Evidence of meeting #64 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 nuclear.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
So even though your report was completed in August, you wouldn't have been able to comment on the procedures and policies that were really worked out since June of 2012 to deal with some of these issues under the revised CEAA.
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
As far as I recall, there were actually no new environmental assessments done under the CEAA 2012 that were included in our sample.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Right, so that remains to be seen, but at least the government is sort of getting ahead of it with those revisions. I guess that's the way I would look at it.
I want to also ask you about a comment at page 28 of the same chapter, which is that “boards and supporting federal departments need to do more to prepare for a major oil spill”. I want to put that in context by just asking you to confirm to me that there actually has not ever—at least yet—been a major oil spill in Canada. Is that correct?
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
The biggest oil spill that has occurred since the boards have been in place was in 2004—
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
—and that was the spill from the Terra Nova facility. In figure 1.6, you would be able to see the quantity of that and—
Conservative
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It was over 1,000 litres, so it was a significant oil spill.
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It depends on how you define “major”, I suppose.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I understand from paragraph 1.59 of your report that “no documented cases” came to your attention involving failure of an operator to report a spill, so they're all, to your knowledge at least, complying and reporting spills, correct?
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes. We do note that the boards rely on operators to assess compliance, though, and we point out that there are very few independent means of verifying operator compliance.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
The point being that there is no indication that anyone has failed to comply, correct?
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
That's correct.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you.
Also, I have the understanding that in fact there has been no case found where federal agencies failed to respond appropriately to a report of an oil spill. Is that correct?
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Can you give me a paragraph reference for that?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Well, I think it may have been something that I heard earlier today, that there were no questions about that—
Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Okay.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
—and that in fact the boards had been responding appropriately.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Mr. Woodworth, your time is up.
We go now to Ms. Leslie for up to five minutes.
Go ahead, please.
NDP
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of you for making yourselves available so we can explore this a little further. I'm hopeful that you'll get an invitation from the environment committee to come and appear before us as well, and—
NDP
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
—Commissioner Vaughan, we can give you a proper environment committee send-off.
My questions are a little all over the place. I'm going to start with the 97% of direct funding to the fossil fuel sector that you said was R and D, with more than half to clean tech, “cleaner technologies”. Do you have a number for how much of that is carbon capture and storage?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I think it's almost 100%. The classification that the government has in its budget bill is under the rubric of cleaner technologies. The bulk—I think it's over 95%—is cleaner technologies from NRCan programs.
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Okay. Thanks very much.
During your press conference today I heard you talk about DFO and Environment Canada not knowing which fish habitats would be protected. With the changes in the budget bill, Bill C-38, fish habitat protection is changed to aboriginal, commercial, or cultural value.... Can you tell us a little more about that? They don't know what's protected and what's not...?