Environment Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Ms. Farrell, we've heard a lot about consensus from the Prime Minister. As clearly as you can define it, what is consensus in terms of the need for a project to be deemed “in the national interest”?

[Dawn Farrell]

As I understand the role of the MPO today, after 39 days—just with that proviso—if a project is referred to us to be considered for designation, we undertake a process in the MPO to work with all the stakeholders in the federal government on the regulatory side, with the provinces if they're involved and with indigenous communities through indigenous consultation. We come forward with a recommendation to the minister, who takes that forward to cabinet.

I think I have that right.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you.

You mentioned the five projects that have been referred to your office. Who exactly referred them to you?

On the flow chart on your website, nowhere does the government refer projects to this office.

[Dawn Farrell]

There was a press release issued on September 11, where the Prime Minister of Canada announced that the government had referred five projects and six transformative strategies to us to start work on.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Why isn't that indicated on the flow chart on your website, as to how the referral process works?

[Dawn Farrell]

Ms. Jackson would be better prepared for that answer.

[Sarah Jackson]

Yes, absolutely.

That flow chart on the site explains the process to designate a project under the Building Canada Act. As Ms. Farrell mentioned in her remarks, not all projects referred to the Major Projects Office are going to be designated under the Building Canada Act.

That flow chart shows a specific process related to designations. It's not meant to outline the process for referring projects to the office and other measures that the office may take to support projects, aside from designation under that specific tool.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How many projects have been submitted to the intake on the website? By next week, could you table the names and a summary of the projects that have been submitted thus far?

As well, while you're submitting things, I would love to know who exactly has been coming to meet with this office thus far. If you could share that with the committee, it would be appreciated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you very much. The time is up.

The next member would be Mr. Grant for six minutes.

The floor is yours.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for taking time to be here today. My first question is for Ms. Farrell.

I've heard arguments that building major projects such as new energy infrastructure and large-scale industrial developments runs counter to Canada's emissions reduction goals.

In your view, how are major projects essential to actually achieving those very goals?

[Dawn Farrell]

If you look at the major projects and the transformative strategies that we're looking at today, plus what we potentially see coming, as a group they meet the criteria that's been set under the act. As a group, they do strengthen our autonomy, resilience and security. They provide economic benefits. They can be successfully executed. They do advance interests of our indigenous people, and they contribute to clean growth and our objectives.

If you start to dissect them, for example, you see things like Darlington, which provides clean nuclear energy to the people of the province of Ontario. Over the long term, you see us looking at the wind resource in eastern Canada and how that can be brought to bear. You see a lot of work on critical minerals, which are essential to a strong electricity system with storage, and you see things like LNG and the Pathways, which enable us to bring greener natural gas and better bitumen to the global marketplace and which contribute overall to climate change.

We are developing the portfolio of projects we'll be working on, which contribute to all of those objectives.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

I know from living in British Columbia that the impacts of climate change are felt most acutely by first nations, especially those in rural and remote areas. I've seen wildfires and flooding devastate their communities. We know that having indigenous proponents involved with major projects often motivates project proponents to design projects that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. A good example of this is LNG phase two up in northwestern British Columbia.

Can you share how the Major Projects Office is supporting indigenous equity participation and ensuring that indigenous voices are at the table from the very beginning?

[Dawn Farrell]

Thank you for that question. It's really an important one because, in evaluating projects, the Major Projects Office is looking at regulatory barriers that stop the projects from having certainty so that they can attract financial capital. We're also looking at how we can make sure that we have the right financial instruments behind the projects to ensure that we can have first nations participation.

For example, in LNG phase two, one of the pieces of work that we'll be doing is helping the indigenous population in that project work inside the government to go through the loan guarantee program so that they can be an economic participant.

As we evaluate all of the individual projects, having all of the tools at our fingertips to be able to work with the federal government, the provinces and the indigenous governments to ensure that we have indigenous participation up front and economic benefits for indigenous populations out of the projects will make a huge difference to how the projects are developed from the get-go. We've already started that work on LNG.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

My third question is this. Given that many of these projects will operate for decades to come, how is the Major Projects Office implementing the Building Canada Act consideration of climate impacts of projects to support the long-term climate competitiveness of Canada's economy?

[Dawn Farrell]

Again that's a very interesting question, and we can spend a lot of time on it, but, as we look at the projects and work with proponents—and we're evaluating their economic and environmental strengths over the longer term—we hear very clearly from the buyers of the outputs of these projects how important it is for Canada to maintain its clean transition.

For example, yesterday, one of the buyers of the output of the LNG project was in and was very clear with us that, if Canada could do more of what it's doing on LNG, they believe that our LNG is substantively better than any other LNG that's being sold into the international market. That's a long-term consideration that we have as we design those projects.

It's the same on critical minerals. Having a long-term source to enable us to get those critical minerals to market and, at the same time, build Canada's economy for batteries and other things, makes a huge difference to how we execute these projects.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I think I have less than a minute left, so I'll stop there.

Thank you for answering my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Mr. Grant.

Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Farrell, you just mentioned liquified natural gas, or LNG, which you described as an almost-green gas.

Can you tell us about the assessment you conducted on greenhouse gas emissions in connection with the LNG project in Canada?

Does this assessment take into account the entire life cycle of projects, i.e., during production, transport, liquefaction and combustion?

[Dawn Farrell]

Thank you for that question. Just to be clear, that project was referred to our office on September 11, and it is under consideration by our office right now. We have not finished our evaluation or our analysis, and we have not gone back to the government with our advice. We would not be finished all of that work. There's a lot of work that's already been done by NRCan. We're gathering all of that work and pulling all of that together.

I'm just going to ask Mr. Labonté to maybe add some colour to that, but we are not anywhere near a position yet where we would be ready to conclude all of the work we've done.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you for clarifying.

You said that Canadian LNG is among the best. If you haven't done an assessment, what are you basing that statement on?

[Jeff Labonté]

Thank you for your question.

When it comes to assessing projects like the LNG project, we use the project life cycle analysis model for Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions.

We assessed the forecasts for LNG Canada, and we are now comparing them with those for projects in other countries, including the United States.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Could you please share this assessment with us? Thank you.

Ms. Farrell, what is your annual salary?

[Dawn Farrell]

I'm not really sure. It's in the range of $700,000, with base and incentives.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

If I do a quick calculation, by 2030, i.e., in five years, that comes to $3.5 million. That's more than a third of the budget allocated to the climate change action plan announced in 2022, which was $9.1 billion.

Given this, do you think there should be more funding for the energy transition and actions to address climate change?

[Dawn Farrell]

I'm not sure how to answer that question. I'm not sure what you're referring to.