Environment Committee on March 29th, 2018

[Pierre Gratton]

Yes. I could stop there.

You'd be hard-pressed to find an improved mining project over the last 10 years that didn't come with agreements with local indigenous communities. You're right. For our projects today to be successful for a multiplicity of reasons, not just social licence issues and so on, we want to ensure that the indigenous people near our project have full access to the job opportunities and procurement opportunities that our projects will provide. That can't happen automatically. Often, there are education and training needs. Often, there may be needs for support to help them develop new businesses, so that they can actually take advantage of the opportunities we provide.

I would say that our industry has been doing remarkable work over the last 20 years, and I think we keep getting better at it, ensuring that those benefits do occur. I agree with you; if we did nothing, they wouldn't.

I would also make the point, too, that it's not just our job. In terms of education and training, we do provide a lot of support in that area, through impact benefit agreements, but we also often look to provincial and federal governments to supplement that, because that also is government's role.

[Liam Mooney]

I want to add that the comment earlier was that the focus seems to be unnecessarily on the adverse effects. Similar to what the CEA had to say in that regard, what we're advocating is that the focus isn't only on the adverse effects but also on the positive socio-economic benefits of the projects in question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Chair, I certainly support Mr. Mooney's last comment. There has to be a balance. We have to look at the benefits on the environmental side as well as on the economic side.

Mr. Gratton, in your testimony, you briefly touched on what the industry is doing to address its carbon footprint. I'd like to dig a little deeper into that.

Your industry has taken huge steps forward in making itself cleaner and more efficient. There are a number of different tools that government uses to incent Canadians and Canadian industries to move towards a more sustainable future. They can use technology, carbon taxes, infrastructure investments, regulations, and caps on emissions.

I would love to hear from you a very brief description of where the industry is going in response to some of these environmental challenges, and more specifically, how it's addressing greenhouse gas emissions. Of the tools that government has available, which one has been the most effective in helping your industry reform itself into one that is responsive to the public's environmental concerns?

[Pierre Gratton]

That's a complex question.

If you look at our industry trajectory, we're increasingly investing in northern Canada, which is often off-grid. This makes it more expensive, because we also often have to build the infrastructure necessary to support those investments. It also often means we're having to rely on diesel generation, which is a greenhouse gas fuel. Being able to tap into the grid would change our carbon footprint significantly.

Looking forward, in terms of the future of the mining industry in this country, probably the single most important thing that could be done is to invest in new electric-generating infrastructure in Canada's north. It's not just something that would benefit our sector. Indigenous communities across the north themselves are diesel-dependent, and it's not the most reliable form of electricity. There are environmental issues associated with it, and it can break down. I'm sure that every member of this committee is aware of these issues.

Investing in infrastructure, particularly in Canada's north, would make the most significant contribution to our ability to continue generating a contribution to Canada and to our northern indigenous communities, and would also at the same time make a real contribution to reducing Canada's greenhouse gases.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I cede my time to Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Gratton, regarding the investment that Canada is not getting because of our “toxic regulatory environment”, can you estimate how much is not coming to Canada because of this environment, among other things?

I'll preface that by saying there's an article here entitled “Pipeline shortage to cost the economy $15.6 billion this year”. The oil industry has done the math, and I'm wondering if the mining industry has done similar math.

[Pierre Gratton]

We have seen investment projections. Now, you have to put this in a certain amount of context. We are coming out of a down cycle, so some of it is explained by that and certain plans were shelved, but we are looking at about a 60% reduction in proposed projects and we have seen exploration expenditures halved over the last six years. In saying that, I know that there's a tendency for this chamber to point fingers, but it started six years ago and it just hasn't stopped.

My plea to all of you, my concern, is the politicization of natural resources in this country. Something that Canada is known around the world for being the best in is harming our future. I would implore all of you to think about where this is taking us as a country and the kind of risk that we're putting Canada in by politicizing our natural resource industries. We are really good at this. We have improved considerably. Just last week, Environment Canada released a report on air quality that shows how much better our air is and it was in large part because of how our industry and the chemicals industry has improved their emissions controls. That's the direction. We need to stand up for these sectors a bit more in this country.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I defy anybody to find an instance where the Conservative Party said negative things about Canada's natural resource industries. I'll leave the other parties to make their own statements there.

If I have a bit of time—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have 10 seconds.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'm good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

The last questioner is Mr. Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, member Sopuck, for that breathless partisanship. I'm flabbergasted by the politicized contributions. If Canada has a toxic regulatory environment, we're emerging from 10 years of Conservative governance. You speak to polluter pays. Clearly, the polluter pays principle applies in a political context as well and thank goodness that we have a new government.

Thank you to all of you. This has actually been really helpful. However, I'd like to invite our witness from the Mining Association, Mr. Gratton, to speak to the mining sector's experience of a loss of public trust. How has the past decade or so changed, in terms of the public trust component of average Canadians, many of whom don't really experience the mining sector. They don't understand it and they don't know it.

How has their trust in regulatory institutions been affected?

[Pierre Gratton]

The mining sector invented the term “social licence” and a lot of people are angry at us for that, but we recognized, some 20 years ago, that our future required us to make sure that we had community support. As a result, we put in place a program called “Towards Sustainable Mining” that is now being exported and adopted by other countries around the world. It has, as its fundamental goal, making sure that the industry works closely with communities and engages them openly and transparently. As a result of that, I think that the polarization around mining projects in Canada has largely diminished.

If you look at project reviews around mining projects over of the past 15 years, you could count on one hand the number that have been controversial or that have generated public opposition. I would add that those examples were rejected, which would speak to, at least at one level—though I may not have agreed with those decisions—an example of how the regulatory system for mining actually works.

As a sector, I think that how we feel, in part, is that the politicization of natural resources, particularly the spillover effects of the controversies around pipelines, has had an affect on the rest of us. I think that if people are asking questions about Canada's investment, a place to invest, they're not looking at the fact that most mining projects have gone through the process and come out the other side and been approved and come with indigenous agreements etc. They just see a cloud hanging over Canada.

That's why I'm urging all of you to think about the harm that this is doing to this country and that we need to depoliticize—all of you—how we are dealing with our natural resource sectors because it's harming everyone.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you. That's helpful, and in that vein of depoliticizing, I will go strictly to substance on an interesting issue raised by the electricity association around a privative clause. As far as I'm aware, your association is the only one to have advanced this proposal formally, and as someone who has operated in the legal field for some time on natural resources and environmental issues, I'm curious about it.

I'm curious about the suggestion both from the industry side and from the public interest community side, because it would seem to me that the opening of a privative clause that would restrict the involvement of the judiciary in an oversight role over the executive decision-making pursuant to an impact assessment process would potentially not only limit a given community or special interest group's ability to bring into question the quality of the decision or the actual following of particular steps that are legally required, but, on the other hand, could also impact industry to the extent that if a company or an industry association that felt like a particular project didn't get a fair shake, potentially because it was heavily politicized, such a process would then not be as effectively challengeable—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have one minute, Will.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I would invite you to comment on that, because I'm not certain that I would agree with the privative clause idea.

[Terry Toner]

We would have introduced the notion not as an exclusive item. I'm not a lawyer, but I think we would say that a lot of controversial issues are being raised. This is going to create a much more open process where a lot of that is going to get discussed. At some point, elected officials, the minister or the Governor in Council, at the end of that process, is going to make a determination. All we're saying is that process is going to be fulsome and lengthy, and when we get to the end of it, there should be very rare occasions where that needs to be questioned.

From an industry point of view, we don't often take that kind of decision to court. We have the ability to decide that we're not going to build the project, so it's a notion as opposed to an absolute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I am going to end it there.

I want to thank our guests very much for a good discussion with lots of good information for us to consider. I saw fingers go up when you wanted to chime in on one of the questions, but you didn't have the opportunity, because our time is limited. We welcome any further comments and suggestions you have. If you have answers to those questions you didn't get to tell us, and you want to, please send them. We are open to receiving that until April 6, so please send us whatever you have and we will be able to consider that in time to start bringing forward recommended changes.

Thanks again.

[Proceedings continue in camera]