Natural Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the day and the evening.

[Sherif Barakat]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Members of the committee, you have seen a copy of the itinerary with respect to our working trip to Churchill Falls. Is there any question?

I think the last discussion we had came out of an issue raised by Mr. Russell with respect to attempting to meet with some of the community. I don't see that here. But I think the suggestion.... Oh good, there's an informal meeting at McParland House. I guess, then, that is with members of the committee.

Mr. Russell, you're satisfied that's what we're working towards there?

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes, and I want to thank Chad. He and I got together. They have a faster plane and it gets you there earlier. We made some accommodation that I think is fine, so two and a half hours is on the agenda if we have to use that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Excellent.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

My question has nothing to do with the itinerary. It has to do with something else. May I continue?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Let's finish with this, then we'll go on to something new.

Okay, so we're satisfied. Thank you to Chad and those who put this itinerary together.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Last Friday, I sent a letter to the chair asking that he consider holding an additional meeting to hear from witnesses involved in more expert research. I'm thinking here about engineers and others who are doing cutting edge research. They could help broaden our understanding of this matter. I was wondering if the clerk had read my letter and if we could possibly discuss it today. However, I now realize that you haven't received this letter.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Chad Mariage]

I just this minute received it.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

We sent it to the Chair, assuming that he would pass it on to you. Perhaps we could discuss it Wednesday and consider possible expert witnesses who could testify. It would be interesting for committee members to hear from experts in the field of energy research. We could talk about this on Wednesday.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Okay.

We may have a little more time with respect to our meeting on May 2. We can discuss it on Wednesday. But to the end that Madame DeBellefeuille has suggested, if any members have suggestions, we may be able to also have additional—

We are going to have, on May 2, as you will recall, out of the deputations we had—Through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities green program there are two or three excellent examples of integrated energy programs that are coming under cities or municipalities.

The last I heard, we were thinking of Okotoks, which comes out of Alberta, and Vulcan, which is also out west. But there is also Ottawa. Bob Mills suggested that there is quite a program, and it wouldn't be very difficult to get somebody from Ottawa. And there is Sudbury. They are both confirmed.

In any case, there may be a bit of time to also add to it from your perspective. If you have specific examples, don't wait until Wednesday. Let's bring them forward.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

You already have our list. We've already submitted it.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

The Chairman has our list of prospective witnesses. Is the Minister still scheduled to appear on May 2?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

I have no idea. I will turn it over to Chad.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chairman, I've just been informed today that the Minister will not be available on May 2. Other possible dates have been suggested and I've been in touch with the Chair's office. As you can see, the Chair is not here today. I will run the suggested dates by him and he'll get back to you. One of the possible dates was next Monday, but we won't be here. The Chair will have to get back to you on this.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

There are two issues. We'll reschedule the minister, but if the May 2 date has excess time in it, we may be able to bring in some of those leading-edge energy experts, program directors, or whatever. So I just want to make sure that if that is the direction we want to go in—

We don't need to wait until Wednesday to discuss it. We'll discuss it on Wednesday, but put in some ideas as to who we might be able to bring in.

Go ahead, Mr. Ouellet.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I think we need to come to a decision today and not wait until next Wednesday to discuss this matter. Then we could substitute other witnesses for the minister. It's interesting to hear from generalists. This witness is a specialist, but not in our current field of study. We need to hear from specialists in areas that relate to our mandate.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Okay, but I think we're going in that direction. We see an opportunity to fill the time in addition to the municipal examples. I will tell you that on the basis of knowledge I have, for example, if we invited people from the deep water cooling and heating program in Toronto, they really are leading-edge thinkers. It is not only the financing; it's the actual integration into the downtown energy use grid and the co-generation from it into the overall electric grid. We will get that kind of testimony, I think, from these people, but we can expand that with the suggestions that are put forward.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I have a really quick question. What were the folks from Hydro Québec who were supposed to be here going to talk about?

[The Clerk]

I'm sure Jean-Luc could probably answer that a little bit better in terms of his conversations with them. In the invitation, they were given essentially what you saw on the agenda for today. They were given the pretty general theme of this study and the more specific theme of hydro-electricity and its future role and future potential.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Were you able to get hold of folks on the transmission side?

[The Clerk]

Yes, the NPCC is confirmed for Wednesday.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

That's great.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Okay.

The committee is adjourned.