Natural Resources Committee on May 10th, 2012

[Mimi Fortier]

Yes. The all-weather roads in the Northwest Territories, specifically, don't reach right up to the central Mackenzie Valley, right up to the Norman Wells oil field, for instance. In Norman Wells there's a winter road, but not yet an all-season road.

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

What kind of timeline do you foresee as closing that gap? Is it even being foreseen that this type of thing could be developed, and what would be the implications of that?

[Mimi Fortier]

You know, I can't answer the first question. It's not within our purview. I would suggest, though, that there's always an interest in P3 development. So if the exploration that's currently taking place in shale reveals a major development potential, I would imagine that the industry itself would be very interested in investing in that infrastructure.

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

We want them to be a partner in that development as well.

[Mimi Fortier]

The federal government is involved in the initial phases of developing roads, but then the territories or the provinces take on the role of operating and maintenance.

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

Including the private sector.

[Mimi Fortier]

In this case it may be so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

We'll go now to Mr. Anderson for up to five minutes.

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

Just to quickly reference geomapping—and we've talked quite a bit about that here at the committee and how important it is.... [Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Anderson, just turn your mike on. The mikes aren't working properly today.

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

Okay, I'll start over.

You mentioned that geomapping was important in your consultations. Can you give us some information about how you find it useful, what kinds of things you are doing, maybe even a little bit about what areas we're covering? We have heard that the north is not completely mapped yet. Could you comment on that?

[Michel Chenier]

Thank you.

I will answer your question on two levels. There are two different types of geomapping. The geomapping I was speaking about is software that we use to organize the environmental data; that is, baseline information on the migration patterns of species, for example, but also on specific areas that are of cultural significance, for example. This is mainly an environmental, GIS type of system.

On the other hand, I appreciate your comments on the need to better understand the north from a geological potential. In the oil and gas sector we see the basic mapping as being very much a front-running indicator about the potential for oil and gas, which is subsequently then verified using more specific techniques that are sometimes proprietary in nature. It is a very useful kind of tool to get a high level—you can call it sort of a 10,000-foot level—view of the resource potential, which then feeds into our rights issuance process. Then the cycle is initiated.

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

Okay. So Natural Resources Canada funds some of the geological mapping programs. You're talking about the environmental mapping. Is it part of the same program, or where does the funding for it and the initiative for it come from? Do you know? I'm interested.

[Mimi Fortier]

The Geological Survey of Canada has the geomapping program, but separate from that, as oil and gas managers we have our own web-based tool, which Michel spoke to and which we use for consultations.

So there are two different initiatives. Ours is really to support our program and our conversation with the public.

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

Okay, but who gathers the data for you, then? Do you gather it from other departments?

[Mimi Fortier]

Yes, exactly. The raw data is from other departments, such as Fisheries, Environment, the Geological Survey.

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

So the geological mapping is more direct mapping of the data that we've recovered.

[Mimi Fortier]

That's right. We have just made a compilation.

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

Okay. That's interesting.

You spoke about the Beaufort Regional Environmental Assessment. I'd like you to talk a little bit more about BREA. There are a couple of statements I'd like you to address. You talked of bringing a whole group of parties together to work to identify priorities and fund research and about your being funded for $20 million over four years. Can you talk about how big an area that covers geographically?

Also, you talk about it strengthening “the relationship between environmental assessment and integrated management and planning in the region”. Can you give us some details about what that means?

[Michel Chenier]

Thank you.

The Beaufort regional environmental assessment actually covers the entire Beaufort Sea. From the beginning, there was a sort of common understanding from parties that there were certain issues that really didn't lend themselves very well to being assessed on a project-by-project basis. As you probably know, our environmental assessment regime in Canada is generally driven by specific applications or projects. There are some efficiencies to be gained and actually there is some value in looking at certain environmental indicators or environmental components on a more regional level. There was sort of an understanding of that by all of the partners. We all came to the table by trying to identify what those priorities were, which ultimately led to development of the work program that BREA ended up being.

This may sound a little bit abstract at this point, so I'll provide one specific example. We often hear discussion, and we heard some earlier about the pace of development and cumulative effects and how you exactly then measure on a scientific level how the environment is reacting to development. In the case of BREA, matters around the evaluation of cumulative effects are actually undertaken in the program. So we have a program set up that will intake information from specific projects and then have it assessed more on a regional level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

We'll go now to Mr. Julian for up to five minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to share my time with Ms. Liu.

I'm going to start off with Mr. McGowan. In the first round of questions, he wasn't able to complete his answer about the loss of jobs with the fall in upgrading from 62% to below 50%.

Mr. McGowan, you talked about Keystone. If we include Keystone and some of the other proposed “rip it and ship it” pipelines, Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan, raw bitumen for export, what would be your estimate of the total loss of jobs from not having that upgrading done in Canada and not having the refining done in Canada? What are we losing from these raw resource export projects?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. McGowan.

[Gil McGowan]

Thanks for the question.

Honestly, it's a little bit difficult to quantify. We've made estimates based on each pipeline that has been approved or proposed. We estimated that Keystone 1 would result in the loss of about 18,000 jobs; Keystone XL about 30,000, between 30,000 and 50,000; and similar numbers with Alberta Clipper. The numbers are even larger with the proposed Gateway pipeline. To put it in a nutshell, to help people understand, the transport volume that's being built right now would allow the energy industry to export all the expected increases in production over the next 20 or 30 years. These pipelines would give the industry the capacity to send out every new drop of new production over and above what we already have.

So what we're talking about is virtually no job creation in upgrading or refining for the foreseeable future in Alberta. As the volume increases, the percentage of raw exports is going to jump dramatically, so we're looking at the potential loss of thousands and thousands of direct jobs and even more indirect jobs.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. McGowan.

We're probably talking in the neighbourhood of 100,000, just based on the very rough estimates that you're giving us.