Fisheries Committee on June 13th, 2017

[Prof. Mark Carr]

No, not at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I know. It gives you an idea of how in tune we are with the American media. When you said “Governator”, I think everybody here knew who you were talking about—everybody in this room.

[Prof. Mark Carr]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Finnigan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I am back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

He's back.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Dr. Carr and Mr. Giraud, for being here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up a question by my colleague across the way on MPAs across the world. Apparently there's no real standard on how to establish MPAs, I assume. Is there a will among the international community or countries to eventually get at a standard science base to establish MPAs?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

There is. IUCN is trying to provide international guidance for the creation of marine protected areas, but this concept of networks is something that has emerged more out of the California process.

I spend a lot of time travelling to Europe and other parts of the world talking about the California process and the California network, because it's now considered a model, the global model. That's what I alluded to earlier. Hopefully, Canada will displace California as the global model for how to go about generating these science-based networks.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you.

In talking about human activities, you noted that if one goes to where the discharge is, Los Angeles or any large city for that matter, you can't just say, “We're going to establish an MPA there.” Do incentives work? I heard a little while ago Mr. Giraud talk about just cleaning the impeller making a big difference in environmental issues. Have you ever tried incentives to create better technology? Is that part of a process?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I can only speak to California. My understanding in California is that it's not incentive-based, but regulatory-based. When it comes to water discharge, whether it's from a cooling power plant, once-through cooling, or a waste water discharge, they're under strict regulations, environmental regulations. I don't think I would convey those as incentive-based, actually.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay.

Mr. Giraud, I think you mentioned that there was a recent approval by this government. Could you just elaborate on that? What was that about? Was your request for licensing in the works for a long time? What happened?

[Byng Giraud]

Do you mean the environmental assessment approval?

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Yes, you said that in the last couple of years it was—

[Byng Giraud]

Typically, an environmental assessment, on a good day, is three years for a project. We were delayed a little by a thing called a federal election. But we received our federal approvals in March 2016, I believe. It was the second approval under the government's new five principles.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

What kind of partnership have you been able to establish with indigenous communities? Are they benefiting from this whole approval?

[Byng Giraud]

In the first place, many first nations don't really respect or like federal and provincial environmental assessment processes. They don't consider sacred issues. They don't necessarily consider rights and title issues. There are a number of reasons why they've been dissatisfied over time, which is, I think, one of the reasons people are relooking at environmental assessment.

That being said, simply rejigging a federal-provincial process to make it more accepting of a first nations' perspective isn't necessarily what first nations are looking for. In this situation, they wanted to do their own process. We took a leap of faith and said, yes, we will enter your process, and we will abide by the conditions. For a lot of companies that would be a challenge. But I think this is the way things are going, and we try to take that position. The result was a legally binding contract, which takes the place of an environmental assessment list of conditions. We have 25 conditions from the first nations, one of which was to review the cooling process. We are no longer doing a seawater cooling process, something they felt was important.

These things need to be considered if we're going to move forward with projects. I mentioned how difficult it is to move forward with projects in Canada or how it's perceived by external investors to be hard to do. We're going to have to work more with indigenous peoples. But a cautionary note to governments, as they look at ways to bring indigenous peoples more into these processes, is they may not necessarily just want to be in your process. They may want their own process. In our circumstance, that's what happened. Even a more effective federal or provincial process may not satisfy aboriginal rights and title issues. The best thing to do is to start the conversation with the process that they're interested in. With a nation like Squamish Nation, which is a larger nation with more resources, it's sometimes a little more straightforward.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

You were talking about the heat discharged at such an industry. Have you ever looked at using that heat for industrial use? I'm thinking of a greenhouse, because that's the business I'm in. I'm just thinking if that extra heat could be used, and possibly be part of the whole....

[Byng Giraud]

We will be using some of it ourselves. We have looked at it. The problem is that, even though we're within the municipality, the reality is that it's water access. There are no roads, no services. Years ago they brought the pulp mill in to get the municipal taxation. We're seven kilometres from town, and there would be a lot of heat loss in the pipes. We're going to use some of it ourselves. So the short answer is yes, but the longer one is that you have to have something close by.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Where does that gas come from? Is that Alberta gas?

[Byng Giraud]

It will be coming primarily from the Montney basin, which is up by Dawson Creek in northeastern British Columbia. It could come from elsewhere. We don't actually own upstream; we're buying it in the market. It comes down the Spectra line, which I guess is now owned by Enbridge, to a place called Huntingdon, in the Sumas area, and then enters the Fortis system. It's the same pipeline that currently takes gas to Vancouver Island. So it's from the same pipe as the gas that people get in their homes on Vancouver Island. We just happen to be along the pipe. They ran the pipe there to service the pulp mill in the old days.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Just hypothetically, if a loaded tanker were to crash and burn or explode, what could be the potential damage to an MPA?

[Byng Giraud]

Well, in the first place, LNG vessels are some of the most sophisticated vessels in the world. The only vessels more sophisticated, frankly, are military vessels. These are $200-million ships. They're not tramp steamers with crews from all over here and there. These are sophisticated, highly insured—that's what keeps us honest, the insurance companies—vessels. There has never been a loss of containment from an LNG container ship, ever, in I'm not sure how many tens of thousands of movements since the fifties. There has never been a loss, and there have been some extreme stories about incidents that didn't result in loss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Giraud. I'm sorry, but I have to cut it there.

Mr. Doherty, you have five minutes, please.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

To our witnesses, thank you for being here. I found your testimony very enlightening. I have five minutes, so I would ask you to keep your answers fairly short. I want to get to both of you.

Mr. Carr, can you tell me how long the entire process took, start to finish, in terms of your network of MPAs?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

It was on the order of 10 or 11 years or so.