Evidence of meeting #37 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was saskatchewan.
A video is available from Parliament.
President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
No. I don't believe so.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thank you.
Do you believe the prairie provinces can build their own green economy without interference from Ottawa?
President and Chief Operating Officer, Safety First, As an Individual
Yes, I do. They already are.
President and Chief Operating Officer, Safety First, As an Individual
We have policy and procedure in place for.... If you go to the tank terminals, you can eat a sandwich off a pipeline. It's clean. We take pride in our terminals and our pipelines. We take care of them. It's our infrastructure.
President, Alberta Enterprise Group
I agree. As per my first five minutes, I explained all the stats on exactly what we've already been doing. We're far exceeding all goals.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you very much.
We'll now move to Mr. Fillmore for five minutes.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate that.
Thanks also to the witnesses. We know how valuable your time is and we thank you very much for making time for us today.
Mr. Sohi, I'm going to direct a couple of questions to you, but I want to start with two quick points.
The first one is a thought about whom we compare ourselves to. Yes, Canadian oil is cleaner than other oil, but being cleaner and less bad than Saudi Arabia isn't good; it's just less bad. I think it's more instructive to compare ourselves to countries in the world that are leading in green and clean energy, like Iceland, Denmark, Scotland and so on. It's a smarter comparison for us to make in these times that we live in.
The other one is that Nate is actually from central Canada, not from the east, Mr. Steinley. I'm from the east, and I can tell you that it's a part of the world where, yes, fishers and coal miners have had to retrain. In the former case of the fisheries, it was the resource that collapsed; it wasn't government regulation. In the case of the latter, it was the economic viability of the extraction that no longer held, so those workers retooled and now they're providing for their families and contributing to their community in all kinds of productive and fulfilling ways.
We live in an era when there's so much work to do. We have to build a million houses in Canada. Perhaps it's that many. We have to build important green energy infrastructure. I just learned today about the Kivalliq hydro-fibre link in Manitoba to decarbonize the north by getting it off diesel. That's a major infrastructure project that's going to need people who understand energy infrastructure.
I wanted to make those two points.
Mr. Sohi, I have two questions. The first one is a very broad one. What do you believe is the gravest economic threat facing the prairie provinces today?
Mayor, City of Edmonton
First of all, I want to make sure you know that MP Carr did consult with me before the introduction of this legislation. We wanted to have municipal voices included, so I'm kind of disappointed that this is not part of clause 2.
I'm also very proud, as many of you know, of my work on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, which would allow Alberta oil to be used throughout North America, as well as beyond North America. I'm the only person in this group, I think, who has demonstrated commitment to the oil and gas sector by actually doing something for the oil and gas sector. I believe Canada should not be buying oil from anywhere else; we should be using our own oil. I firmly believe that.
As we transition to renewable energy sources, climate change is a serious risk for the prairie provinces. We are seeing more droughts in our communities. We are seeing heatwaves in our communities. We are required to invest billions of dollars to upgrade the existing infrastructure so we can remain resilient to the impacts of climate change.
There are solutions out in the prairie provinces. That needs to be supported. For example, hydrogen offers such a considerable amount of potential for thousands and thousands of jobs for hard-working Albertans, and at the same time it helps us reduce emissions locally and offers a global solution to climate change.
LNG is another huge potential we have in the prairie provinces. That should be supported by the federal government. Carbon capture, storage, utilization, sequestration.... Yes, in the last budget the federal government made some changes, but we need to expand on those changes so we can support the growth in the economy of Alberta and diversify.
I don't think we're far apart. I agree with some of my other colleagues from Alberta that oil and gas will remain a big part of Canada's economy and Canada's energy. But we also need to diversify those sources so we are able to withstand the impact of climate change and make our communities greener.
It's not one against the other. It's more of each source of energy complementing the other and helping grow our economy and create jobs.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you, Mr. Sohi.
When we think about all that the prairie provinces provide to Canada and the rest of the world, whether it's energy or food or other projects resulting from manufacturing, how do you feel the elements of the bill would improve the prairie provinces' ability to provide those things to the rest of the country and the world?
Mayor, City of Edmonton
The way I see this bill, it's not against oil and gas; it's about diversification and supporting communities' transition. There are a large number of communities that have been affected by the transition from coal-fired electricity generation, and those communities are struggling. Those are rural communities, and they need to be supported.
Such a bill needs to be in place to provide them the necessary support and actually hold Ottawa to account. If Ottawa is going to come into municipalities and impose policies that help us meet our targets—which I absolutely support—there has to be a corresponding matching support for municipalities and communities to be sustainable and vibrant.
That's where I see the potential of this bill: It allows us, as municipalities, to hold Ottawa accountable on its responsibility to support municipalities as we transition and to give us the necessary support.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you very much, Mr. Sohi and Mr. Fillmore.
We'll now move to MP Kram for five minutes.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
My questions will be for Mr. Ray Orb, from the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
Mr. Orb, we're in a difficult situation here, in that this particular bill applies to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba only, but it will be voted on by members of Parliament from all across the country. I was wondering if you could give the parliamentarians here in Ottawa an idea of what the oil and gas sector means to the economy and the way of life of the people of Saskatchewan.
President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
The oil and gas sector is really integral to the economic welfare of a lot of rural communities, because, of course, the rural municipalities in our province would be home to every pipeline that we have in this province. The linear taxation is very important. Rural municipalities receive a lot of their taxation funding from these pipelines, along with the related jobs. Many of the people working in the rural communities are living on farms, and some of them are farmers themselves. It's not out of the ordinary to have farmers who are oil and gas workers as well. There really is a strong economic tie, I think.
Really, when things happen outside of our country or around the world and we see that Canada is not able to get our oil and gas out—natural gas, LNG or whatever the case may be—I think it's disconcerting. I think the federal government needs to pay attention to that. More than a private member's bill, I think we need to have a good discussion in our country about energy, and that's all forms of energy: renewables, small modular reactors and nuclear power. Nuclear energy is important. So are oil and gas. I think we have to remember all of those.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
This bill is not the first time that the federal Liberal government has waded into the debate about oil and gas in western Canada. We've had Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill; we've had Bill C-48, the west coast oil tanker ban; and, of course, we've had the ever-increasing carbon taxes.
I was wondering, Mr. Orb, if you could comment on the effects of these policies on Saskatchewan.
President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
The environmental Impact Assessment Act—I think that's the bill you're referring to, Bill C-69—does have implications for rural municipalities and our rural economy. Part of that is actually the Navigable Waters Act. SARM was really concerned about that, about the federal government making a new bill and bringing in amendments that would affect how municipalities do business from day to day. It has to do with transportation on rivers and streams and being able to build bridges in some places. It would be very expensive to do that because of the bureaucratic red tape created by that bill. That's a big concern to us as well.
The tanker ban, the moratorium in Bill C-48, was something that we were concerned about because we saw that it was taking away from our western transportation system for the movement of oil. We're satisfying part of our country, but we're hurting another part of our country. We had a big concern about that as well. We testified on a few occasions that we were opposed to that act.
The carbon tax is something that we have been working on with our province to try to figure out how we could come up with something that would appease Ottawa. It's something that hurts our farmers right now, even as far as trying to convince the federal government that we need rebates for grain drying, for propane especially. We still haven't seen any meaningful action on that file. I think that's something that hurts agriculture, because it puts our farmers in Saskatchewan at a disadvantage compared to American farmers, who are our competitors. It's really unfair that the federal government is not acting sooner on some kind of rebate plan.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
In the time I have left, would you be able to share with the committee some of the highlights of the good, environmentally beneficial projects and activities that have been going on in Saskatchewan independently of federal government interference?
President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
One example, which I just made reference to, is small modular reactors. SMRs are something that our province.... In particular, SaskPower and SARM have sort of been partnering on the initial consultations for that. Ottawa is not directly involved in that, although I understand that Ottawa does support the concept of being able to do it. We're really leading the way in this province. New Brunswick and some of the other provinces—Ontario and I think just recently Alberta—signed on to an MOU to work together on those. Creating nuclear power is very important, I think. Number one, we need to able to share electricity a lot more efficiently on things like that with other provinces. I think that is one good example.
The other one that I did mention is the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association project. We partnered with this organization to show that farmers are sequestering carbon. We're taking a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere, but we're not able to convince the federal government that farmers should be qualified for offsets or carbon credits, because the federal government says it's business as usual, that it's nothing new. Farmers are developing and adapting new technology all the time and we still can't seem to get credit for it.
Liberal