Evidence of meeting #4 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, National Energy Board
It's the appropriations process. When I talk about the overall budget, $91 million, that's the authority we have to cost-recover.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
If you're given an expanded authority to recover your actual costs, that also provides you with an opportunity to hire the resources required to ensure that we don't have, say, 50% of the conditions not being followed up on. It allows you to do the work to make sure that the deficiencies that are identified are followed up on, and you're able to implement the kind of data management and information management processes that are required to keep the NEB current and accountable and responsible.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, National Energy Board
Madam Chair, I'm not clear on what the question is.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
The question is simply this. If you're given an expanded authority to cost-recover 100% of what it takes to do the work of the NEB in monitoring projects that have already been approved, and also the process of actually going through the approval process, you would have the resources available to do the job that you're expected to do on monitoring—
12:50 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, National Energy Board
May I undertake to provide a written answer? There are nuances here.
Is that agreeable?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Yes. We'll make sure to get it out to all of you.
I want to thank all of you for presenting today and giving us this chance to ask questions. Obviously it's really good news to hear—
12:50 p.m.
A voice
[Inaudible--Editor]
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
No. We have to suspend. We are out of time now. We had a certain amount of time, so the questions had to be cut off. We had three, two, one.
Thank you very much. I think it's important to hear that good progress is being made on the findings of the commissioner. Obviously we'll be looking to potentially have you back, in time, to see how we're doing.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, National Energy Board
We would welcome that opportunity.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much.
Committee, we have only a few minutes to finish our work. We are dealing with committee business.
We agreed back on February 16 that Mr. Cullen's motion would be brought forward today. I want to give Mr. Cullen that chance to put his motion, or whatever he'd like to do with his motion.
Go for it.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee members engaged in this. This is certainly somewhat relevant to the conversation we were just having about a repository of some large amounts of contaminated material near Kincardine.
There's been some updating on this, as you know, Madam Chair.
The government has sought more information and has suspended the decision. We've heard from a number of the people who first approached us on this—on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border—that they have a story to tell. There's a certain lack of enthusiasm even for the suspension, because they feel like it's just going to be going over the same things.
I think it would behoove the committee to spend some time listening to what they have to say. These are people who are experts on the containment of contaminated materials, as well as some of the local representatives, the mayors and such. I know that Mark might be worried about just a mayors' committee. We wouldn't do that.
I think this would certainly not be a waste of the committee's time and in fact would respond to something that's quite important, because if and once this gets approved, it's forever. You don't bury this stuff for the mandate of a government. You bury it for hundreds of thousands of years, which is obviously why there's concern from the citizens in these communities. Again, to assuage anyone's fears—if they exist—the folks we've been hearing from have been from right across the so-called political spectrum. It would be a good representation of folks who are impacted by this.
I move the motion. Certainly, we can amend it. We didn't have time, Chair, in our process, to amend it based on the government's extension.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Sure, and that's what initially brought this urgency to us. There was this pending March date.
But I would certainly like committee members.... I know that Mr. Fast and some others wanted to go away and do some research on this. That date is not fixed for us, obviously, because now the decision isn't pending, but certainly we'd like committee support for the ability to look into this.
The very last thing, Chair, is that this is not an investigation into the long-term process that is being used by the nuclear waste commission. It is the intermediate process they use that has raised some pretty serious concerns.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We're open for debate. Who wants to debate? Does anyone want to talk?
I'll call the question, if nobody wants to talk. Do you want me to call the question or do you want to debate?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Well, I don't want to debate, but I feel the need to debate.
12:55 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
My understanding—and I was just clarifying it with the parliamentary secretary—is that the minister is currently asking for more information, with also potential alternate sites that could be considered. I don't know why we would go down the road of calling people before us to discuss just one particular site. It seems as though there's a process in place to allow due course to take place and for the proper measures to be presented so that a proper decision can be made.
Personally, I'm inclined to not support the motion, because I have difficulty with the fact that we seem to be doing work that the minister's office is already doing. Also, we're talking about one particular site when the minister has specifically asked for alternate sites as possibilities too.
That's my own feeling on it, but I'm looking forward to hearing what other people have to say.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Madam Chair, I believe the benefit of a public hearing such as would be presented by calling witnesses to this committee is that it affirms the credibility of the process, and the voices that want to be heard will be heard.
As you know, there was a formal process that made a number of conclusions. The previous minister deferred consideration of it because of a number of concerns that were raised. The current minister has also deferred consideration, which I believe is a good step. But the bottom line, now that it has gone through the formal review process and is awaiting a decision from the minister—she's taking into account additional factors, I assume—is that there's no other formal public forum within which this issue can be discussed.
I believe that Mr. Cullen has rightly raised the fact that this forum here—I believe he's suggesting one meeting—is one that is public and residents across Canada can see the proceedings. I'm assuming that this would be televised. It just reaffirms the credibility of the process. I was going to use the word “restores”, but I'm not sure that the credibility of the process has been damaged. It's just that this will reaffirm, for those people who are still concerned about this issue, that all the due diligence has been done and that the science backs up the decision that will be made down the road.
We'll be supporting it.