Natural Resources Committee on May 5th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We resume our meeting on the main estimates for 2015-16 with departmental officials.

We have two officials with us here today. We have the deputy minister, Mr. Hamilton, remaining here for the second part of the meeting. We also have with us Kami Ramcharan, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer, corporate management and services sector.

Thank you for being here with us again.

We'll go straight to the questions. We are going to continue down the rotation, so we are starting with Mr. Norlock for up to five minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for attending here today.

In my riding is the municipality of Port Hope, and of course this government has committed significant funds over the years to the cleanup of low-level radioactive waste, which was not necessary for health reasons because Health Canada did multiple studies and found that there were no diseases caused by this. What did occur in this community was a lightning rod for the anti-nuclears from all around the world to come here and tell us how to do our job. The good thing is that Natural Resources Canada, under the ministerial leadership since we've taken office....

I wonder if you could give, for the benefit of Canadians and my constituents.... I believe in 2001 a previous government allocated funding for the low-level radioactive cleanup. I forget the exact amount, but it was between $250 million and $300 million. My complaint upon election, and several years later, was that all of that money was used for meetings and licensing requirements, and not one teaspoon of soil was moved.

I went and lobbied a previous natural resources minister that we needed additional funding because of the problems that were caused to this community unnecessarily, which caused a very negative economic hardship to the community, so much so that some local businesses were closing down and people were...from the cities because of the negative press, primarily through the Toronto Star—which I refer to as the red star—which said some very uncomplimentary things about the community that were not substantiated by scientific fact.

I wonder if you could let the community know about the $1.2 billion investment that this government is making to finally, in a world-class way, clean up the low-level radioactive waste.

[Bob Hamilton, Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources]

I am happy to speak about the Port Hope area initiative.

I can't go back all the way to 2001 with specific numbers, but I will say that it is a project that we are following very closely here at NRCan, and there has been a significant investment of dollars. I am happy to report that in 2015 we are hoping to complete two new state-of-the-art waste water treatment plants in Port Hope for long-term waste management. We think that's a very significant step forward. These are very big projects, and in some cases some things have moved along a bit more slowly than we would like, but we are pleased with the progress that we've had and the signs of good progress coming forward.

In the municipality of Port Hope, radiological surveys of the residential and municipal properties will continue this year, and in Clarington, the Port Granby project construction work is expected to be contracted and initiated in 2015 for that long-term waste management facility.

As you said, this all stems from a $1.28 billion implementation plan that was started in 2012. As I said, sometimes the planning can take us a bit longer than we thought, but we are quite pleased with the progress that we are seeing now.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

We are pleased, in the community, although we always want things to happen a little faster, but things are happening and it's very positive. Just for the folks at home and any constituents who will be reading the blues, this is a world-class cleanup. For communities from around the world that have low-level radioactive waste and are looking at ways to clean it up, this is a.... The rest of the world is looking at this as the way to do it. I thank you for that.

I'll move along to some other very important issues. Canada has the world's longest coastline. We have the second-largest land mass, and some 80 million tonnes of oil is shipped off Canada's east and west coasts. Responsible resource development, of course, is an important part of the government's economic plan to create jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity.

Could you let us know how the government is working to protect Canada's water from ship pollution and to help ensure that marine transportation is done in a safe and efficient way?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

If you could do that in 30 seconds, I'd appreciate it.

[Bob Hamilton]

Sure. Suffice to say in 30 seconds it is an area of interest for us at NRCan, in addition to our colleagues around town in Transport Canada, the coast guard, and others, to try to make sure that where we do have activity related to resource projects it is carried out as safely as possible. In this budget, for example, we announced an additional $30 million over five years to further enhance marine safety in the Arctic, and that's on the heels of some other actions that were taken previously to try to do further research and to bolster our efforts into all of the areas of prevention, containment, and response.

That is something we are working considerably on. There have been a number of investments over recent years both in terms of practical applications but also in trying to look at the research so that we can understand, if something happens, what the characteristics in the marine water will be and what the best way to clean it up will be, obviously focusing a lot of attention on preventing the incident in the first place.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We will go next to Monsieur Caron, followed by Ms. Crockatt, Mr. Trost, another New Democrat, and then Mr. Regan.

Monsieur Caron, you have up to five minutes.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I also thank Mr. Hamilton and Ms. Ramcharan.

I would like to go back to the report on plans and priorities of the National Energy Board. I put the question to the minister, but I would like to hear your comments on this. I do not think I got an answer from the minister to the direct question I put to him.

In the various components of the National Energy Board plans and priorities, i.e. energy regulation, information on energy, internal services and others, we see a constant drop between the current expenditures budget and the planned expenditures between now and 2017-2018. That decline varies between 15% and 20%, in general, whether we look at financial resources or human resources.

As of 2012, the National Energy Board has been given increasing responsibilities. That year, there was a major reform in how projects are evaluated. Bill C-46 gives the National Energy Board additional responsibilities, whereas the resources allocated to it seem to be on the decline.

How can we believe that the board will be able to meet its obligations? The minister spoke about an additional $80 million, but I received no reply to the question regarding whether part of that sum is going to offset the cuts in the report on plans and priorities.

[Bob Hamilton]

I will clarify something.

There is a problem with the fact that this report was tabled after the main estimates. There are more funds in the budget but this is not reflected in the report on plans and priorities. I do not have that report in front of me, but clearly it does not include the extra money in the budget.

As the minister said, there is to be an increase of $80 million over five years and that is in the budget. But money will be used for the National Energy Board audit and administration systems and for other activities involving community involvement. The problem is due to the dates of the two documents' release. This may have led to some confusion. In fact, the budget attributes funds to the Board, which will allow it to carry out some important activities.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I realize it may be difficult for you to answer my question, but the fact remains that before the budget was tabled and the responsibilities added, the government was nevertheless planning to reduce expenditures significantly. Even if a sum of $80 million will be added, we have no idea how it will be allocated. Will it be attributed to the main activities of the board that I just summarized, or to other things, such as salaries? For the moment, we have no idea and this is a problem for us.

I know that the budget was tabled much later than usual. This does not make the task of parliamentarians easier, those who want to know exactly how the money will be spent. We also have to ensure that there will be accountability on the part of the government in this, as there will not be another opportunity before the next election.

I would also like to ask another question on the famous $24 million the government spent over two years on a publicity campaign to promote the Keystone XL project in the United States. What budget item was used for that? I would also like to hear the department's answer regarding the report that was done on the effectiveness of that campaign.

[Bob Hamilton]

I'm going to ask Kami to answer the second question.

As for the first, I would say that it is important to take certain particular features of the report on plans and priorities into account.

Certain programs known in English as sunset programs or programmes temporisés, will expire on a given date, for instance in 2016 or 2018. The document specifies that it is impossible to include more money for those years. We may decide to renew the funds. In the report on plans and priorities, we see that programs that are to expire will not receive any funds. The decision then reverts to the government and to Parliament. That aspect regarding sunset programs is a particular feature of the report on plans and priorities.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Before Ms. Ramcharan answers, I would like to ask you to send the committee a list of these sunset programs.

If they're to sunset, as you said, I'd like to have a list of those programs, because we're looking at a decrease of between 15% and 20%, which is significant. I'd like to know what programs came to an end to lead to this reduction of either the budget or full-time equivalents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

If you could, please get that information, but we'll have a very brief answer please, Ms. Ramcharan.

[Kami Ramcharan, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Management and Services Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

The stakeholder and outreach fund was a program that was given to us over two years, in 2013-14 and in 2014-15. What you see in the main estimates would be the reduction of the resources that we didn't have. In 2014-15, we would have actually had about $17 million that would have been allocated to us for that use in that year, the past year. This year, because the program has sunsetted, we have no funds identified in the main estimates.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

So the section under which it would have been is information on energy or...?

[Kami Ramcharan]

No. It would have been in two places, because the stakeholder fund was a part of the resources that we would have done. There would have been the piece under internal services, and there would have been a piece under market diversification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, monsieur Caron.

Ms. Crockatt, you have up to five minutes.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you to the officials for being here today. It's always nice to hear from you and see the wealth of experience you're bringing to these decisions that you're making all the time.

I wanted to ask you a bit about SDTC, because this is something that I hear about from time to time and I know that there is so much going on below the surface that we MPs are not aware of, much less the public. I'm wondering if you can tell me about it.

I'm really impressed, for example, by just a couple of little things about it that I found out. Steeper Energy Canada in Calgary is going to get $3 million to transform biomass feedstock that usually goes into a landfill into a renewable alternative to dilute heavy oil. Pure Technologies, which I'm familiar with in my riding, makes those smart balls that run through pipelines and can detect leaks, something like an ECG. It's really very cool technology.

I'm wondering if you can tell us what's included for SDTC in the estimates and what these funds are going to be used for, and if you can just give an overview, as much as you can, to drill down into what SDTC is all about.

[Bob Hamilton]

I have to say that since coming to this job, certainly, one of the success stories that's raised with me is SDTC and some of the technologies it has developed. As well, it's a program that's jointly run by NRCan and Environment Canada, and when I was at the environment department, I used to hear about it as well.

To summarize quickly, it's an entity that's set up at arm's length to the government and is going to try to spur some of these technologies in clean energy and other areas to help drive us to the future for the kinds of things we're going to be doing in the future, such as the different energy sources that we might have—you've referred to a couple—and how we could even do existing energy sources in a cleaner, more efficient way. This is an entity that really tries to search out those projects. I think they've had a good success rate. From their tech fund, there's been a significant amount of money that's been given to innovative companies that are trying to do things differently to find cleaner and more efficient energy production methods.

In the area of biofuels, there was also a significant amount of money put in there. You'll see it in the estimates, though in some cases that industry has been slower to grow and there has been difficulty in allocating money to enough of those projects, so we've seen some reprofiling there. But overall, the tech fund that SDTC has had has really given rise to.... You've raised a couple of the examples, and there are many more across the industry, where they really are spurring innovative technologies. When I go and talk to people either around this country or outside, they really do refer to the good job that SDTC is doing to try to forge the kind of energy future we need.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

May I go a little further with this? I know that $20.6 million was announced in Alberta alone for eight clean tech projects. Can you cite further examples and give us an idea...? Another one that I was aware of, because I participated in the announcement, was taking carbon and actually turning it into biomass. I think Canadians would be very interested to have some of the knowledge that you have about some of these really exciting projects that SDTC has been engaged in. Do we actually have an extremely fast-growing clean energy market, which I think I read somewhere?

[Bob Hamilton]

Yes, probably I'm going to have to give you specific examples. I can submit them to the committee afterwards if we get into the details of some the specific projects that they fund. I know there's a number of them that we can find through SDTC, but at my fingertips I don't have a lot of them.

It's a significant amount of money, a number of great projects that you've identified of, as I say, different technologies that can be used to produce the energy cleaner and more efficiently and carve.... What I find exciting is that they can be projects that are important for us in Canada. That's fine and it helps us to be more efficient and cleaner, but they're also technologies that we can export around the world. That's a great thing for Canada as well, so I'll commit to the committee to give you a host of examples of good projects that have been funded.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

All right, thank you.

Ms. Ramcharan.

[Kami Ramcharan]

Yes, I want to add that since 2013 the tech fund has supported close to 269 projects with over $684 million allocated by the federal government. It is a significant project and it's unfortunate that we don't have concrete examples to give to you right now, but it has done quite a lot of work over the past number of years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Your time is up.

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