, and connectivity.

To answer an earlier question of whether water quality was considered in developing phase one of the water management framework, I see now it was considered, but what they decided to do was focus on more of the hydrology aspects--that is, the volume and flow rate--as being the most significant areas of concern at this point.

In future, for phase two of the water management framework, other elements will be taken into consideration, and I can see now from what has been put in front of me that water quality will receive greater attention in that part of the framework.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

To follow up on that, I understand that phase one is in effect until the end of 2001 and then there will be a phase two recommendation. I'm assuming that the phase two is therefore in preparation as we speak. But that may or may not be a correct assumption, so I'd like to know a little bit about where we are at with phase two and whether it will address some of the concerns around water quality issues relating to the oil sands.

[Ian Matheson]

To be clear, it's in effect until 2010.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Sorry, that's what I meant to say. I lost track of what year it is.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Ian Matheson]

There are discussions beginning on how we want to get started on phase two, but I'd say they're preliminary at this stage. Our understanding is that we should be looking at water quality in that second phase, but again it's still early days.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I have no sense, when we say “we”.... We have a committee here of 10 or 11 people and we get to have five-minute conversations with people. I'm assuming that the development of phase two will involve a raft of experts and scientists who will be able to have more than five-minute conversations with each other. Can you give me some sense of how many people are involved in the preparation of phase two?

[Ian Matheson]

Again, we'll look to CEMA, an organization with currently 44 members, to debate and work through these questions with their task groups. Part of what we've committed to with the province—I'm saying DFO and the federal government—on the issue of water management framework is that if CEMA cannot reach consensus on what it should look like, then we will be the backstop to that process. We want this to succeed, and if a decision has to be made, then the two governments will make that decision.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

All right. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Woodworth.

We now proceed to Mr. Jean, followed by Mr. Watson.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses and Mr. Warawa for inviting me today.

This is not my normal committee, but I do represent the area of eastern Alberta, Fort McMurray in particular, and 30% of Alberta and most of the oil sands. I have some opportunity to know about some of it. I've lived there since before the first oil sands plant started producing in 1967.

My question, first of all, is on the 4:1 ratio that you talked about in water to oil. Are you including recycled in that or is that fresh water?

[Dr. Kim Kasperski]

That refers to the surface mining water used, and that is all fresh water.