Natural Resources Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Dave Turchanski]

Well, I'm wearing both hardhats here as far as Energy Services BC is concerned and my own business here in Fort St. John. Temporary foreign workers have been brought up. Where we're seeing more and more of it are in the areas of the retail outlets: the Tim Hortons, the A & Ws, the food chains, and stuff like that. From our end of it, as far as the gas industry is concerned, we're not seeing a whole bunch of that as of yet.

As far as skilled workers are concerned across the province of British Columbia, or across Canada, given the opportunity, I know there are a lot of people out there who are on EI, and stuff like that, who are pretty capable of coming back to work and working in these positions.

Premier Christy Clark has mentioned that if LNG goes through here, the economic benefit, the spinoff...we're going to need 75,000 people for these jobs. We're definitely going to have to be outsourcing somewhere to bring those people in.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chair, Mayor Streeper or Mr. Turner had a comment on that question about temporary foreign workers. I'd like to hear from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Streeper.

[Bill Streeper]

We do have a small number of temporary foreign workers here. Again, to what Dave was just saying, most of them are in the retail service sector end of it. Some of them have started to progress into the oil and gas sector, but at this point it's very minimal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Turner, do you have a response to that?

[Peter Turner]

Yes. Our experience would be similar to what was characterized by these two gentlemen. Currently, those people are primarily represented in the service and hospitality sectors.

What's promising is these are new Canadians. These are people whose children, potentially, will be tremendous contributors to our economy and to the growth of the north. We already see, as I mentioned, the aforementioned Filipino community up here as being a real powerhouse in terms of contributing to the social good and health of our community, and we welcome them. We think there's enough opportunity up here that they can become part of that great mosaic that is the north—and it's Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Regan, your five-minute slot is done.

But I do want you to ask the questions that you would ask Chief John rather than writing them to the clerk, so at least that's done similar to other questioners, and then the committee can decide how to treat that in any report that we might do.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Okay.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

On a point of order, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

A point of order, Ms. Charlton.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thanks.

As I indicated when I started my intervention, I also had questions for Grand Chief Edward John. You didn't indicate at that time I'd need to get them on the record, so I wonder whether in fairness to all three parties if we could all submit questions to the clerk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

But that's what I was saying, I don't think we want to start submitting questions and getting written answers in that fashion, unless the committee decides to do it that way. That's why I was suggesting Mr. Regan should ask those questions, and then the committee can determine how we're going to handle a response. It doesn't necessarily mean that the response will be treated. That's up to the committee to decide. We certainly can discuss that on Thursday.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chair, I only had two questions that I would have liked to submit in writing to him, and we're talking here about a case where a witness was unable to appear, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

We're not talking about doing this in every other case with our other witnesses, certainly. I wonder if we could limit it, just say in this particular case where there's a witness who hasn't appeared that we could submit two questions.

If, for instance, Ms. Charlton wanted to do that, and wasn't aware of that possibility, and now I'm getting an opportunity that she's not, that doesn't seem reasonable or fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Here's the difficulty. There are lots of other witnesses who were invited, who would have liked to have appeared and just couldn't make the arrangements. So how is that different? In this case, in fact, Grand Chief John had agreed to appear and just isn't there for some reason. So I can't see how the committee, unless everyone agrees, can venture in that direction.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I guess the difference, Mr. Chair, is that where you have a witness scheduled to appear, you prepare questions for that witness. When they're not scheduled to appear, you don't prepare questions for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I understand that.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I have my seven minutes now, do I? I can finish with the questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, we stopped the clock. You have seven minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

First of all, I wanted to ask Mayor Streeper if he feels there are ways the oil and gas sector could provide greater benefits for local communities and small-business owners in the Northern Rockies and other jurisdictions.

[Bill Streeper]

The main thing there is that there would be more involvement in local employment if their personnel were located in the communities rather than having the fly-in/fly-out situation. There also would be if they came to a community and were part of the community rather than operating out of an office 1,000 miles away. They would actually have an office and personnel here in the communities.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I have some questions for Chief John, and we'll see if this works out.

The first thing is that the committee recently heard from the chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Chief Allan Adam, who spoke about the benefits of the oil and gas sector and the desire to maximize benefits. We heard from him that there is a great deal of frustration, however, when it comes to working out impact benefit agreements on traditional territories. He said, in his experience, that industry makes the process very complicated and lobbies federal government officials very heavily.

I guess I'd like him to comment on his experience with the process. That would be the first question.

Second, I understand that he participated in the first nations LNG summit last year. I'd like to know from him what challenges the summit identified with respect to the impact of energy development on first nations communities and what recommendations he'd like to see the committee make to the government.

Third—I'd like to hear comments from other witnesses on this as well, and perhaps if they have comments on the other questions that I raised, that would be fine. I'd like a short comment in relation to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline proposal in terms of both benefits and risks that he or they see involved with the process that has been followed so far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Regan.

The clerk has noted those questions.

Would any of you like to respond to the last question on the Northern Gateway pipeline?

Mr. Streeper, go ahead, please.

[Bill Streeper]

In Canada as a whole and the western part of Canada and the “have” provinces, we have a commodity, a product, that needs a market. I think when we start to look at our markets, we should be as diversified in our markets as we can be. We've already seen what happens when we have one customer rather than diversified customers. I think the Northern Gateway pipeline will give us access to other markets and will ensure the future of our energy and the future of our citizens through being diverse about getting income especially from offshore, which is new capital for Canada.