Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 28th, 2013

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

And what are your plans for marketing your hydrogen and byproduct?

[David Wagner]

For the hydrogen, we are adjacent to Canada's largest oil refinery, the Irving Oil Limited Refinery in Saint John, and we are in discussion now with Irving to off-take our hydrogen. They use that hydrogen in their refining process.

The beauty of our hydrogen is that it is completely CO2 free. We do not generate any carbon dioxide in the production of our hydrogen.

As far as the carbon is concerned, we have signed off-take agreements with foundries, primarily in Ontario, where they use that product as an additive to the foundry process.

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

Thank you very much for that.

Mr. Smillie, I would like to ask you a question about the opportunity for apprentices and your comment that there's a 3:1 ratio of apprentices to journeymen available to work on the pipelines.

I've talked to a number of apprentices in New Brunswick. There's an issue with respect to their community college system preparing and getting these kids out and going through their apprenticeship program, but there don't seem to be places for them to go. I also understand that there is a limitation on where they can go in the country and still be able to write their block release exams. For someone leaving New Brunswick to go to Alberta, coming back to write their block release exams is an issue.

What are you doing to allow these folks to go out there but still come back to do their education and block releases in their home provinces?

[Christopher Smillie]

That's a great question. Just for the members of the committee who don't have all the information about an apprentice program, usually it's 80% in the field working, and then 20% in the classroom.

The community colleges are completely limited by the amount of budget money they receive from their provincial governments. So what we're doing when possible is trying to allow those folks to go back to New Brunswick to run their classroom time. The other thing we're looking at doing is having the community colleges talk to each other, so that you will have NAIT in Alberta and the community colleges in New Brunswick talking. There might be an opportunity to link up the classroom portion with NAIT. Now, we are talking about two different provincial governments and a federal government involved in this. But five years ago an apprentice couldn't take his or her hours in Ontario and then go to work in Alberta and get credit. So it's coming.

A block release means that all the apprentice welders, let's say, would be released from the work site to go back to their community college or their training centre and write their exams. What we'd like to do is to be able to administer the test in the field. So we're trying to partner with the people at the Red Seal Secretariat, who, as part of HRSDC, would facilitate this kind of thing. We're not there yet, but we're working on it. That's one of the things that some of the large locals in northern Alberta—Edmonton, for example—can try to facilitate between community colleges. It doesn't make sense to have people leave the job site when the work is available, because work for these young people is scarce as it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

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

I appreciate your clarifying block release as opposed to a release to the Bloc.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Allen. We won't get into that.

Mr. Calkins, you have up to five minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That's a line of questioning I'd love to talk about today, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

No, it's out of order.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I just want to thank the witnesses for coming in today. This was very interesting testimony.

Mr. Smillie, I do want to talk to you a bit about some of the comments you made. I'd like you to elaborate a little bit more on some of the innovations you've made on alcohol and drug testing. I don't know if that's directly related to the committee, but it is of interest to me because I think a safe workplace is a functional workplace, and I'd like to know more about that.

As you know, most of the footprints in the sands of time have been made with workboots and there are a lot of people on the ground working hard in Alberta—from all across this country—doing great things, whether it's in the oil sands or in the various other aspects of our diverse energy sector.

It's very important that you talk to me about the aboriginal engagement as well. I represent the four bands at Hobbema, some 12,000 to 16,000 people living on reserve there, and they need to have a more active role in Canada's economy.

Perhaps I could also get you to elaborate a little bit more on the following. From my perspective, I think that having a pipeline go south would be great, but east would be better, and west would be the best. I'm saying that as an Albertan when it comes to diversifying our market access. I'm wondering if you would agree with my assessment of that. And perhaps you could elaborate on some of the opportunities for the workforce that you represent here, if that were the case.

[Christopher Smillie]

Thanks for the questions.

We are working on the drug and alcohol policy. Currently, before you go to a work site, you have to go to a third party and test for drugs and alcohol, and then you're let on the site. That process usually takes about three to four days, so that's three to four days of lost work. We're having people agree to random testing, which then allows them to work at any of the number of employers who've signed up to this program. So at any time any one of our members could be asked to do a drug or alcohol test. This is a breakthrough in Canada in this kind of thing. It really speeds up the process and it means that our employers get the people faster. Nobody wants to be caught, so we've noticed that there has been a reduction. You can talk to Suncor or Total about the rates.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

So there's a lot better chance that they're going to adhere to it rather than if they knew what day they were going to start working, and then planning.... Is that basically what I'm hearing?

[Christopher Smillie]

I couldn't say that, but you did.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Okay, very good.

[Christopher Smillie]

So with regard to aboriginal engagement, there's a national association called the National Association of Friendship Centres. It is an urban aboriginal outreach group. It does pre-screening for us. Basically when it has people walk through the door who it thinks are good candidates to join and to go to work at one of our contractors, it lets us know. That's sort of the idea. We're starting to work with it in a closer way.

There are also aboriginal contractors who hire exclusively aboriginal workers from local communities. This is a growing market for us. Think about the aboriginal population. Sixty-five or seventy per cent are under the age of—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

—twenty.

[Christopher Smillie]

I don't know what it is, and I wouldn't want to speculate, but there's such a young and growing population, and traditionally they haven't been actively engaged in the trades.

The partnership with the friendship centres is an example of innovation. I really have high hopes for that partnership with that group.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

My last question is—

[Christopher Smillie]

West is best.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Yes. Southeast and west.

[Christopher Smillie]

West gives us another customer. That's what I was getting at. So rather than our being beholden to presidential politics or congressional politics or senatorial politics in the United States or in Canada, this will give us another market.

Yes, for the first little while, a lot of the stuff going through that pipeline will go to California, but at the end of the day that's a diversification activity, and I think you can't have a business and only have one customer, so it's important to diversity. So west is best in terms of our national interests in the long term. In the short term....

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

We go now to Mr. Nicholls for up to five minutes.

Go ahead, please, sir.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

On the idea of going west, I don't think our leader would be opposed to that, but not Gateway. Any other project in another location, we'd be willing to look at—just not Gateway.

Mr. Smillie, I'd like to revisit two articles that appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 5, 2012 and February 15, 2012, written by you and Eugene Lang. I'll read you a series of quotes. I just want to see if they're still applicable, yes or no, and if we could put them into the record as statements by you.

You say that “It is naive to think that Canada can become an energy superpower given the labour market constraints we face and”—I emphasize—“lack of public policy action to address this”.

[Christopher Smillie]

I said it. Public policy action is important. You can't have investment on the natural resources side in the trillions without having a labour force that's ready.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you. You also say that “Ottawa should play a greater role in co-ordinating the efforts of provincial governments, industry and educational institutions”.