Environment Committee on April 20th, 2023

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

I imagine that you suspected this would make the relationship with the communities rather difficult, if you did not discuss it directly with community leaders. I can imagine that it crossed your mind.

My question is fairly straightforward: why did you not simply share the information with them in a timely manner?

[Brad Corson]

Well, we certainly are giving them the information now. We fell short for the period while we were still investigating the situation. We wanted to have a more definitive plan. We were gathering data. There was nothing concerning in that data, per se, but we were fully analyzing the situation. It was always our intent, once we fully understood the situation and the source of the seepage, and once we understood and had approval from the AER around the mitigation plans, to share that whole story and that whole process with the communities.

We should have walked them through the learning process as we were gathering data. That data validated that there was no damage or threat to the water supplies or fish populations or wildlife. We should have been sharing that, but we didn't. That was a big mistake, and we've learned from that mistake. We've corrected our processes. I'm confident that this situation will never happen again.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I sincerely hope so.

In your opening remarks, you said that your investigation determined that there was no impact on fish populations in neighbouring river systems or risk to the drinking water of local communities. Earlier, Ms. Goodridge described quite well the sense of fear that communities have had and still have about drinking tap water.

For his part, Chief Allan Adam said he asked his community members to throw away all the game meat they had and that he would not even feed it to dogs. This is what he said in a CBC article. They were furious to learn that the land they farmed or hunted on might have been contaminated.

How can you say for sure that there was no adverse effect on the environment? Do you have any samples? Did your investigation determine with certainty that there was no risk to human health?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You are well over your time.

Mr. Corson, please give us a brief five or ten second response. We can't get into the heart of the matter unless you answer the question during another member's speaking time.

[Brad Corson]

We've continued to do analyses on the area. We've hired third parties to come in and perform independent analyses. They continue to conclude that there is no risk, or minimal risk, of any wildlife impacts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much for being here today and for providing this testimony to us.

Thank you for apologizing. That is certainly important to do.

As an Albertan, as a member of Parliament, and as someone who sat and listened to the testimony of Chief Adams, I'm angry. I'm angry at Imperial Oil, I'm angry at the provincial government, I'm angry at the federal government, and I'm angry at the AER, because you all failed that community.

What you're saying to me, sir, is that there were no adverse impacts. We've all described to you some of the adverse impacts. There certainly were adverse impacts. You have lost the trust to be able to say that we should trust anything you bring forward. You've broken the trust that you have with those communities. You'll forgive all of us in this room for treating all of your testimony with a great degree of skepticism.

You met with representatives of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation at the environment management committee three times last summer and fall. You met with them on July 21, September 15 and November 18, and the toxic seepage was never brought up.

You talked about the fact that on May 19 you let them know. On May 19 you said there was discoloured water and vegetation. You never said that these were tailings or that it was toxic sludge that had come up. You had an opportunity to bring this up three times and to say you had worries and concerns about it. You didn't bring it up at all.

Can you explain why on three occasions, meeting with an environmental management committee, your company failed to even raise it?

[Brad Corson]

Again, our communication processes did fail in that regard. When we made the initial notifications of discoloured water, the source of that discoloured water was unclear. We know that in the Athabasca watershed region, discoloured orange water, which is representative of high levels of iron, is naturally occurring. We needed to perform more investigations, and that's what we communicated initially to those environment committees.

It took—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

You said you were going to follow up with them, but you never did follow up with them. Even during their annual tailings management review sessions, indigenous communities pointed out evidence suggesting that the tailings ponds in question were seeping beyond their seepage interception system as early as 2020. As recently as November 2022, indigenous representatives asked for an update.

In November 2022, if you didn't have the information six months in, sir, and if you didn't have any inclination that there may be a concern there six months in, I find that very difficult to believe. At the time, you failed to mention lateral seepage occurring from the tailings ponds or the notice of non-compliance which you had received from the AER in September. You were clearly trying to hide information from indigenous communities. Isn't that true?

[Brad Corson]

No, it's not. We have never been trying to hide any information. We were negligent in not proactively sharing information that we had, but we never have been trying to hide any information.

I do understand that we have lost a lot of trust. I recognize that creates skepticism for what we say, including today, but I would just ask that you let our actions going forward and the data we provide going forward determine the results of this situation. We have made conscious decisions to change our processes and our communication and to be very transparent with all of the data that's available. We're going to continue to do that as we go forward.

I cannot change what has happened in the past. It was wrong. I'm very apologetic for it and I'm not happy with it, but I can change what we do going forward, and that's what we are doing.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Sir, we've had a lot of questions about how you communicate with indigenous and Métis groups, which is obviously very important, but I think we also have some questions about the environmental disaster that is ongoing. I mean, it is not just communicating that something terrible is happening; it's dealing with the terrible thing that has happened, of course.

Regarding the statement you made about the discoloured water, the discoloured water pooled up to the surface at four locations, but that doesn't address the extent of the leak below ground. What are the concentrations of contaminants that are in the leak below ground, not just in the water that made it up to the surface?

[Brad Corson]

I'm glad you asked about the kinds of the actions we're taking, because we are taking significant actions to address the subsurface seepage. Over the last few months, we have drilled 140 wells that will allow us to monitor the water quality across that whole area. As part of those 140 wells, we have drilled wells that allow us pump the water out of those subsurface layers and recycle it back into our process. We've installed—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Sir, I'm going to run out of time. I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt you, but I did ask what the concentration of contaminants was in the subsurface water.

[Brad Corson]

Well, we've taken over a thousand samples over the last several months. That's an extensive amount of data. I don't have all those specific data points—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

You don't know how much concentration of contaminants there is in the underwater seepage.

[Brad Corson]

We have provided all that information on our website. We've provided it to the communities. We've provided it to the AER. If there's a desire, we can provide it to this committee as well—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

There's a desire.

[Brad Corson]

I just don't have it available to me right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go to Mr. McLean for five minutes.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here.

There is one piece of information that we've heard before—and you've said it again, Mr. Corson—about the information that you provided at the initial seepage. You've said that you gave it to the environmental committees of the indigenous organizations. The indigenous organizations that were here on Monday said that it was only a rumour they had received.

Will you have in your documentation the actual communication that you provided to those environmental committees or those indigenous organizations?

[Brad Corson]

We can certainly provide documentation of those notifications if there is a desire to receive it.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

I think I'm going to concentrate my questions on Ms. Shield now, because this does look like a failure of process and communication. It looks like it's in her responsibilities. It looks like her job here.

It was three months from the time in May 2022 when this initial seepage came out until your chemistry was actually showing that this was industrial water in August. That's three months when people were hesitant about their own water. Do you think a better communication plan could have been had in making sure that people were informed on a daily basis about your testing of the water that they bathe in and that they drink?

[Helga Shield, Manager, Environment, Regulatory and Socioeconomic, Imperial Oil Limited]

Thank you.

If I could go back in time, we would do things very differently. We would do them as we're doing them now.

Since the environmental protection order was issued to us in February, we've had over 300 contacts with those communities. We've shared over 50 reports. We're logging all those calls. We have shared all the information that has gone to the AER, both in summary report and in the data spreadsheets themselves. Every time we give notice to government, it goes to those indigenous communities at the same time. I think that will become our new normal.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

It wasn't normal until now to give people assurances that the water they use on a daily basis is safe when you have an industrial spill. Is this what you're telling me?

[Helga Shield]

I think we had no indication that there was a concern with the drinking water. That's really what drove the decisions.