Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 28th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You have a little more than a minute for a question and answer.

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

I'm well aware of my time, Mr. Chair.

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I can talk some more about that issue.

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

Well, I want to ask you a little bit about this. First, because of the study we're doing here, I'll note that one of the recommendations I will be including is thresholding—

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm sorry?

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

—thresholding, so that small projects are not looked at in the same way as large projects.

In your final 30-odd seconds, can you give us a little more background on things you're doing in northern Canada? You mentioned the Meadowbank mine. As I mentioned, I worked as a mining geophysicist at that mine a decade ago. It's a great example of how mining has been helping to develop the north. Do you have any comments about the work in the north and how Natural Resources is helping to develop it, in the final few seconds here?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mineral resource development is absolutely essential for northern economic growth. Economic opportunities north of 60 are driven by mineral development, accounting for 81% of resource production. There's further potential, actually, for oil and gas development in the medium to long term.

More than $8 billion in new mine investment in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is slated for the next five years. The government has launched an action plan to improve the northern regulatory regime to bring a whole-of- government approach to regulatory issues and to attract investment opportunities.

NRCan—my department, Natural Resources Canada—supports public geoscience in the north. And there the effort is to bring geological knowledge of 40% of Canada's land mass up to par with geoscience knowledge of the land mass south of 60. The geomapping program for energy and minerals—that's “GEM”—is a northern economic development program that's designed to provided public geoscience knowledge that industry needs to guides its exploration strategies in the three territories.

I have run out of time, but this is a really exciting area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

Mr. Allen, you have up to five minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, welcome to committee.

I want to pick up on the AECL sale and the restructuring. When it was announced, we were talking a little about jobs, and Mr. Trudeau was talking earlier a little bit about where we think SNC might be going in terms of developing the nuclear industry in Canada and staying with it. Maybe one of the big indications of that is found in the number of jobs that were saved by the transaction.

Can you give us an update, now that the transaction is getting to its closing point, on where we are concerning those jobs and how many of them were saved by the transaction?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Yes. Our government has protected over 1,500 jobs in the restructuring of the CANDU division of AECL. That's more than 300 jobs above the number predicted, and it's good news for Canada's nuclear sector.

Indeed, not a single unionized employee was laid off. We are of course honouring all our commitments on workforce transitions, including pensions, and we're providing $75 million dollars to cover these costs, although we expect the bill will come in lower because of the larger-than-expected workforce being retained.

So I think the conditions are in place for a strong nuclear sector going forward.

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

Can you tell me, then, based on the sale of the business to SNC-Lavalin, what your impressions are? Obviously this suggests to me that we're going to have a strong nuclear industry going forward. Based on your travels, what are your impressions of the nuclear industry in Canada and the business prospects for AECL now under SNC-Lavalin?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

As I said, I think the conditions are in place for a strong, robust industry. First, SNC-Lavalin is a strong Canadian private sector partner, and it has an extensive international network of contacts to sell its services. Secondly, there is increased demand for these reactors from emerging economies, which can be tapped by the CANDU technology. Third, there is a great potential in the technology itself. Unlike light water reactors, the CANDU does not require highly enriched uranium, and we're actively pursuing the ability of the reactor to use thorium. This is especially important in markets such as China, which doesn't have large uranium resources but has strong thorium resources.

Then, as I mentioned earlier, I was pleased to see that the new CANDU division of SNC has already signed a contract with Argentina to refurbish a reactor, and that's a several hundred million dollar contract—I think, a $400-million contract. This shows that there is a market under the leadership of a private sector company.

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

Thank you, Minister. That leads to my next question. It's going to be a little bit about isotope production in Chalk River.

The committee had an opportunity to travel out to Chalk River a little while back. It was a fascinating visit, to see the work going on to refurbish the isotope facility at the time. I know it enlightened many of the committee members at the time about just how complex that job was.

In the estimates, we're talking about $200 million. The explanatory text talks about operational requirements and ongoing programs. Can you talk a little about the breakdown of that $200 million? Maybe Mr. Dupont could reflect on this too. How much of the $200 million is for the isotope facility? And could you give us your view of our continuing participation in Chalk River?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Let me make some general comments first.

Our government has been clear that we're moving away from isotope production at Chalk River in 2016. We sent a message out to that effect. We're working to transform the way medical isotopes are produced in Canada.

Earlier this year, we announced an investment in four projects by the non-nuclear-based isotope supply contribution program, NISP, to develop new ways of producing the key medical isotope technetium-99m. These investments will allow Canada to diversify its supply of isotopes in the medium term to long term.

While we know these isotopes can be produced using this technology, we are researching whether production can be scaled up while ensuring the quality of the isotopes. We look forward to reviewing the results.

I'm not sure, in terms of the breakdown of the numbers—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We really don't have time to get into the numbers right now. Mr. Allen's time is up, so we have to go now to the official opposition, and Monsieur Gravelle, and then Monsieur Lapointe if there's time.

Go ahead please, Monsieur Gravelle.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, are you familiar with the study from Cornell University called Pipe Dreams? Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

No, I'm not.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

No, you're not? Okay.

Well, it's hard to figure out, because the government has been telling everybody that 140,000 jobs are going to be created because of this pipeline, but most of the pipeline for Keystone has already been built. The kinds of pipes required—they're called spiral pipes—are not made at the Camrose plant. Very few are made at the Evraz plant in Regina. These pipes are made in India and China; they're going to be the big winners here.

Can you table for this committee exactly what these 140,000 jobs will be, and how many manufacturing jobs there will be in Alberta and Saskatchewan?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

The bulk of the jobs relate to the development of the oil sands. We know this pipeline is mainly going through the United States, so there will be jobs created in the United States. We've estimated there will be 20,000 construction jobs in the U.S. But there will be more jobs created in Canada because it's the oil sands development—which, of course, is feeding the bitumen into the pipeline for transport to the Gulf Coast, where it will be refined.

The oil sands, overall—

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Minster, we only have five minutes.

I think what you're telling me is that there won't be any manufacturing jobs created in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and that they're mostly going to be in the U.S.?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

No, I said there will be a lot of jobs relating to the oil sands. That means companies will be supplying goods and services from all over Canada, including Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. These are jobs for companies located across the country. The direct, indirect, and induced employment from the oil sands will be 450,000 at least. With the pipelines, it will be over 600,000 jobs.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Here is an excerpt from you presentation: "[...] Canada is a reliable and environmentally friendly source of energy and natural resources."

As far as asbestos is concerned, you realize that the international community does not think that it is environmentally friendly. You must know that, for nearly a month now, mining production in Quebec has come to an overall halt. No one has been working in the asbestos mines for almost a month now.

You must certainly know that a lot of elected representatives, actually more and more, including some in your own caucus, no longer support the idea of financing this industry. You are aware, I hope, that a large part of civil society in Quebec—which is after all the province most concerned—no longer supports asbestos. Everyone in the CSQ, the CSN and the Coalition pour que le Québec ait meilleure mine no longer support asbestos.

So we have before us a historical moment to do what should be done, that is, to finance a transition plan for the asbestos workers in order to diversify the economy for the younger ones and help the older ones make it to their retirement, and stop operations.

Mr. Minister, do you plan to take advantage of these historical circumstances? If not, how can you justify a decision that would be so harmful for the health of hundreds of thousands of workers around the world, and now clearly as harmful for the economy of the asbestos region?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

For over 30 years, Canada has promoted the controlled of chrysotile nationally and internationally—the safe use of it

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

We've heard that 25 times.

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Federal funds are given to the Chrysotile Institute under a standard contribution agreement, paid by the department. The agreement between the government and the CI, which initially was supposed to end in March 2011 after a three-year period, has been extended.