Natural Resources Committee on May 28th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Okay, Mr. McLean. In fairness, the 90 minutes, or the time allocated for any meeting, always includes time for introductory remarks, and in this case it's the minister—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Agreed, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I don't know that we'd deduct his opening remarks.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Agreed, Mr. Chair, but at the same time, it is predicated, of course, upon the officials showing up and being there, not sitting around waiting while we're waiting for officials and others to come on line so that we can ask the minister questions. Ten minutes is not a big request. If the minister is available, it would be wonderful.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

My understanding is that it is beyond the time he had available. I've received messages from his office. I put the request in earlier, but the minister has a very tight schedule today, so unfortunately I don't think we can accommodate that.

I do want to thank you, Minister, for coming today. You've been very generous with your time, not only today, in my opinion, but throughout the last four months. We're grateful for that. I do understand that you have to go.

The departmental officials are staying, Mr. McLean. Any further questions can be put to them.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Before I go, once again I'd like to say that I'm grateful to this committee for, I think, very reasonable and spirited debate and inquisition. Also, on other files, in a substantial way, we've been able to get things done. I appreciate the tone, the candour and the professionalism of the members of this committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks, Minister.

We can carry on. Next will be Mr. Simard and then Mr. Cannings.

We do have to vote on the main estimates and the supplementary estimates. We do have time. We can put more questions to the departmental officials if we want, or we can move right to the votes. I will leave that to members to decide.

Mr. Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask a quick question.

I don't know if Mr. Tremblay can answer me.

I've had numerous meetings with people in the forestry industry who have told me that, in their view, roughly $100 million per year is set aside for the investments in forestry industry transformation program, IFIT, and that obviously the budgets allocated are not meeting demand.

In the budget, I see $39 million earmarked for the IFIT program.

To your knowledge, is about $100 million per year set aside for the program?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

We have several government programs. Indeed, we have more applications than projects receiving financial support.

However, I would submit to you that $55 million was allocated to the program in the budget. That investment may not appear in the main estimates, but it will come later.

I can turn to Beth to give you more information about what we got.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

In the meantime, I'd like to point out that in Bill C-30—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Who is going to take that?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

—which we are currently negotiating, the additional funds to the IFIT program are not there.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Are you saying that the additional funds in the IFIT program are not there?

Beth, could you jump in?

[Beth MacNeil, Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, Deputy.

The IFIT, the investments in forest industry transformation program, is oversubscribed every year, which is a positive signal that there's a need and a willingness to advance a bioeconomy. Our latest call for proposals was the largest envelope ever. It was launched May 12, with a total of $120 million available. That includes the recent announcement of $54.5 million in budget 2021.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I want to point out that the cost of building a biorefinery, which would be the best solution to transform the forest industry, is about $2 billion. The federal government has never provided adequate support for that type of initiative.

When I see that $559 million, just shy of $560 million, from the emissions reduction fund will go to supporting a sector of economic activity that produces greenhouse gases, GHGs, I'm a little puzzled. I don't understand what you are basing your decisions on when it comes to natural resources.

You have a sector that is very well positioned to reduce GHG production and that sector is starved for support. You have the worst GHG-producing sector and you reward it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're going to have to get to the point, Mr. Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

What does your department base these types of decisions on?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

With all due respect, we don't make decisions that lean one way or the other. It's not a matter of supporting forestry and not supporting other sectors.

We support each sector or initiative based on its value.

When it comes to forests and forestry, we're investing in forestry, we're investing in forestry innovation. We're now investing higher amounts than in the past.

With respect to the context you provided regarding the emissions reduction fund, it doesn't seek to increase methane production, but to remove it from existing production. It's a fund, as the minister said, that seeks to remove methane and reduce greenhouse gases. As long as Canada is a producer of oil, gas and fossil fuels, we need to make sure we have the cleanest fossil fuel in the world. That's what the fund does.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

As I said, just with the first tender, we have an over 3-megaton reduction in greenhouse gases.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm going to have to stop you there, Mr. Tremblay. Thank you.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Cannings, we'll go over to you.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you. I'll finish with what will be a quick question, hopefully, on data. I want to thank the analysts by jogging my memory in their notes for this meeting.

As you may remember, Mr. Chair, in the last Parliament, we did a study on energy data because it was noted that energy data was very difficult to access in Canada—most of it came from the National Energy Board, and a lot of it was not very timely. You couldn't walk it across provincial boundaries, so most analysts ended up using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

I now know there's the new Canadian Centre for Energy Information, led by StatsCan and NRCan. I'm wondering if someone could give me an update on where that project is. Are people using it? Is the data coming in as we, from the committee, wanted it to do, so that it is comprehensive, easily accessible and, most of all, timely? We were getting two-year-old data most of the time.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

The portal is up and running. I've been using it myself. It works very well. When I have discussions with stakeholders, including universities and so on, they all mention how useful it is to have such a tool. I don't have the numbers on how many people actually have accessed it and access it on a regular basis, but that's something we can do. Also, at some point, if the committee specifically wants a briefing on how to use it, what exactly is there and what we're thinking for the future, we would be more than pleased to do that. I'm sure our scientists and our data group would be more than pleased to brief the committee.