Environment Committee on June 18th, 2015

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

The positives include attracting employees, and I suppose also getting some credit with customers and distributors. But it seems to me, from what you've said, that the greatest factor is in cultivating good relationships with the communities you're working in and the people in those communities. Would you agree with that?

[Louise Grondin]

I think so. In mining we're in small communities. Our employees live there, so we have excellent ambassadors. We're also getting input from them about the things we should improve.

I really think we're part of the community. We need to respect that they have concerns, and to have an open door policy. We need to respond, as well. If we agree or disagree with what they say, we need to respond. Communication and transparency are very important to us to maintain this relationship.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Strom, I wanted to ask you about something that came up in your evidence. You mentioned Indspire and a recent Government of Canada matching grant of $10 million. The only Indspire that I'm aware of is Indspire Canada, which is a corporate philanthropy organization. I don't know if we're talking about the same thing or not.

Did I hear you correctly, first of all, with regard to Indspire? And on the $10-million matching grant from the Government of Canada, what's that about?

[Arlene Strom]

Indspire is an organization whose chair is Roberta Jamieson. It focuses on education for aboriginal youth, providing scholarships and opportunities for aboriginal youth who might not otherwise have them. It's an organization we've partnered with for many years. They do amazing work with aboriginal youth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Does it have any particular environmental component, or is simply for educational purposes for aboriginal people?

[Arlene Strom]

It's focused primarily on education for aboriginal youth, yes, exactly.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We have two positions available for this particular round.

Okay: we'll go to Mr. McKay first, and unless we have a call for the Conservative opening, we'll bring the meeting to a close.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You certainly wouldn't want to end the meeting on questions from me; I'm sure my colleagues will be running around trying to figure out how to repair whatever questions I ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

No one else has indicated, at this point.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Well, I can see that Mr. Carrie is getting anxious.

I want to pick up on Mr. Woodworth's Corporate Knights reference. Usually Corporate Knights does a calculation based on information in the public realm in terms of stock price, market capitalization, moneys allocated to corporate social responsibility, moneys allocated to environmental initiatives, and anecdotes and interviews as well. I'm just trying to frame it, because I think Suncor as well is in the top number companies for corporate social responsibility, according to Corporate Knights.

To Ms. Grondin in particular, can you frame this in terms of your gross revenues in Baker Lake? How much is allocated to the corporate social responsibility budget and how much is allocated to the environment budget?

[Louise Grondin]

That's a very good question. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but you have to realize that in Nunavut we are operating on Inuit-owned land; it is their land. We have an impact benefit agreement, which comprises wildlife monitoring and education. The corporate social responsibility is part of what we have to manage there, and it's integrated.

Nunavut is very special because the environment is extremely valued. First of all, they need the caribou still to be able to eat to this day, because food is so expensive at the grocery store.

It's hard for me to say which one is which. We have an extensive wildlife-monitoring program out there with the hunters and trappers—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I don't wish to interrupt you, but the time is draining.

Given that I suspect that the information is readily available, could you convey to the committee the gross revenues that you receive on an annual basis and then disaggregate from those gross revenues the corporate social responsibility and environmental component, whether it's through the impact agreement or not, so we could have some sort of a feel for that?

I have a similar question for Suncor. I want to follow up on my question about how this $15 a tonne gets used. First, how much of it is from Suncor's bottom line, and how does it get used both to the benefit of the environment but also to how you do your work better? Second, do you know how much your CSR/environment budget is?

[Arlene Strom]

In 2014, we spent about $28 million on what I would call a “community investment budget”, both from our Suncor energy foundation and community. However, that would be a low estimate because we also spend on social programs in communities. We also spend on the industry collaborative work in Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance on environmental projects, and on socio-economic projects in the Oil Sands Community Alliance. So it's a low number, and it doesn't include our research budget either, which is $175 million, as I mentioned.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I appreciate that in some respects it may be difficult to disaggregate the numbers at a committee hearing like this. Again, if you could undertake to forward that information to the committee because, frankly, it's nice to talk about values and the original views and visions of the company, but usually you can find out where a company's values are by looking at its balance sheet. So I'd be interested not only in the number but also the percentage stated in terms of annual revenues.

[Arlene Strom]

Okay, thank you. We'll provide that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Again, I want to thank our witnesses for being with us this morning, especially our witness from Calgary who is a few hours earlier than we are here. I appreciate your getting up early to participate in this testimony.

With that, unless there are further comments, we will allow our witnesses to leave. Thank you very much for your time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Chair, on the remote possibility that this might be our last meeting, I'd like to wish colleagues all the best. I think it would also be appropriate that you, on behalf of the committee, thank our very able clerks and analysts for their work over the past months and years in putting up with us, and me in particular.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

I do want to extend my thanks to our analysts and our clerk, as well as to our other support personnel, especially with the volume of videos that we've requested. It's always been very well done. Thank you. And to those who keep our water glasses full and our notes passed around, thank you to all of you.

Yes, we wish you a great summer. I was going to say that I hope to see you all back in the fall, but I'll see you again.

The meeting is adjourned.