Environment Committee on April 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, the second round is six questioners.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Let's just start five, five, two and half and two and a half. If there's time, that last bit can be split up. I think that would be fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is that what you want?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, then, for five minutes. I'll be strict on the time.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The thing we're looking at here the most is the necessity of clean water. There are enough boil water advisories in first nations across this country. We understand that to get things right, maybe instead of having boil water advisories to fix things we can not have them in the first place. Let's not foul up this water.

This is a very important watershed. The Athabasca River leads into the Slave River and leads into the Mackenzie Delta. There are a whole bunch of pollution effects if one of these tailings dams goes wrong. We've known that for years. Many of us have worked on technologies to try to assess the problems associated with this tailings ponds issue to make sure they get remediated much more quickly than they have been to this point in time. Clearly, not enough progress has been made on implementing the technology that would actually fix this.

The moral hazard is huge. We're witnessing that today at this hearing, and we have to make sure this doesn't happen. This is our water. We need to make sure it is pristine so that people who drink and use this water can continue to use it as they always have.

Let me go into the issue of where we are. What I've heard about from many of the witnesses here is the issue around regulatory capture. The AER, the Alberta Energy Regulator, is a quasi-judicial body set up by the Alberta government to make sure there is no political conflict between the government and the regulator that oversees the industry. What I'm hearing here and what I've seen in some of the data points is that maybe this reporting mechanism isn't clear. It's not clear as far as your organizations go, and it's not clear for the Government of the Northwest Territories, which is obviously impacted by this as well and has an agreement with the Government of Alberta. If anything happens, we expect to be notified. They clearly weren't.

The question is, when was the Alberta government notified? The Minister of Environment in Alberta tells me they were notified at the same time as the AER put out their public notice, which was February 7. A public notice is one thing, but getting directly involved with the communities that are affected would have been much more effective. This is obviously a breach of system and a breach of communication—something hasn't gone right here in the process.

We talk about regulatory capture by the industry, yet this is a quasi-judicial body. The Alberta government is not involved with this decision. It's about the industry going right to the regulator and the regulator having a process there. Obviously information isn't getting to the people and the legislative bodies that are affected, including the Government of Alberta and the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Let me ask Mr. Stuckless, first of all—because you talked about this—about negligence. When you talk about negligence, how would you fix what seems to be a clear breach of the regulator's ability to make sure we are regulating this effectively?

[Daniel Stuckless]

My point of view is not a great one. I think you need to scrap it and build it back. I don't think it's salvageable in its current form. That's not to dismiss Mr. Pushor's efforts. He seemed genuine in his approach in wanting to fix it.

I think it has a cultural problem that can't be resolved. This has been an amalgamation of multiple departments and changing mandates over time. It hasn't blended well. It's had a leadership issue from almost the start. It goes back decades. I think it needs to be restruck.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Did I understand that there was a question for Mr. Grygar?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

No, that was the question.

I'll ask the same question of Mr. Noseworthy, please.

[Russell Noseworthy]

Normally this doesn't happen, but I agree wholeheartedly with my colleague from Fort McKay. I think the entire organization has been around too long. It needs a refresher.

The people who are appointed to the board of the AER are not appointed by AER. They're appointed by people who sit in chairs in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. There's an issue there that you need to address as well.

The political power of industry is much more than the political power of the communities, unfortunately. We need to correct that. We need to take the politics out of the regulation and start to take care of people's health with the regulation. That's my recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

For five minutes, we'll go to Mr. Weiler.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank the witnesses for being here today to discuss a very serious matter.

I would like to start with Mr. Stuckless.

Given what you said about the credibility of the Alberta Energy Regulator and the nature of the environmental assessments being done by the Province of Alberta, what do you think that says about the need for the federal government to be involved in some of these environmental assessments to ensure that rigorous conditions are placed upon future developments?

[Daniel Stuckless]

I wholeheartedly support it. I am on record representing multiple communities in support of that approach.

I was a public supporter of Bill C-69 and the new agency that has been created. I have worked favourably with the agency on a number of projects with the approach that it's taken.

I will point out a bit of potential conflict, in that I'm also a rostered panellist and had been before the creation of the new IAC. However, that's how I see it being done and done correctly.

I haven't been appointed to any panels yet. I hope to be. This is something I've started to do in my profession that I've really enjoyed. I am passionate about the issue.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

On a related note, I would like to pick up on something Mr. Clark mentioned earlier about the Yahey decision in British Columbia. That was about a Treaty 8 first nation that brought a legal case based on the cumulative impacts of natural gas developments within their territory reaching such an extent that they were no longer able to practise their constitutionally protected right to trap and hunt. Since then, earlier this year, a new approach was launched by the Province of B.C. for comanagement of things like land, water and natural resources.

I was hoping you could speak a bit more about the importance of a similar approach for Treaty 8 nations in Alberta and maybe why that hasn't happened as of yet.

[Dr. Timothy Clark]

This speaks to the earlier point about the tiered nature of treaty and aboriginal rights in Canada. For instance, there's a pipeline now, under the CER process, running in northwestern Alberta and northeastern B.C. For the management of cumulative effects of this project, the discrepancy is stark. B.C. is at the table working with the nations. Alberta is nowhere to be seen.

Why hasn't it happened in Alberta? The simple answer is that nobody has taken Alberta to court yet. However, that is coming. It's inevitable.

The cumulative disturbances in Alberta far exceed, in much of the province, what we see in the northeast of B.C. The thresholds identified by the B.C. Supreme Court in Yahey are unquestionably exceeded in much of Alberta.

It's not a matter of if, but when.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

The next question I'd like to ask is for Ms. Martin.

I know that many nations have asked to do their own independent testing of what's happening on site at Kearl. The response from the company has been that they will allow independent review of the monitoring they do, but not allow the nations themselves to do independent monitoring on site. I was hoping you could comment on that.

[Destiny Martin]

Willow Lake Métis Nation is actually involved in the oil sands monitoring program. We are fairly new. It's our second year in the program. We have folks who go out and do the water sampling, so I don't see why we couldn't get in on monitoring with Imperial as well. I feel like we would have capacity to do as such.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, I will give my time to Ms. May.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

All right, thank you.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, dear colleague.

I'm very honoured to participate in today's critical panel. I want to thank all the witnesses in both panels, and I'd like to put that on the record.

I want to ask a question about something that hasn't been asked yet on the nature of the agreements signed between first nations and the Métis and Imperial. These impact benefit agreements have been referenced by Chief Adam and others. I think Mr. Noseworthy specifically said there were things he could say and things he couldn't say because of an agreement.

Without revealing what you can't say, Mr. Noseworthy, can you describe the nature of your obligations to keep certain things between you and the company and what things you're allowed to talk about? Can that be described? Thank you.

[Russell Noseworthy]

I can tell you that I have an agreement with them. Our community has an agreement with them. Beyond that, I wouldn't be able to say anything more.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm aware of an agreement between the Government of British Columbia and the Pacheedaht First Nation that says the first nation must not allow protests to begin against the resource exploitation on their territories. Is that something you could comment on as being completely unheard of in Alberta? I know you can't say if that's in the agreement. I understand that. I'm wondering if the nature of the agreement precludes speaking to anything that could be considered critical of the industry.

[Russell Noseworthy]

I think I've been critical here today, and I'm not breaching the agreement, but I would say that it is a picket fence we walk on every day. We need to make sure that we're respecting and honouring our agreements, and we do that. Otherwise we wouldn't have entered into them. However, the agreement itself did not protect our community from what happened. We're working now with the regulator, which apparently appeared out of nowhere. I never even knew who the head of the regulator was until he phoned me and asked me for a meeting.

From that you can take, I think, an answer.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thanks for your attempts at candour. I understand the constraints.

I just want to share that a gazillion years ago, before I was in politics, I actually participated, with Sierra Club Canada, in the environmental review of the Kearl Lake proposed mine. I clearly remember Imperial saying that it was state of the art for tailings ponds management, with no need to worry about leaks. I remember that when Dr. David Schindler started documenting the leaks, his reputation was attacked.

In hindsight, did the environmental assessment process get to the truth, or were we sandbagged by industry?