Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 1st, 2011

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Chair, the witnesses have shared with us their points of view and expertise. Just because someone doesn't agree with you, that doesn't mean you can intimidate them and try to make them see things your way.

When witnesses testify before us in good faith and give us their point of view, I find it absolutely unacceptable that some committee members crucify them publicly because they do not agree with them. I find it unacceptable, and I ask that you prevent such things from happening again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Coderre, of course that is not a point of order.

It is up to each member of the committee to determine how they conduct their questioning, and Mr. Anderson is completely in order.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Actually, this goes back to something maybe a little bit earlier. Mr. Coderre is a bit defensive on this because he was the one who asked a U.S. witness—a federal politician asking a U.S. witness—to tell the Quebec provincial government what they should do on shale gas. I don't think Mr. Coderre can give us any lectures. I think he should be minding provincial jurisdiction and paying a little bit of attention there--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

A point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Coderre, is that on another--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

It's another point of order. My line of questioning was to ask an expert about his point of view on an issue that's important for every Canadian here. So I'm not going to let him--

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Order, please. You've made the point before.

Mr. Anderson, carry on, please.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

I guess I understand now why Mr. Coderre is so defensive about this, but that's all right.

I'll go to Mr. Angevine. You talked about some of this--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Pardon? You have something else to say that's important? Everything you say is important, isn't it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Order, please.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Angevine, you talked earlier about some of the specific regulatory hurdles that you identified that stand in the way, and you mentioned the NEB and some of the things around them. I'm just wondering if you have some other things that you could identify that would be regulatory hurdles that this committee could address in our report later.

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

Those six that I identified were the main areas. Did you want me to drill down into the NEB situation a little more?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Sure. You've talked about the NEB. I'm just wondering if there are other areas that you have concerns about. You could talk about that, if you have some specifics you'd like to mention.

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

Is it with respect to the NEB itself? Yes.

I think just as a casual observer, I see the NEB doing things like quarterly reviews of the energy outlook in Canada, for example, that are useful. Things like that are things really left to the marketplace, to consultants. I don't think the NEB needs to have a core of people providing reports on the energy outlook on a regular basis.

The NEB's role as a regulator under the NEB Act is to look at what is specified in the act. I alluded to the fact that the act itself calls on the NEB to determine if a project is feasible and to look at the economic impacts and things of that sort. I'm not sure that's something the NEB needs to worry about. I think its role should be to look at matters of public safety and environmental issues and things that are in that sort of area, not to be concerned with the viability of a project. That should be left to the risk-takers.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Natural resources, as most of us know, are under provincial jurisdiction. I'm just wondering if you see any complications in terms of jurisdictional issues faced in the development of this industry.

I guess exploration permits are the responsibility of the provinces....

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

Certainly, when you look at the moratoria on offshore drilling in British Columbia, there are two governments involved. In a way, there are more than two: there are the first nations, the Haida, who have a strong interest because of where they reside. In the north, the overlapping regulations between the different—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you have any solutions for that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Anderson, your time is up.

A short answer, please.

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

The governments have to work together from a single window that prospective investors can deal with, rather than from a maze of windows with many officials from several levels of government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Angevine.

Mr. Hoback, welcome to our committee. It's great to see you here. Go ahead.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair. I look forward to working with this committee. It looks like a great group of people here.

First of all, I want to welcome the witnesses to the committee. I appreciate your testimony and your interest in the topic we are discussing today.

This past year, I had the luxury of going to a fracking in process at the EnCana site just outside Dawson Creek. I talked to people in the community. We went to an opening of their local arena. EnCana had provided a substantial amount of money to build that arena in Dawson Creek. Without EnCana they wouldn't have been able to do it. We talked to some of the local people about the impacts and their concerns. There were concerns. There's no question about that.

There are concerns with everything we do. There are concerns when a farmer puts a seed in the ground, but you have to weigh that against the benefits. You talk to people about what they think and you move forward.

It was interesting to go to that fracking site to see the safety and security and the process. I get a little confused here today because I hear testimony about broken valves and stuff, as Mr. Harris talked about, and yet I never saw anything like that. In fact, what I saw was something that was very tightly controlled, very highly regulated; it is something where not just anybody is going to walk onto that site and not be accounted for. In fact, I looked at their safety systems and the monitoring, and it was very impressive.

That was my first site, so I'm not an expert on the topic. There might be more to it, I don't know, but I'd encourage the committee to at least look at these things before you start making judgments on what you're going to do in your own province.

Mr. Northrop, you're doing the right thing. You're actually going out and talking to the people in the field. You're going to the areas and getting the information first-hand and learning from other people's mistakes. That is a wise thing to do. I just hope you won't be scared away by extremists. When I look at what's happening in the communities and what they told us there, it is a very positive thing.

In Saskatchewan we had an NDP government for quite a few years, and they had this theory that we would let the gas stay in the ground. That was a good theory. We let the oil stay in the ground while the kids all got educated and moved off to Calgary, which became the biggest city of Saskatchewan people who weren't in Saskatchewan. You have to look at what's best for your communities and what's best for your province before you start making decisions.

That is going to lead into where David stopped. When we look at provincial jurisdictions and what barriers are in place, Mr. Angevine, what are those barriers? Where are we overlapping? On the agriculture side, we see overlap all the time, and it's more than frustrating. There must be a tremendous amount of overlap that could be removed. Could you identify some of those overlaps?

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

You mean between provinces?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I was thinking between the federal and the provincial.... You have the federal government coming in and doing a regulatory process, and then you see the province doing a regulatory process of their own. A lot of times, there are two different people doing the exact same thing.

[Dr. Gerry Angevine]

It's worse than two different people. In some cases, you have different facets of the same government. You could have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. You could have Environment Canada. You could have Natural Resources Canada. You could have Alberta Environment. You could have Alberta Energy. You can have five or six government departments involved in a particular project. In some provinces, at least, there has been an effort to reduce that by bringing the provincial parties together in a single window.

Today, we see more of an effort, because of the importance of environmental issues, to form joint panels, joint hearings, as we see now with regard to the Gateway project in British Columbia, with the province and the NEB coming together. You see joint panels with NEB and parties from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, but we need to see more of that across the country to streamline the regulatory process and shorten the time it takes to get approval of a project if it's worthy of being approved.