Evidence of meeting #63 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Supply Chain Management - Operations, Business Services, Suncor Energy Inc.
Specifically with respect to permafrost, there is no expectation for permafrost in any of our designs in Fort McMurray. These are sand-dike construction, with liners in some cases.
I'm not really sure of the nature of the question, I guess. From the permafrost perspective, it was never an expectation in the Fort McMurray area.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
I know there's no permafrost in Fort McMurray, but climate change also affects Fort McMurray. Are you taking into consideration future climate change when you're building these tailings ponds?
General Manager, Supply Chain Management - Operations, Business Services, Suncor Energy Inc.
I'm not certain of the link, actually, between tailings ponds and greenhouse gas emissions in this regard.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
All right. Thank you.
Mr. Levy, in our briefing notes there's a reference to how Ontario is expected to install more than 5,600 megawatts of new wind energy capacity by 2013, creating 80,000 person-years of employment, and to how wind energy can satisfy 20% of Canada's electricity demand by 2025. Is most of the employment in the building of the turbines? Where in Ontario are they projecting there to be wind energy capacity growth? In your view, are those projections of 20% realistic?
Manager, Technical and Utility Affairs, Canadian Wind Energy Association
They're certainly realistic. It requires stable policy. With that stable policy, then, certainly the industry can meet those demands. In terms of the jobs, the breakdown is about two-thirds in construction and one-third in operations and maintenance.
The other question that I believe you had was about where in Ontario we are going to see most of that growth. Certainly, southern Ontario is seeing a substantial number of the contracts already in place, as well as some regions in northern Ontario, assuming appropriate electrical infrastructure to transmit it to market.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
In your presentation you also talked a little about the far north. I read an article about there being enough wind in the far north to take some of these communities that rely on diesel oil for power and remove them from using diesel oil. Is this something you have studied?
Manager, Technical and Utility Affairs, Canadian Wind Energy Association
We haven't studied it specifically. I'd caution the 100% wind; I don't think that's necessarily a realistic application at this point. With the advent of reduced cost in terms of storage, certainly, that might be a possibility. In terms of wind resource up north, there is a significant resource, and there are significant opportunities to capture that and reduce the reliance on diesel.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Okay. Some of the wind farms are going to be in northern Ontario. We're getting a lot of complaints from people. They don't want these wind farms because of the noise pollution. Have you studied this also and can you tell us what you're doing to remove this noise pollution?
Manager, Technical and Utility Affairs, Canadian Wind Energy Association
Well, in terms of the physical noise, there's research under way in all parts of the world to see where that noise is produced and what is done to mitigate it. Most of the time, it really does boil down to good community engagement.
Time and time again, it is shown that a good relationship with a community—one that sees broad distribution of benefits within the community, the use of local labour, and certainly some innovative ways to engage the communities and share that economic wealth that's generated—will often result in a positive response in the communities. Engaging the community in a responsible and respectful manner is at the forefront of what we're promoting. We're certainly meeting that through production of documents like our community engagement and best practices document, which right now is undergoing a review and updating.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Gravelle.
Finally, we'll go now to Ms. Crockatt—this time really—for up to five minutes.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you very much. I'm going to address my questions to Professor Gray and Mr. Wamboldt.
What I'm actually hearing is that this is a very good news story and that you've made really great progress on the technological side and environmentally. We've heard from you, Professor Gray, that Canada is a world leader in oil sands technology, and from you, Mr. Wamboldt, that we're decreasing our GHG intensity, the tailings ponds reclamation has been cut by one third, and the water use has declined by half. These things are really important, because the oil sands are the future for Canada and a very significant part of the way that we are going to continue both to balance our budget and to pay for our important social programs.
But my question is about innovation and communication. I think that you know all these things and that some of the members of this committee know these things. I'm sure that for others it's new information. I'm wondering if this same level of innovation that you're supplying on the technological side is also being used on the communication side, because I see the biggest barrier to market here being the social licence to operate. I'm wondering what your comments are with regard to that.
Director and Professor, University of Alberta, Centre for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta, As an Individual
That's a fascinating question. I'm trying to think of an appropriate response. I completely agree that communication and understanding are a huge part of the issue, because I've lately been engaged in some of the pipeline debates in the United States and have observed the difference between information and misinformation in some of those debates.
That's an interesting challenge that I'd like to take away, think about, and discuss with my colleagues at the university, as to what we can do in terms of communication when you get these kinds of issues that become so polarizing in some communities. How do you work around that?
General Manager, Supply Chain Management - Operations, Business Services, Suncor Energy Inc.
Again, that's a very interesting question; I appreciate your asking it. It's one that over the last four years in my previous job I've been puzzling over with our communications department. The fact is some of the stuff is not very interesting in terms of actually getting to the facts. How do you get these dry facts to the people who are forming opinions? What we've tried to do recently is a program called OSQAR, which is a blogging type of set-up, to try to make these messages a little more available to people. We have a Facebook account now and a Twitter account, so we're trying to use some of the new social media channels to get the facts out there, both as a company and also, of course, through CAPP as an organization.
We get the facts on the ground. We're open to a discussion. As I said in the prepared notes, nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. We've certainly welcomed a number of people onto our site to come and see things for what they are, and I've always had very engaging discussions with folks out there.
From an innovation perspective, it's things like OSQAR blogs, Facebook, Twitter—whatever channels we can land on.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Okay, maybe it's just a bit of a challenge to you. While you're moving ahead by leaps and bounds on the technological side, we need to get the public to catch up so that you can continue to do what you do and so that Canada's resources can be developed.
I might just pose the question to Mr. Whittaker about innovation. You're there to spur innovation. Is there much of an emphasis being placed on the need to make sure that the public knows what's being done here?
January 29th, 2013 / 5:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Investments and Chief Technology Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
There are lots of good news stories out there. I'd agree that more needs to be done. You can never do enough, really. And there's enough fresh innovation out there going on, both what the companies develop themselves and from new entrepreneurs coming about. We see it every day, coming about, what this could mean. And we're at a stage of development where these things aren't too early, when you wouldn't want to announce them; they're actually on the ground, commercializing, demonstrating, and operationalizing what's going on. So the more announcements in every media, the better. There's actually a whole stack of those ready to go. We put out two a year, so there in itself you have 15 or 20 companies with great announcements.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Ms. Crockatt.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses we've had before us today. The information you've given us really will be a help in writing our report. Thank you so much, and thank you to all the members for your great questions.
We will suspend the meeting for just a couple of minutes as we go in camera and as the witnesses leave, and we'll get right back to a short in camera meeting.
[Proceedings continue in camera]