Natural Resources Committee on March 27th, 2014

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

I understand perfectly.

The first thing I need to say is that, if you look at Canadian trends, they're not different from world trends, so obviously, life expectancy in Canada was something like 45 years of age in 1900, and today, as you know, we're pushing beyond 80. We have all the benefits that come from petroleum applied on a localized scale.

The one area where we perhaps differ a little bit is in the reforestation data. I was saying before that in all countries that are at the level of development of Chile and above, which rely abundantly on fossil fuel, the forest cover is either making a comeback, because people are leaving the farm because they're more productive.... This is true in Canada. The last time I checked the Quebec and Ontario data, something that people don't realize is that we're actually gaining forest in places like Ontario and Quebec, despite urban sprawl. That's because a lot of people are moving out of places like the Gaspé or south Georgian Bay. A lot of unproductive farmland is being abandoned and the kids don't want to take over. If your rural land is not very attractive for cottage types or people who want to vacation, or it's just too far from an urban centre, it tends to be reforested.

At a global level though, if you look at the FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, which looks at this data, they say that forest cover in Canada is not changing. That's because we have so much forest that even though we're gaining a little bit at the local level, it doesn't make a big difference overall.

As for Canada, I don't know the data about western Canada, but I can assure you that in Quebec and Ontario, we've actually regained forest land, or expanded our forest cover.

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

Let me probe a little farther into your generalized point. You're basically arguing that we're wealthier and that makes the environment healthier. Draw for me the connection between the production and use of fossil fuels and a wealthier economy. I understand how if you're wealthier you can look after the environment more, but make the argument—

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

Well, fossil fuels provide roughly 85% of the energy supply in all advanced economies. There are no alternatives to fossil fuels in transportation. Yes, you have golf carts, and yes, you can have a few Chevy Volts. I don't know how many hundreds were sold in Canada in the last few years. I don't have the data with me.

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

Is there no basic alternative to replace fossil fuel?

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

In transportation there's currently no basic alternative to fossil fuels. Yes, you can have compressed natural gas and stuff for limited things like buses or closed-circuit types of things, but there is no substitute for petroleum products at the moment for long-distance transportation.

Again, from long-distance transportation come all these other benefits. You can specialize agricultural production in the best land, and you can produce fertilizer with natural gas. Today we produce something like eight or nine times more corn on the same piece of land than we did a century ago; so of course the more general agricultural—

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

So the production of oil and natural gas may be the best thing we've done environmentally for the planet. Am I stretching it maybe a little bit?

[Dr. Pierre Desrochers]

No, you're not, and that's something people don't realize. Our planet today is much greener because of fossil fuels, because we use stuff taken from underground, instead of taking stuff from the surface as our ancestors used to do. Our ancestors were much less numerous than we are, but they were also much less productive. The point of showing you those images from Finland and Germany is to show you how much the landscape was being degraded by “renewable practices” in the past.

I'm sorry if you want me to stick to Canada, but if you ever go to the Greek islands or Turkey, sometimes when you go to Roman ruins that are five miles inland, you're told that it used to be a port. What happened? People farmed all the steep hills around it until all the land was eroded, and the lagoon was silted and so.... Our ancestors did a lot more environmental damage using renewable methods than modern methods do today.

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

Ms. Lancaster, I'm going to pivot to you, because while Dr. Desrochers brings out the macro, you tend to talk a little bit more about the micro.

Your technologies, of course, are there to make your company more money, but talk a little bit about how environmentally it helps specifically.

You'd said that there were environmental benefits, but talk to some specific technologies and how they benefit not only your company but also the wider area across the country as technologies like yours get expanded for the environment.

How do they on a local level do what Dr. Desrochers talked about on the macro level?

[Blaire Lancaster]

Thank you for that question.

If you're talking specifically about our natural gas fuelling business, I can use a very localized case study. If we look at the LNG production facility that we are about to commission in Elmworth, Alberta, if every gallon of LNG produced at our first LNG production facility replaced an energy equivalent amount of diesel, and given that natural gas emits 30% less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel does, then our 50,000 gallon-per-day facility would translate to a reduction of 43,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

That's a local example right there of how using natural gas in place of diesel will improve air quality, because of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Those emission reductions will of course increase as we expand to future phases, assuming that all of the LNG we're producing is being used to displace diesel, so the numbers can be calculated similarly for the plants that we're building in Edmonton and Chilliwack, as well as for future infrastructure that we plan to build across Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We have three guests at our committee today. Welcome to all of you.

The first one is Mr. Cullen. Go ahead, for up to seven minutes, please, sir.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses here and those who are by video conference.

Chief Adam, I'm going to turn to you in a second.

We're talking about the impacts and benefits.

I will note there is some irony in Ms. Dobson's presentation—irony, or interesting fact of the $1.3 billion that is generated directly from oil sands is almost equivalent to the IISD and IMF studies about the subsidy given by the federal government to the oil sands sector. I'm surprised that they got it so accurately correct.

Mr. Adam, I'd like to read a quote from somebody I think you know. In reference to the oil sands in general, he said:

I'd like it slowed down [because] of quality of life.... I feel sometimes like we're racing to the end. [The oil] is not going anywhere.

That was from the radical environmentalist former member of Parliament, Brian Jean, of Fort McMurray.

The pace of development is a question that's often put to us in terms of how the oil sands is developing. From your people's perspective, how does the pace affect the potential impact and benefits that Fort Chipewyan people will see from oil sands development?

[Chief Allan Adam]

I think in more ways than one.... To try to answer that question, it's more ways striking and sad to hear the fact that former MP Brian Jean, who represented our area, came out and made those comments after he stepped down as an MP. He should have mentioned that while he was a member of Parliament, because of the fact that he knew the rapid growth in our area is so substantial that the first nations are having a hard time trying to deal with the issues at hand.

We continue to rapidly deal with application after application after application. We have a small staff of six employees who have to deal with the number of applications that come in.

The first nations' view is that continuous development in the area will also have a drastic impact on the environmental component of it. I'm not only saying that, but it makes it a lot harder when impact benefit agreements and economic development continue to be a burden.

Everybody across Canada thinks that the first nations are benefiting from the oil sands development in this region. We have to argue, and we have to lobby hard with industry in order to obtain contracts in this region. In more ways than one, the first nations, with regard to our traditional territories, are being overlooked with respect to how economic prosperity would be moved forward.

It's hard dealing with the issues we have, and governments at both levels are not making it any easier for first nations to enter into these IBAs with industry, because industry continues to lobby governments, saying why should they have to pay both parties with regard to an impact benefit agreement.

In more ways than one, Canada and Alberta alone are depleting a non-renewable resource from the oil sector, and are not putting a penalty of a tax bracket on the oil and gas industry where Canada would benefit from it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Chief, but we have a point of order.

Ms. Crockatt.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Chair, I'm sure that all the members would love to hear if the chief has experienced any benefits from the oil and gas sector. I'm sure there must be some, and I'm sure that's why he's been asked to come, so I would love to hear if he can think of any benefits that he would like to discuss.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

The member makes a valid point, Chief Adam.

The scope of this committee is to deal with the cross-country benefits of the oil and gas sector of the Canadian economy.

On that point of order, Mr. Regan....

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chair, I think Ms. Crockatt wants to testify on behalf of the chief, and that's not appropriate.

The fact of the matter is we are talking about how the first nation maximizes the benefits, or so far hasn't managed to maximize benefits, and why that is the case. That is very relevant to this study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm not going to interfere with the questions and comments here. The point was made. If we can keep on focus, you always have a more productive committee.

Chief Adam, perhaps you could continue. We stopped the clock, by the way.

Chief Adam, I don't know if you were finished, but if you'd like to finish, I apologize for the interruption. It's the way committees work.

[Chief Allan Adam]

When I say it's making it harder for us to benefit, I could honestly say that if Canada was benefiting across this country in regard to the oil and gas sector, and if the Province of Alberta was benefiting from it, what we're saying is that sure, economic growth is something that is needed, but I think we could do it a lot better than how we're doing it right now.

Not only are the first nations not benefiting from it, but I don't think Canada and Alberta are benefiting from the natural resources in the area because of the fact that we're continuing to let this non-renewable resource be extracted at a fast rate right now, and we can't comprehend the magnitude of the environmental disaster that's going to erupt from it.

I don't think any benefit agreement to the first nations or to Canada would be relevant at this time, because we're running into a crisis, and if we don't get hold of it right now, there isn't going to be any benefit for Canada in the future.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you.

It's interesting when asking questions about how to properly assess the benefit for first nations, whereas you put it, how to maximize the benefit of this one-time resource, government members find that line of questioning not relevant.

I'll go on to my second question. It has been established in the courts by your first nations, and many first nations across the country that rights in title are constitutionally protected: this is not an option. We often talk about capacity building and having enough capacity within first nations communities in order to assess the projects that are coming your way. Some of these projects are tens of thousands of pages of technical data.

If first nations are, in a sense, a legal gateway to resource development writ large, but in particular the oil sands, would it not be of benefit, if we're talking about benefits to the Canadian economy from oil, to better establish and better give capacity to the first nations communities in particular to assess the projects that are being presented so that we're able to not only do the projects better, but to allow the greatest benefit to the people who are most impacted, which are people like yourself who live in the territory in which the development is happening?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You have about 30 seconds for an answer, Chief Adam. Go ahead, please.

[Chief Allan Adam]

We greatly need more capacity in dealing with the amount of development that is occurring in our area to maximize the true benefit in regard to how we will be able to move forward. I truly believe that the regulatory system is failing us in regard to that development and moving that in that area. We continue to lobby for more staff, and industry continues to lobby not to give us more staff because we'd be more of a burden to Canada and to the Alberta government in putting pressure on these regulatory systems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

We go now to Mr. Regan, for up to seven minutes. Go ahead, please, with your questions.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Let me also begin with Chief Adam. In terms of benefiting from the developments in the oil and gas sector, the Government of Canada, of course, has transferred the responsibility to negotiate with first nations to industry. In your view, has the federal government abdicated its fiduciary responsibility to first nations and left them to fend for themselves?

[Chief Allan Adam]

Well, I think in more ways than one we're not benefiting in regard to how we're moving in that direction. As I said, we continue to have a hard time negotiating these benefits with industry, when industry does not want to make these benefits with the first nations because of the fact that it costs them an amount of money in regard to moving forward.

We feel we need to go in that direction because of the new regulations that are coming from the federal government in regard to the federal government meeting their fiduciary responsibilities to the first nations in regard to treaty rights.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

This next question really is for any of the witnesses.

In terms of maximizing the benefits of this sector, there's been a lot of talk from industry leaders and from politicians, like Premier Wall, for example, about the need for the federal government to focus on the social licence that we need in order to develop our energy resources and market them and open up markets for them. It's a bit like this study.

If there's anybody listening on the radio, as can be done for these committees, they may not understand that when committees make decisions about what to study, those decisions are made in camera. Of course, they're made by a majority vote, so I think people can figure out what that means.

In this case, the fact that we don't have a broad study is a bit like the situation of going all one-sided and of not recognizing that we need to take the kind of environmental actions that would win for us internationally more support for marketing our resources. Doing that in this committee, again trying to be so narrow and so one-sided in this study, is an example of the same kind of thing.

I'd like to ask the witnesses to comment on what action they'd like to see the federal government take and give any recommendations they would have.