Natural Resources Committee on June 8th, 2006

[Richard Fadden]

I will make sure your comments are forwarded to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.

Unfortunately you've gone over the five minutes with the question, so it doesn't leave any time for the answer.

We have asked and answered your question about EnerGuide, and we do want to get to the other members of the committee, so please be very brief in your response.

[Richard Fadden]

I'll be very brief, in the sense that Mr. Ouellet mostly asked me to transmit his thoughts to the minister, and I'll do that. But I would like to make one general comment on the areas he's been talking about.

Be it geothermal, solar, or wind, the previous government commissioned a blue ribbon panel to look at all of these things. We're about to start discussing with the provinces, and the minister intends to take these consultations into account when he recommends to his colleagues either the continuation, augmentation, or reduction of the programs in the fall.

I think it's fair to say that his mind and the minds of his colleagues are still open to these sorts of things. I go back to what he said. They've only been here for the last four or five months and that's not a long time to adjust all of these, but there are a number of review programs actively under way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Fadden.

Mr. Paradis, you're going to begin. Then I'd like to move on to Mr. Trost, so please keep it brief.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Deputy Minister, I would like to know what the department's official reaction is to the findings of the Senate report entitled Water in the West, especially with regard to the recommendation to accelerate the mapping out of water tables.

[Richard Fadden]

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

We asked the minister the same question when he appeared before a Senate committee. He agreed with the existing research program and he asked me to see if it was possible to speed up the process.

As you are aware I'm sure, we hope to have the research program completed in 2010. He told me we should find resources within the department in order to accomplish it. We'll also check with federal departments if new funds could be made available.

I did not respond to your question specifically, but I wanted to give you an idea of the general direction things are headed in.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I start with a question I want to make a little statement. Committees being committees, we often wander off topic. I hope you'll forgive me for this, but there's got to be a forum to say the odd thing now and then.

One of the things Natural Resources and Environment...and we generally get way too many questions here at committee on Kyoto, climate change, and all that. But one of the things that I think should be noted is that not everyone in this world is quite as enthused about the whole spending on climate change, or is quite as convinced that it is actually a man-made thing that's happening.

To back my opinion, I'll cite things like the Heidelberg Appeal, which had 4,000 signatory scientists, including 72 Nobel Prize winners; and the Oregon Petition with 8,000, etc. They're basically calling for a debate on whether or not the questions that are presumed to be answered are actually being answered.

I have seen surveys. One was commissioned by the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. They hired the Gallup polling firm to poll climatologists on whether or not man-made or human warming was actually occurring. These being North American scientists, 49% said no, approximately 17% said yes, and a percentage in between said maybe.

So I guess I'm saying that when you have discussions with your environment colleagues, or give advice to the minister or something, be cognizant of that opinion out there. I'm not really asking for a response on this statement; I'm just saying there are members of Parliament who sit in support of the government who don't totally agree with everything, in all the spending and so forth. We're a little concerned about $2 billion over five years. We're not quite as convinced with the entirety of the rhetoric.

So I'm not really asking for a response. It's just that in committees you sometimes need to say things that are out there. At least there should be a debate. I know that Natural Resources is open to scientific opinion, debate, and so forth. I commend the department for that. As I've pointed out, I don't think Nobel Prize winners are generally viewed as flat-earth scientists, nor are members of the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union. So that's just a comment I want to start off with.

Now, to get to something that's probably more relevant to your responsibilities and to this committee, the Office of the Auditor General came out with a report, and part of it mentioned Natural Resources Canada and the management there. One of the statements she made was:

Natural Resources Canada has been working on a number of significant issues. However, the Department does not have a corporate strategic plan that addresses its legislative mandate and government priorities, is communicated to staff...

It goes on from there, and I'm sure you're all well aware of it.

I'm very curious. I understand you have been taking steps in responding to the Auditor General. I wonder if you might elaborate on what you've been doing to correct some of the questions that the Auditor General raised.

[Richard Fadden]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You're taking me back to two weeks after I was appointed to my current job. Your colleagues in the public accounts committee in the former Parliament also asked a similar question.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I've given you a little more time.

[Richard Fadden]

This is true.

I told the committee then—and the Auditor General was sitting next to me—that I thought she was being a little bit unkind when she characterized the way the department was carrying out its responsibilities. You don't necessarily need to have a formal plan with three gold stamps on it to mean that you're coordinated and know what you're doing.

Since then we have developed an overarching corporate approach to things. I had undertaken to give it to that committee in the previous Parliament. We suspended work on that a little bit at the time of the election, as we're required to do, and we're just about ready to talk to the minister about it.

I apologize, but I don't think I'm in a position to tell you a great deal about it, because we haven't had a substantive conversation with the minister. We did take the Auditor General's comment in general and have been working on it. If you ask us the same question in the fall, I think I would be able to give you a fairly concrete answer. I'm sorry I can't do better now.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

That's fair enough. I wasn't quite sure where the planning was. I understood there was some work done. I thought maybe it was farther along.

I'll then go on to paragraph 1.2 of her report, where she pointed out, “The Department is the federal lead in developing civil emergency plans for co-ordinating federal response to emergencies in a number of areas...”. Maybe your answer's going to be similar to the previous question, but what can you tell me about what you're developing and what stage--basically as much as you can? I know the minister will have more detailed questions than I can bring.

[Richard Fadden]

This is an area where we have in fact made a fair bit of progress since the hearing with the Auditor General. I can't quite remember, but it's 11 or 12 areas where the Emergencies Act requires the department to take the lead.

We have developed draft plans at the strategic level in every single case. We've gone down one level of detail to try to make sure that when an emergency actually happens, we have practical processes set out for people to deal with it. They are now tentatively in place.

For example, we opened the new operations centre in the department to be able to deal with these. Mr. Brown's sector is responsible for electrical reliability, and there's a specific plan to deal with that. If you were interested in asking him, I think he could tell you about it in a little more detail. It involves coordinating with the provinces to make sure we know who is involved in the provinces in terms of the sharing of electricity. We have similar arrangements with the United States. We have written arrangements now with the United States to deal with the sort of blackout that occurred in Ontario. We also have plans to ensure that notices of these kinds of events are put out in a very organized fashion.

There is another one where I in fact disagree and continue to disagree with the Auditor General, for example, when she said that our department's plan for dealing with mine disasters was inadequate. I had to remind her that this is a provincial responsibility. NRCan is responsible for one mine, and it's one mine that we own.

We have a plan for that. One of the difficulties we have in this area is that the actual resources are owned by the provinces. A large part of what we do is to coordinate and make sure that their plan and what we can do with the federal government are on the same wavelength. I think we've done that fairly effectively.

Perhaps you'd be interested in having Mr. Brown tell you a little about electrical reliability.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Well, since the chair is not watching the time, I'd take this opportunity.

[Howard Brown, Assistant Deputy Minister, Energy Policy Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

I'd be happy to come back at another time to tell you in detail about our responsibilities for electrical reliability.

I only have one small clarification. The federal government is of course not directly responsible for the reliability of the electrical system; it's the responsibility of the provinces. We are responsible for the federal government's role.

It's actually a little broader than that. More broadly, we are the lead federal department on supply disruptions in energy. Since taking over as deputy, Mr. Fadden has reminded the executive committee on several occasions that we are deficient in this area and we should do better. I think that I, Margaret, and the other ADM's are taking that to heart.

If I could give a little good news, I think one area where we're responsible is coordinating international cooperation in the event of a disruption in the supply of crude petroleum. This happened last fall. We're still working our way through the evaluation of how that worked, but I think that on the whole we did what we needed to do, and the International Energy Agency as a whole had a plan that worked. While I think we need to do better, I think we've started on that and there are some positive developments for plans that we have in place.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you.

In the 30 seconds that are left, I'd suggest to the committee, with no major insistence, this might possibly be an area that we might look at further in the future.

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, I was hoping to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

Yes, I think all of us had that notion when we spoke with the minister and the officials. The exercise today and for the past month is to be exploratory in terms of areas that we wish to pursue further. We would welcome input from the department on areas that you think might benefit from perusal by this committee.

Mr. Cullen.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The minister mentioned hybrid vehicles. Has the department ever done any work on looking at an incentive because of the price spread? I know they have something in the United States. In fact, I'm told that the demand there is outstripping supply and they might even be looking at getting rid of the incentive. I'm not sure we're at that stage in Canada. Has the department ever looked at that?

[Margaret McCuaig-Johnston]

The former government had in fact asked the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy to look at exactly this question of rebates and feebates. The report came in a number of months ago and recommended that no action be taken on that issue now and that further work needed to be done.

We're taking the analysis that was done in the sector under advisement, and there are some further discussions with environmental groups and with the sector. It's something that in the medium term is potentially part of it.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could we get a copy of that report? I imagine it's on their website, but—

[Margaret McCuaig-Johnston]

Yes, that's right, it's on their website.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

It's on their website, okay. I'm interested in it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Cullen, I haven't been able to advise the committee of this yet, but we have invited the commissioner and the round table representatives, as you requested. They will be appearing before the committee on June 20, so you'll have an hour or so to question them directly.