Evidence of meeting #15 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sir.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
There's a recent CBC article and the headline reads, “First Nations appeal to UN to help stop Petronas project”.
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Chairman, Fort St. John for LNG
If we need to, sir, we will also go to the United Nations. I don't know how we will finance that, because with our GoFundMe campaign, I still don't have the money to go back.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Chairman, Fort St. John for LNG
If you're suggesting New York, I can always go down to New York, sir.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
First of all, Mr. Yu, when I was 22, in the fall of the year, I found myself to be unemployed. I found work in northern Alberta and I spent two winters out there working.
4:10 p.m.
An hon. member
What happened?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Well, I decided to pursue other things.
I want to say something right off the bat that I know everybody here is thinking. We certainly feel for you and the loss of your employment. We wish you all the best, regardless of whether this project goes ahead or not. We appreciate your passion on this subject, the passion for your community, and the passion for your family. I think that's very important to get that out at the start.
I want to ask you a couple of quick questions.
First of all, I want to touch on what Mr. Barlow said. When we look at the total environmental impact of natural resource development, if we're talking about LNG, it's important that we recognize the total global footprint when we're talking about any natural resource project. That's something with which we haven't done a good job.
We oftentimes talk about what we can do as Canadians within our own economy and within our own country. It's important when we talk about greenhouse gas emissions that we look at the global footprint, how industry impacts on the entire globe, how to find that balance, and what's best, whether it's coal-fired from China or exporting LNG to China.
I'm not an expert in any of those areas at all. Could you speak a bit more to the environmental balance and how you see the total global GHG emissions, how LNG would either positively impact or adversely affect those GHG emissions?
4:10 p.m.
Founder and Chairman, Fort St. John for LNG
Yes, certainly.
As I said, I would like the Canadian government to consider greenhouse gases in their global totality, not just in B.C. Any LNG that we export, if it is used as natural gas in the country of destination, and used to displace coal in producing electricity, it will cut global greenhouse gases.
China produces 23% to 24% of the global greenhouse gases and most of that is due to their power generation, electricity to support their industries. If we can reduce their global greenhouse gas emissions by 13%, this would render our 1.7% greenhouse gases here in Canada neutral, meaning the 1.7% of what we produce, we save in China. Effectively, we would be carbon neutral by simply reducing their greenhouse gases by 13%.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
You spoke briefly about LNG and how the actual upgrading of the gas to liquefied natural gas would occur in Prince Rupert.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
You also spoke to the injection of liquefied natural gas into the wells, the expansion potential that would have within the wells, and how that could be used for fracturing. Would natural gas be shipped to Prince Rupert via pipeline and then liquefied natural gas to fracture the wells would be transported back via transport?
4:15 p.m.
Founder and Chairman, Fort St. John for LNG
No. As I said earlier, very briefly though, and I'm sure it's easily missed, we can produce LNG from two containers. We can have the process of converting natural gas within a remote site. As the gentleman said, we are producing LNG in Alberta; we are producing LNG in northern B.C., which I believe is in Dawson Creek.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
This is just to wrap my head around it. You're saying that the majority of the natural gas would be shipped to Prince Rupert, but a small portion would be retained within the geographic area where the well sites are—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Founder and Chairman, Fort St. John for LNG
Well, not from the wells, but once it is done somewhere in the midstream and we can extract clean natural gas, we can liquefy that, load it into trucks, and even transport LNG via trucks to a well site that needs to be fracked.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
What exactly has been the most controversial stumbling block for the Prince Rupert site in relation to the refinery set up there? I'm assuming that all Fort St. John's natural gas would go to Prince Rupert to be refined there, to be shipped offshore.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
But what you're talking about would be. What I'm saying is that within that process, the pipeline, the physical site where the refinery would be and the port access there in the sound, what has been the biggest stumbling block—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
