Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 6th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

—it's a really futile exercise. I'm going to ask you to kindly stop interrupting the witness, allow him to finish his answer and let him move on.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

Our goal here, as a government, is that.... Ignoring the environment or the needs of indigenous peoples is not going to get you anywhere. It's not going to get your pipeline built. Stephen Harper tried to do that for a decade, and it failed for a decade—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Will downstream initiatives be included as a condition for pipeline approval under Bill C-69?

[Amarjeet Sohi]

We will—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We can't have two people speaking at the same time, Ms. Stubbs. He was speaking at the time. He had the floor.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, could you ask if I could get an answer to my question?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

If you'd let him finish....

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

My question is very clear. Will downstream emissions be included as a condition for pipeline approvals under Bill C-69?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Ms. Stubbs, we can continue to go back and forth like this if you want, or you can let the witness answer.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

It's yes or no.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

If you allow me, Mr. Chair, we have been very clear. Premier Notley has raised the issue of downstream emissions with other governments. I have met with the environment minister from Alberta, Minister Phillips. We have been absolutely clear that downstream emissions will not be part of Bill C-69 or any new environmental process that we are putting in place.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

This is why I raise this. I just returned from New Brunswick. New Brunswickers want a west-to-east pipeline, as do Canadians right across the country, and certainly the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. The energy east application was submitted in October of 2014. In January, 2016, your government froze all those applications, including the energy east application. Then a year and a half later, in August, 2017, it was announced that both upstream and downstream emissions would be applied as a condition to the energy east application.

It was at that point shortly after that TransCanada said specifically that the significant changes to the regulatory process might make the application for the energy east pipeline untenable.

A month later, they were forced to abandon the application for energy east. The reality is that downstream emissions have only ever been applied to the energy east pipeline application by your government, in order to kill it. If it was needed in that case, why would it not be included in Bill C-69? If a proponent comes back to the table for a west-to-east pipeline, will you ensure that downstream emissions do not apply as a condition for its approval and review?

[Amarjeet Sohi]

We have always been very clear, and we were clear with the proponent of Energy East that our government will not consider downstream emissions as part of the approval process.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

In August, 2017, your panel announced that upstream and downstream emissions would be applied.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Ms. Stubbs, you're are out of time. Thank you.

Mr. Whalen, the floor is yours.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's wonderful to have the minister here. It was great to have Mr. Carr in the role, but because the oil differential is, in my opinion, probably the single biggest economic issue facing the country right now, it's great to have somebody from Alberta who understands this issue and who is on the file—not discounting, of course, the oil and gas industry in my hometown, which I will raise in a moment.

You were asked a question earlier about how the courts killed off the northern gateway pipeline. Could you just briefly finish your answer to that question, so we could have it on the record? Thank you.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

As I said earlier, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the previous government's approval—the cabinet decision—because the court felt that northern gateway pipeline, or the review of that pipeline, did not meet the standard of meaningful consultation, and you know, facts are facts. It was the Federal Court of Appeal that quashed that decision related to that pipeline.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much.

Nobody wants to see courts issue injunctions against our regulators. Not only does that mean that the economic activity has made it that far and is then approved or not approved, but it also sends a chill through industry, in having this uncertainty hang over all the present, past and future decisions that might be issued by the body. Indeed, that was one of the primary topics of discussion at the doors in the 2015 election, around CEAA 2012.

Can you describe a little bit why people shouldn't really be talking about whether or not the government will or will not start construction at a particular time, what that means from the court decision and why it's important for Canadians to allow this process to play out in accordance with the court's decision?

[Amarjeet Sohi]

One thing we are trying to change is that the previous government tried to cut every corner possible to get pipelines built, but they got none built to other, non-U.S. global markets. It's my role and my responsibility in this portfolio to make serious efforts to fix the flaws in the process to allow us to move forward on building pipelines in the right way and getting our resources to non-U.S. global markets. It is completely unacceptable that we're losing billions of dollars in potential revenue that we could have had to build better roads and bridges, improve services and build stronger communities. It serves no one's interests to have this price differential.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Certainly nobody wants to prejudge the outcome of a process, because that would influence it.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

We should not. I think that's how we failed in the past.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Out east, the C-NLOPB is the primary joint regulatory body between the federal government and the provincial government of Newfoundland. It helps make sure that our offshore resources develop responsibly and that producers act accordingly.

A major disappointment for many people in our province a couple of weeks ago was an oil spill at Husky as they were starting up production following a crazy storm, a storm that actually caused seismic measurements within our province. People were quite concerned that a producer would start up production, as is their right to do, when conditions would not even allow ROVs to go in the water to monitor the situation. Conditions were too rough for them to deploy the very safety mechanisms to prevent and capture spills that would have been necessary.

I'm wondering whether you have considered whether the C-NLOPB should have additional authority to stop production and start it again. I'm told in the media and by others that this is one of the things that have prevented the C-NLOPB from having the bite it needs to back up its bark.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

I have spoken with Minister Coady on this matter, as well as with Husky, and also with the offshore petroleum board. We find it completely unacceptable that.... If there is a disconnect of information and communication, we need to fix it. Any spill is a bad spill, whether a small spill or a big spill. We need to make sure that there are mechanisms and responses in place that allow spills to be avoided. In this case, once they found out about the spill, it was contained, so the impact of it was not as severe as we thought it would be.

Having said that, we are having conversations with the offshore petroleum board, as well as with Husky and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to improve this situation as a high priority for us, and we will continue to work with them on it.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Do I have time for another quick question?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

No, I'm going to have to stop you there. Thank you, Mr. Whalen.

The floor is yours. We have two minutes. We have to vacate, because there's another committee meeting here at one o'clock. You have time for about one question, probably.