Environment Committee on April 20th, 2023

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

There was an industrial seepage that had the possibility of getting into people's water. Do you think that the course should have been to make sure that there was enough testing to make sure that it did not get into people's water and give them the assurance that when they have a shower, when they bathe their children, when they drink the water or cook with the water, it's safe water?

[Helga Shield]

Absolutely. Any time we have some activity that may have an impact off our site or may have an impact on local communities, I agree that we should be sharing that information, and we will do that.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I hope something comes out of this that has a responsibility and accountability mechanism going forward.

I want to concentrate in my next set of questions on your relationship with the Alberta Energy Regulator because it appears, from the timeline we have, that you notified them about the spill in March. It looks as though all they did was put it on their website for other people to get that information from their website. There was no direct contact, from what we've seen, with indigenous organizations about the spill, not the seepage.

Obviously, an event happened here that was beyond whatever should have happened, yet nobody, neither you nor the AER, reached out and told people that there was something very serious going on. How do you think that should have happened?

[Helga Shield]

I think that when the notification went to the AER, there was a reach out to the environmental staff of the communities. We started offering leader-to-leader meetings very shortly thereafter. After the first week, we shared the initial response plans that had been submitted to the AER. Within a week, we began weekly updates to communities. On Wednesday, we issued our tenth. Those go out every Wednesday afternoon.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Okay, thank you.

I have one final question—I only have a few minutes—that I need to get answered. It's on the issue around intergovernmental responsibility here, because the Government of the Northwest Territories was expecting an indication from the Government of Alberta when such an incident happened, and it received none. The Alberta government apparently didn't know about this, even from the Alberta Energy Regulator, a quasi-judicial body, until the same time that the federal government—Environment and Climate Change Canada—received notice.

Is there no reporting mechanism to make sure that all these governmental bodies are informed when an incident like this happens?

[Helga Shield]

We report to what is called the EDGE hotline. It's a 1-800 number. It's open 24-7. The expectation is that when we call EDGE, the fan-out process starts at that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're out of time.

We'll go now to Ms. Thompson.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

Obviously this is a very difficult conversation to have, and I can tell you that on Monday the testimony we heard was incredibly disturbing. Certainly it was communication, but it's every aspect of people's lives. The fear was very difficult to witness.

I want to really stress the mental health impact on the witnesses who were here, and I can only imagine—I probably can't imagine—what it's like in families and in communities. I want to very clearly say that this is certainly communication, but it's much more than that. It's environmental. It's about people's lives.

As an organization, what are you planning to do now to help mitigate what's happening in people's lives? I'm going to use the word “compensate”, because it's about supports now, whether for mental health or business. There were other very real concerns around cancers and other health concerns. As a company, how do you plan to address them within the communities?

[Brad Corson]

Thanks for asking that.

These are real concerns. I agree with your statement. I watched the testimony on Monday myself, all two hours and 40 minutes of it. I was deeply troubled and saddened by the stories I heard.

It pains me deeply to experience what we're all going through together, with the impacts that we've had on these very important indigenous communities. They are our neighbours. They've entrusted their land to us, and we have a responsibility. I feel horrible with what has happened.

We are working very hard to rebuild that trust. That's why, as Helga and I mentioned, we've had several ongoing engagements with them. We want to work with each of those communities to make this situation right. We want to help rebuild trust. We know that there are mental health impacts. We know there are other concerns. We want to engage them, community by community, to fully understand what those issues are and what we can do to make things better so that we can rebuild trust and go forward as strong partners in this relationship. It will take time, but we are committed to it.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

To that end, I want to go back to the drinking water, because I think the environmental reality is incredibly important for this conversation.

I believe samples were provided on April 15, 2023, but clearly there must have been a series of water samples that you received. I didn't hear on Monday that any of the witnesses who were present had those records in hand. Were they provided? Do you have a log of the water samples—both the subsurface layers and the drinking water?

The environmental impact needs to be addressed. That needs to be a very tangible conversation.

I'm wondering about the data and the records. How often did those reports come to your desk and where are they, so that communities in particular can see them? I think it's also important for this committee.

[Brad Corson]

We have provided an extensive amount of data to the communities. Admittedly, it's been more recently and not early on in the process.

I will ask Helga to talk very specifically about the nature of the reports we're providing and the frequency, because there are many reports.

[Helga Shield]

As I said, we did bring a log. We are happy to share that with the committee.

We have shared all of that water information with those communities. We have spoken with—

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Excuse me for one second. What are the timelines? Is it just for April 2023, or do you have the data over the past number of months?

[Helga Shield]

We've provided the data over the past number of months as well as several years prior, so they can see background information as well. We are working with communities by providing capacity to support them in being able to undertake technical reviews of that data.

If I could, I want to step back to an earlier piece of your question. We've been talking a lot about indigenous communities and the company working in this space. Over 1,100 of our workers at Imperial are indigenous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Corson, I noticed in your opening remarks that you talked a lot about water as if it was fairly harmless. However, chemical analyses submitted to the Alberta Energy Regulator in August 2022 showed that the samples contained concentrations of certain substances that exceeded the guidelines set out by the Department of the Environment and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, among others. These included dissolved iron, total arsenic, fraction 2 hydrocarbons, sulphate and total sulphide.

Do you agree with me that, in this case, we should call a spade a spade? We should be talking about potentially toxic substances, not just water.

[Brad Corson]

We're attempting to be very transparent with all the data that we find. Relative to those specific tests, we acknowledge that there are tests in the area of the seep locations that show exceedances relative to established guidelines.

When I talk about no harm to drinking water or the river systems, I'm talking about separate samples that have been taken at the Firebag River or at the Athabasca River, which on an ongoing basis show no deviations from the normal baseline for those water bodies.

We do have situations much closer to where the seeps occurred where there are exceedances, but not where there are actual river systems. That's the clarification.

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

Thank you.

I would like to come back to the analysis that was done.

Did the Alberta Energy Regulator received sampling records on a regular basis between May 2022 and April 2023?

[Brad Corson]

Yes, we've provided extensive data to the AER. Again I might defer to Helga to comment more specifically on the nature and frequency of the reports.

[Helga Shield]

Certainly any water sampling data that was provided to the AER has now been provided to communities—all of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. McPherson is next.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Is drainage pond 4 still leaking into off-lease land?

[Brad Corson]

No, it's not. We have cleaned it up.

At the time that overflow incident happened, that water froze almost immediately, so we have cleaned all that up. We're waiting on the AER to confirm the final certification that the cleanup is complete, based on the soil samples we've taken, but that pond is not leaking.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Are toxic tailing fluids still being pumped into the leaking reservoirs as we speak?

[Brad Corson]

I'm not sure I completely understand your question. Could you restate it?