Natural Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Youri Chassin]

As for the lack of information, there is a responsibility for the federal government to say that the environmental impact is evolving in the oil sands and in the oil industry in general.

The kind of information we provided in our poll was, for example, on the use of recycled water in the process, or the evolution of greenhouse gas emissions per barrel. There is simple information that might be useful out there in the public debate, and might be put out there more. For example, there's a report from the Royal Society of Canada that debunked a lot of myths, and we haven't heard a lot about it.

Also, on clear rules for foreign investment, we heard some myths about this and we feel that the rules are probably not clear, but there are still people who think the decisions will be foreign and won't be in the Canadian interest, which is strange because companies don't have that much nationality.

I think there is still a role for the federal government to play there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Cross, we'll have a very brief answer, please.

[Philip Cross]

I think there are more opportunities for market diversification than for product diversification. I noted, particularly with natural gas, that getting access to Asian markets presents a lot more opportunities to me than having more refining of oil in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thanks very much, all of you, for being concise.

Mr. Anderson, you have about four minutes.

[Céline Bak]

Mr. Chair.

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

Go ahead.

[Céline Bak]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I should have said that if you'd like to know about banks and access to capital, I recommend to you the article in the Financial Times regarding the European Central Bank and its ability to add liquidity for SMEs and to buy securitized debt from SMEs.

Thank you.

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

I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, Ms. Bak.

What do you see as the current technologies or proposals that are most promising in your area in terms of diversification in the future?

I also want to ask you, what is the timeline for diversification in the industries you're dealing with? We've heard from other witnesses that there is a timeline. As the economy recovers around the world, we're going to have a lot of other competition in those kinds of things.

Would you address those two things?

[Céline Bak]

In terms of most promising, I recommend that the committee take note of the findings of the report, but top of mind, some of the most promising would include community-sized renewable energy technology. For remote communities in the north, and including our own mines that are all over the world, there are certainly very relevant technologies that are ready today. Waste-to-energy technology is a Canadian strength.

I should also say remediation, which is where there is extraordinary potential in markets such as China. I was in Beijing last week. There are 300,000 recorded contaminated sites in China, and there are different technologies that use more or less energy to remediate those sites.

From a green buildings perspective, we have a number of very strong technologies. One of those would be geoexchange, which is a way of taking an existing building and basically drilling access to the ground's heat to make the building neutral.

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

Tell me about timelines.

[Céline Bak]

In terms of timelines, you saw our export projections. It takes a generation to build an industry. This is a 15-year-old industry today, so within the next 10 years we could, if we put our minds to it, build a $60-billion industry that generated $40 billion in exports. I've given you information for the next five years.

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

Mr. Chassin and Mr. Belzile, I'd like to ask you the same thing. In terms of energy or non-renewable energy, what projects or proposals do you see as most promising here in the future?

[Germain Belzile]

Listen, humanity once lived in the Stone Age, and we didn't go to the Bronze Age because we lacked stones. We did it because we found something better. Eventually we're going to go to different energies, but not tomorrow.

In fact, predictions are that we'll still need a lot of oil for at least two generations, so let's not forget that. In fact, oil is very valuable, and if we want to maximize our income as a country we have to invest where we can produce things that are very valuable. For the moment, that's oil. Eventually, everyone will probably drive electric cars, but not tomorrow morning, and it's going to take a long while.

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

Some of us live in rural areas. It might take us longer than others.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Mr. Anderson.

I'd like to thank all of you for being here today. We do appreciate it very much.

Thanks very much to all you for another extremely interesting meeting: from the Montreal Economic Institute, Mr. Chassin and Mr. Belzile; from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Mr. Cross; from Analytica Advisors, Ms. Bak; and from the Canadian Auto Workers, Mr. Stanford and Mr. Wilson.

We are going to votes now. The meeting is adjourned.