Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 7th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Lepine, go ahead.

[Lionel Lepine]

That's a good question.

Going back to 1899, Treaty 8 was signed and it gave us the right to hunt, fish, and trap. Today it's pretty much impossible to go into areas where we went forty years ago. Twenty years ago there were lakes that don't exist any more. There are signs of contamination along the river shores, and you can see this odd foam-looking, weird substance that the elders cannot describe because they haven't seen it before.

The main channel that comes through Lake Athabasca has a silver streak going across it. There are various tributaries that go into the Peace-Athabasca Delta, which is the one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world. There are a lot of tributaries that go into areas where we used to go before, but they are inaccessible today because of lack of water.

The industry uses four barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil from the ground. So if you do the math, in one day I'm pretty sure about a million barrels of water come out of that river. If that Athabasca River is gone.... It has been one of the main sources for rivers that we've used for centuries upon centuries. I foresee that river becoming a creek; it's going to be the Athabasca Creek. So if mining continues at this fast and furious rate, I see that Athabasca River becoming a creek, and there won't be anywhere to get the water.

Now they're resorting to underground streams. They say they're not going to contaminate the underground water, but if they touch the water that's underground, that will affect underground water streams that ultimately lead into the Athabasca River. There are various tributaries and lakes that don't exist any more that were there thirty or forty years ago. Today there are some elders who could take you to places and show you where what you see now as prairies were once lakes. You can now walk across where lakes were at one time.

The cancer rate in Fort Chipewyan has quadrupled in the last ten years. In one month we buried seven people due to cancers that are very rare. One of the cancers is so rare that the ratio is one in a population of 100,000 people. Our population of Fort Chipewyan, where I live, is only 1,200 people. So explain two deaths in one year after being diagnosed with this rare form of cancer. Where is it coming from? These are questions we've been bringing up, and the only answer we can come up with is it's from this whole way of mining oil out of the ground right now.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

But since consultation is no longer an option, what do you intend to do? If you wait until your case is heard by the courts, everyone will be dead by then! And the damage to the wildlife and vegetation will be irreparable.

Are there certain actions that we could suggest to the government? Do we need a permanent forum for consultations between first nations and the various levels of government, one that would be required to meet, take action and get results? My concern is that if we let things continue on this path, decades will pass and nothing whatsoever will be resolved.

[Lionel Lepine]

Yes, perfect. In terms of the consultation process, like I said earlier, there is no crown consultation. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as I know, Canada has a duty to consult with aboriginals, the first nations, prior to development, prior to the planning stages, and that doesn't happen.

What happens is that industry officials come to our town, Fort Chipewyan, and they consult with us. They tell us about their plans. They tell us about their projects. We don't see any government officials. We would love to sit down with the government to come up with safer and more adequate ways of mining this oil, which is going to ensure the safety of not only my children, but your children as well. All of our great-grandchildren, who haven't even been born yet, are going to be affected if this continues at this rate. All we're asking is that we have adequate consultation.

The process right now is flawed, in my opinion. We haven't consulted properly with any government officials. Our consultation is always with industry. It's always industry people, or ERCB. We would love to sit down at the table to consult with the federal government, on a monthly basis if possible. Every time a project is proposed, we would love to sit down with the government and consult.

We have all these foreign countries, foreign investors coming in, and these people don't even know who we are as indigenous people. We would love for them to know who we are as well.

It's the consultation process that has to be revamped.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, Madame Brunelle.

We go now to Mr. Cullen, for up to seven minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today.

In the last thing you said, Mr. Lepine, you talked about the need for consultation. First nations have often been described as anti-development, as ideologically against what's happening in the tar sands. The last statement you said doesn't sound like an anti-development statement; it sounds like you want to be consulted prior to licences being issued.

[Lionel Lepine]

Exactly.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

To hear Mr. Thompson and others from industry describe the relationships between industry, the government, and first nations, it sounds like things are pretty good. They're a big employer of first nations—the largest in Alberta—things are great, you guys are making some money. There may be some environmental problems, but not according to the energy industry.

I guess Canadians can be forgiven for being confused. If you hear one side of the story, it sounds like everything is absolutely great with first nations relations and the oil industry in northern Alberta. But then you come before us and say otherwise.

[Lionel Lepine]

You know, Canada always wants to promote industry and they want to promote jobs. Like I said, our community has only 1,200 people. They want to promote jobs. They want to promote oil sands development and oil. But what they don't know, and what Canada seems to hide, is the fact that aside from the cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan.... I want to be able to go out in the bush and hunt. I want to be able to go out and kill a moose, and today it's getting to the point where we have to travel farther and farther away.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You said something earlier in your testimony about the cumulative impacts, one development project after another after another. They seem to get reviewed in isolation, as if they were existing in different parts of the world.

[Lionel Lepine]

Exactly.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

This committee is trying to understand energy security, and part of energy security for Canada is also environmental security, knowing we can keep doing this in the foreseeable future.

Is it your suggestion that cumulative impacts are critical to understanding the environmental component of energy security?

[Lionel Lepine]

Very crucial.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to turn that to Mr. Thompson. We've had CAPP and we've had Syncrude, Suncor, many of the leading oil companies in Alberta say Canada needs an energy security plan. Is your group of that opinion, or are you contrary to that opinion?

[Don Thompson]

In fact if you look at it I think one of the issues facing us as a nation is the need to ensure that all energy forms are understood and contribute to our long-term energy security. In that regard, we would not be opposed to a strategic energy plan.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

In that vein, then, and from my conversation with Mr. Lepine, there is frustration that when the government assesses these projects when they're being proposed there is never a consideration of the cumulative impact on the watershed. It's that each project is taken in isolation. As former premier Lougheed said, there never was a plan, and we needed a plan.

Are we not repeating that history again right now? Let me be specific on one point, because I think this is an important one for Canadians—proud Canadians, as has been said. Projects are now being approved explicitly for the export of raw bitumen in pipelines to other places for processing and upgrading. Is that true?

[Don Thompson]

First of all, let me take them in order.

In terms of cumulative impacts, every regulatory process that has ever gone on for as long as I can remember, going back to the 1970s, has required a cumulative impact assessment as part of the EIA process. That is a fundamental requirement. If you look at any environmental impact assessment or any regulatory process on any oil sands project, you will find that this is complete.

Second, in the province of Alberta, the lower Athabasca regional plan has rolled out. It is specifically a large-scale regional plan to deal with cumulative effects. With respect to land, just as an example, if you include Wood Buffalo National Park, as well as the 20% of northeast Alberta for which the Province of Alberta has asked for plans, it will amount to something like 40% of northeast Alberta that is set aside, free and clear of development. I know of not very many jurisdictions in the world that can say that.

With respect to....

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to be clear on the raw exports piece. Energy security is often talked about as affordable and sustainable. The current estimates are that for every 525,000 barrels of raw bitumen that go down a pipeline, we lose somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15,000 upgrading jobs and associated jobs in that industry. Does this plan feed Canada's energy security?

[Don Thompson]

Canada is an export market and economy. The aspects of that are that we need to export bitumen, because there is not sufficient market demand in Canada. There are also many facilities--

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sorry, can I stop you on that? I don't think what you just said is necessarily the point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Cullen, could you just let him complete his answer?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think he may have misunderstood my question, Chair, so I just want to clarify the question.

We're not talking about all of the oil that's processed in Canada being used in Canada. The specific question is about sending jobs down those same pipelines. If we previously set up the industry in such a way that the upgrading happened in Alberta, particularly, then when you lose those thousands of jobs, the energy security of Canada, in terms of reaping the best reward we can from our endowment of resources, is lessened, is it not?

[Don Thompson]

What's happening, if you look at our market in the States, is that some of those large heavy-oil refineries are no longer receiving supplies from Venezuela and Mexico and those heavy-oil-producing states. That is creating a market for Canadian heavy oil in the south, and that's what is happening. That oil is being exported to where the market demand is.

Right now there is not a sufficient spread between the price of bitumen and the price of upgraded crude oil to justify upgraders. So in fact that's not exporting jobs; that's responding to market demand.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I have a question. You mentioned the energy outlook from the International Energy Agency in your testimony. Is that right?

[Don Thompson]

Yes.