Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 17th, 2011

[Mitch Bloom]

What's interesting, I think, and Janet said this.... Maybe I can just reiterate in a bit of a different way.

There's a legal regulatory process established by legislation approved by Parliament. Those are the processes we're responsible for in terms of making sure they're being adhered to and doing our best in our own case to “pathfind” it. That's the legal process, and those are the tools we've been given.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So your mandate then does not include sitting down with corporate proponents and having an open discussion about the implications of projects in Canada's overall greenhouse gas emissions?

[Mitch Bloom]

Again, I would come back to Janet's comment. I think there are other departments that are perhaps--how should I put it--more mandated than we would be for an activity like that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

But you're the central hub now. You said yourself you're the centre of the wheel of spokes emanating outward, and your power to convene and reconcile differences between line departments gives you a certain freedom, a certain mobility, that regulators don't have. So you're saying that the responsibility for Canada's overall reduction of 17% from 2005 levels in the next 12 years is somebody else's responsibility?

[Mitch Bloom]

Absolutely.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

When you sit down with Exxon or Esso or Shell Oil or Gulf, or any other exploiter of natural resources in the fossil fuel sector, are you saying to me that you have no conversations, no mandate, no examination of what the impacts will be in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions?

[Mitch Bloom]

I think I said our goal is to align the efforts of all federal partners, so it would be very important for any project proponent to make sure they've done the rounds throughout the federal government and all the departments with their own various responsibilities. There are others who have that. In that sense, you're right. Being the convenor is an important role, but it doesn't mean you become the spokesperson for every issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. McGuinty, your time is up.

Did you want to respond, Ms. King?

[Janet King]

I would just add a comment. The coordinating role being played also respects the mandates of other departments. It does not crosswalk over to the other mandates of departments that may carry responsibilities linked to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Now to the five-minute round.

Mr. Lizon.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

I just want to clarify something in your mandate. If I understand correctly, you are coordinating with the proponents. Are you like a one-stop place where people can come and don't have to go to different departments? Is this exactly what you're doing? Could you elaborate on this? If I were a person who wanted to invest and open a project in the north, I would rather come to one place and have them deal with other departments, rather than going to different departments and dealing with them myself.

[Mitch Bloom]

You actually have said it better than I could, so thank you for posing the question in that way.

That is the goal, to become the one-stop single window for the private sector to get into understanding the regulatory process. Effectively the words I used were “pathfind for them”, so they know where to go, and we can make sure they have that knowledge and are able to go forward on an expedited or at least on an efficient and effective basis. As I alluded to, it also sometimes means pointing them to the other regulators in the system, making sure they understand what the roles of the review boards that exist in the territories are. But yes, the goal is to provide that single-window access to simplify the interactions from a business perspective.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Is it actually working like this at the present, or have you still some way to go?

[Mitch Bloom]

I chose my words carefully; I said “goal”. It's not perfect yet. I would be disingenuous if I said that. The function, which Don next to me leads, has been around for a little over a year and a half. It takes time to build up that credibility and that capacity. To say it's a goal...it's not an aspirational goal; it's one we work on every day, and there's more work to be done.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

Promoting economic development is a key part of our government's northern strategy. Can you expand on how large a role you see natural resources development playing in strengthening economic activity in the north?

[Janet King]

I understand you had a witness last week from Natural Resources Canada, and anticipate another, so I'm sure you will hear in detail their role in the broader economic development in the north, guided by the northern strategy.

There's significant work being done on the part of NRCan. I would prefer to leave that to them to describe, but it covers broad knowledge acquisition through geoscience mapping, for example, mineral assessment, oil and gas work, and many other pieces of work.

[Mitch Bloom]

If I understood your question, I think it was also to ask what's the role of resource development in the north.

I had an interesting experience in Alaska several weeks ago, and I put myself back in time 70 years. I was talking to a former governor and he was explaining what Alaska was like before they discovered oil on the north slope; it was like Canada's north now.

You can agree or disagree--I didn't really have a view on Alaska's development, if it was done the right way or not--but they took a single resource-based commodity and turned that state into something they're very proud of. I see that same opportunity with respect to where Canada is going. That's one of the reasons I said in my opening remarks what's very important isn't only resource development, resource extraction; it's what it means to provide a sustainable economy in Canada's northern territories so that when the extraction is finished, jobs are still there, communities remain there, and economic development continues.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

What would you say are the main challenges facing resource development in the north?

[Janet King]

My apologies for misunderstanding. I heard Natural Resources Canada. But perhaps I may respond briefly to that question as well.

Natural resources have a significant impact on potential economic development in the north. As you are aware, 20 years ago the revenue stream of the Northwest Territories was based on four declining gold mines. That has turned around significantly now with the diamond mines, in terms of providing $2 billion to their revenue. This is an example to show the impact that natural resource development can have on that part of the Northwest Territories.

Could you repeat that last question?

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I asked what, in your view, are the main challenges facing resource development in the north.

[Janet King]

There are some significant challenges. The north is quite vast; it's far away and it has a very severe climate. Because of its remoteness, size, and difficulties, infrastructure is a persistent challenge in the north--a full range of types of infrastructure.

Capacity, the population of the three northern territories--when I'm speaking, I'm speaking about the three northern territories primarily. There is a very small number of people available in the north, skilled and able to move forward natural resource development. So there are two.

I'm sure there's another one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Actually, Mr. Lizon, your time is up.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

As I was looking through some of these notes, I was thinking of the times when I used to work in the north as a geophysicist. I was particularly thinking of one day when I was with the senior geophysicist. When you do exploration for ground-based projects you need to have a fairly basic grid on the ground where you number off some wooden pickets and some things like that, and myself and the senior geophysicist were spending the day numbering off the pickets. It's not a job you generally go through university to do, and I remember thinking two basic things. One, what a waste, because I knew how much it cost to get us up there and what they were paying; and two, what a shame that local people weren't taking up the opportunity to do this rather basic job.

This brings me to the question, how does one ensure that the maximum benefit is there for the local population, both from an efficiency perspective and from an overall economic and social development perspective? With that as a background, how do northerners directly benefit from mineral resource development? You can break it off into a specific section for oil and gas, because it's my understanding there are some things directly related to oil and gas.

That'll be my first question, and both Ms. King and Mr. Bloom can take that if they want.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Ms. King.

[Janet King]

I can respond and hand it off to Mitch, if he'd like to add anything.

I, too, have spent time with pickets up north, so I understand your perspective.

With respect to northerners' directly benefiting, it is common business practice now, and good corporate responsibility, for companies that are implementing and pursuing major projects in the north to establish impact-benefit agreements with the first nations communities, and not just those immediate to the project. They tend to be regional in nature, so they look to engage and sign formal impact and benefit agreements that touch on the economic and social aspects of the potential positive impacts of the project through its lifetime.

On the oil and gas side there's another approach. Again, it's a benefit agreement, this time in the legislation, to pursue an elaboration of the impact benefits. So again, there's a requirement to sit down with first nations and elaborate what potential benefits would accrue during the lifetime of the project.