Evidence of meeting #11 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was energy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I appreciate the excitement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to direct my questions to you, Ms. Dovgal.
We'll start with youth employment. I think it's vital that this country finally, once again, sees a boom. We have a productivity crisis. The outcome of that for young people.... I don't know your age, but you're young enough to answer this question. We saw 17.5% of young people go back to school this fall after not getting a summer job. The productivity crisis is caused by the impending production cap, and I appreciate my colleague from Newfoundland highlighting it as an investment cap.
Could you talk a little about the ideology of governments not being connected to the reality of what people are facing on the ground?
Managing Director, Resource Works Society
Yes. I can put that in other words as well. Economic realism is in the interests of Canadians; economic fantasy is not.
I'm 29 years old, to your point. When I was going to university, I had far better opportunities to pursue politics, get into exciting areas of research and become a real policy wonk in the field that I'm in right now because I was driven by the understanding that the climate is changing and that's a thing we need to deal with. However, I learned a lot about economics. I learned about the energy realism needed in this conversation.
To your point about productivity, Canada has an essential challenge before it right now. Do we want to be the ones to kneecap our industry in an uncertain time globally, or do we want to be the ones to ensure we have the money to invest in adaptation and create opportunities for Canadians, whether public or private? The current framework we're looking at is not going to achieve those things. It's going to make us poorer and less equipped to handle and deliver benefits for Canadians.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
You mentioned in your opening remarks, which is connected to realism, some of the modelling that's been used. The Navius model has been very disconnected from reality in terms of emissions reductions. Could you speak a to the danger of us using computer modelling that has never been associated with reality and making government policy on the fly based on it?
Managing Director, Resource Works Society
Modelling itself is not completely invalid. We use models in a variety of ways. It's about the assumptions you put into those models. If your assumptions are about things the market has not seen, like technologies that have not yet been deployed at scale where the underlining economics have not been realized and proven out, you'll potentially face a huge gap between what your model is predicting and what the reality on the ground is going to be.
This has been carried through in a variety of policies we've seen at the federal level. It has had the result of untethering us from what's actually happening globally. Many countries, like Canada, that are pledging to be first movers on climate action, are instead having a very stark and sobering realization that the decisions based on these unreliable models.... Not all of them are unreliable, but the ones that are—and I believe the ones we're looking at in this case are—are not going to deliver results, neither on emissions reductions nor on economic clarity, certainty and a climate that allows us to get the economic benefits we want from our economy and productive industries.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Do you think the government has done any calculations as to the actual cost? You mentioned EVs as one of the examples. We can look at the electricity requirements if we were to have the complete usage of EVs, as well as the upgrades necessary for our utility companies and the sheer costs. One of our witnesses pegged it at, I believe, $249 billion—astronomical amounts of money.
Could you make a comment on the connection between some of the modelling and the policy outcomes we've seen? Do you think the government has done any of the actual math on this? Have they communicated at all to Canadians what the cost is going to be for each and every one of us?
Managing Director, Resource Works Society
Just at a high level, there is a tendency to conflate climate action with something that has to happen and there's no cost, but if climate change didn't require considerable investment and considerable economic sacrifice, we wouldn't be facing a problem.
In B.C., for example, the provincial government has started to seriously look at a lot of their electrification commitments, because they realize they're running out of power. Even British Columbia can't produce what it needs.
I think that's the underlying collision, again, between the realities and the modelled assumptions that get baked into climate policies.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I've heard some staggering numbers in terms of the B.C. example of the Site C dam and the number of dams we would need in this country to create the amount of electricity we'd need. Is Bill C-5 an attempt to work around that? Do you think it will actually work in creating enough Site C dams to electrify our economy?
Managing Director, Resource Works Society
There's a lot going on in British Columbia regarding indigenous communities, relationships with them and title issues. Those are other issues facing anyone who wants to build major infrastructure.
The provincial government in B.C., just like the federal government, has recognized that there's a political problem, so I don't think we're going to see results, because these are political solutions to problems that need to be resolved by structural reform and—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you, Ms. Dovgal.
Thank you, Mr. Leslie.
The floor now goes Mr. Fanjoy for five minutes.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Mathur, I want to acknowledge your courage, not just today but in all of your actions as a young person. It's not lost on me that you may well be the youngest person ever to attend this committee as a witness, so welcome.
Conservatives in Parliament routinely oppose market-based solutions to addressing this challenge and non-market-based solutions. Their solution always seems to be another barrel of oil, and I don't think that's a practical solution at all.
What's your message to them as someone who will live with the consequences of not addressing this moment in history?
As an Individual
I think it's evident that climate policy has costs, but so does climate change, and just because I cannot give you the exact amount of money that climate change will cost, that doesn't mean it will not get worse.
I am disappointed as a youth. Honestly, I understand that these conversations are important in government, but it does feel like sometimes we are prioritizing money over the lives of youth. We're not acknowledging our future generations and the impact that climate change will have on them, just the impact it will have on future investments.
Thank you for acknowledging that and letting me come here, even though I don't have a major agenda with me.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Keating, do you acknowledge that the world is shifting and transitioning towards an energy future that is powered by electricity and, increasingly, renewable forms of electricity?
Chief Executive Officer, Oil and Gas Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador
Yes, I do.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
You're from Newfoundland, which is a province dear to me. I grew up in Atlantic Canada and I understand the beautiful nature of the Rock. How important is that transition, and how do you see it playing out? Oil is an offshore resource, and I understand that it's important right now. How do we make the shift towards more renewable electricity in Newfoundland, for its benefit and of course the benefit of other provinces?
October 30th, 2025 / 12:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Oil and Gas Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador
The province has been endowed with a tremendous hydroelectric resource. We're exporting five to almost six times the amount of clean hydroelectricity we consume. We are in discussions at an MOU stage with our friends in Quebec to add more to that. If we were an energy superpower, on a per capita basis we would be the fifth- or sixth-greatest energy producer, when you combine the hydroelectric endowment and the oil and gas endowment. That's if we were our own country. I have been keenly aware of that ever since I studied this back in 2005, 2006 and 2007 with our energy plan.
I think, though, the transition is to make sure that while this complex energy system goes through machinations and conversions.... Right now, we see a phase where all new energy coming to the fore, mostly renewable, is being taken up by new demand. It's a sticky hydrocarbon percentage, but inevitably it will decline. I just want to make sure that Canada's oil and gas—and particularly Newfoundland and Labrador's oil and gas—meets that need, because I believe it's going to be produced in the best way possible, by the most ingenious and capable people and with the best attention to safety and the environment. It's a mission, and that's going to happen over a generation or three.
I have a daughter who's 18. She's doing engineering, and she sees this complexity. That's her choice. She's also going to join the oil and gas business.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
I think the transition is happening faster than you may anticipate. If Canada is a laggard in this transition towards clean and renewable energy—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
I'm sorry, but the time is up.
Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Mathur, what are your thoughts on the fact that, since it was elected, the federal government is backtracking and dropping various climate-related measures and is refusing to live up to its greenhouse reduction target for 2030?
As an Individual
A major issue arising with social media is misinformation in regard to climate policies. I think it's even harder now to have conversations with students in my class about issues like carbon pricing because they have received information through social media and they don't know what to talk about. It almost feels like now it's harder for certain climate policies to even be discussed. Obviously, as a youth, I think any halting of action on climate change is disappointing, but it's upsetting to see that a lot of it is solely because of misinformation given to the public in regard to climate policies and even in regard to climate change and its existence.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
How do you feel about appearing before a committee to speak about greenhouse gas reduction when there is a witness across from you who receives money from oil companies, as well as an oil company representative? They are not the only witnesses from the oil and gas sector or funded by it who have appeared before the committee. There have been many others. They have been invited by my Conservative colleagues, among others. What are your thoughts on that?
As an Individual
On the topic of misinformation, it is obvious that misinformation regarding climate policies benefits a certain sector. It is upsetting to hear these voices everywhere I go when I give speeches—everywhere in government—and to see the big grip they have on climate policies and on investment in our country, when I as a youth don't have that to offer you. All I have is my experience and my fear for my future.
