Natural Resources Committee on May 28th, 2021

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I'm going to move on to my next line of questioning.

I note on page 168 of budget 2021 that a new tax credit has been approved for or is being approved for carbon capture utilization and sequestration, but it specifically says that it's excluding enhanced oil recovery. Why was this decision made by this government?

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

I think we'll see where things go. Those consultations have yet to take place. In budget 2021, we have $319 billion to support RD and D. We also have the investment tax credit for capital invested in CCUS, as you said, for CCUS projects to support and accelerate the adoption of it. We're launching—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

It seems pretty cut and dry that the budget document says this does not include enhanced oil recovery. Why was that added in the budget?

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

We want to make sure that we get the consultations right. I'm sure that conversations about that are going to come up in those consultations. I mean—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

That's subject to change, you're saying. We could include enhanced oil recovery as a tax credit.

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

I'm looking forward to what comes out of the consultation period. The stakeholders—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Are you against including enhanced oil recovery as a tax credit?

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

I'm open to the ideas we will hear from stakeholders in the oil patch, with provincial governments like Alberta—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I can tell you that the Sturgeon Refinery in my riding, which is the number one carbon sequester in the country, would very much appreciate being included in this tax credit. You're well aware of this refinery, Minister. Over one million tonnes of CO2 has been sequestered by them in the last year alone, all for enhanced oil recovery, but they're not being included, Minister.

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

Listen, the consultation will take place. I'm very excited about a national CCUS strategy. I think it is going to be a game-changer. It will lower emissions, support oil and gas workers and create jobs. We can't create CCUS without them and—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

No, not if it excludes enhanced oil recovery, though, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Lloyd, you're free to ask the questions you want, but for the benefit of the interpreters, it would be great if you could let the minister finish speaking before you start speaking over him.

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

I am convinced that CCUS will help us get to net zero. That is what our plan focuses on. This could be a considerable strength for the country, and I think it's particularly well suited to the manufacture of blue hydrogen in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I'm convinced it will as well, but I'm not convinced that it will if we take your guys' plan and exclude enhanced oil recovery, which is going to be absolutely critical for companies like Whitecap Resources in Saskatchewan, the Sturgeon Refinery in my riding and the Boundary Dam project. These projects need enhanced oil recovery. This maybe not be to the same level as the non-enhanced oil recovery, but we need enhanced oil recovery to be covered under this tax credit.

I guess that's probably it for my time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

It is. You're right on time, in fact, for which I'm very grateful. Thank you.

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

Let me add something, Mr. Chair, if you could indulge me for five seconds.

I appreciate the honourable member's kind words about Mr. Justice Wells, who was a great friend of mine. He was on the bench with my dad. Bob was a mentor to me. I appreciated his kind words yesterday in the debate on Bill S-3.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Jones, we'll go over to you for five minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Hello, everyone, and good afternoon.

It's nice that you could join us today, Minister. It's always good to hear about the ongoing activity in your department. You're obviously a very busy minister. At this committee, we've studied many different facets of your department and issues that affect it, so we have some insight into what you deal with every day.

I want to ask today, of course, about the support for clean energy for rural and remote communities. Having grown up in Labrador yourself, you know exactly how important it is for us in the Arctic and subarctic regions of Canada and in remote communities to ensure that we have other fuel sources or other energy sources to help reduce our reliance on diesel and fossil fuels, especially in many indigenous communities.

I noticed in the budget that you're requesting $55.9 million. Can you give us an update on some of the new measures you'll be funding through this allocation?

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

Thank you, Ms. Jones. I see that you know very well my thoughts on this matter and how close I am to it.

When we look at the partnerships that we're setting up with indigenous natural resource partnerships and the focus that we have had on coastal communities, it's worth noting that Nunatsiavut, which is the northern part of Labrador, which of course is Ms. Jones' riding, These are communities that she and I have travelled to together. I can't believe that it's been two years now since we were last up in Nain, but I was with you there, Yvonne.

The reliance on diesel in those areas is extraordinary. At the same time, northern Nunatsiavut is experiencing warming at twice the rate of anywhere else in the Canadian Arctic, and the Canadian Arctic is experiencing warming at twice the rate of anywhere else in the world. The polar regions are getting affected most quickly.

I was reading how Natan Obed was saying that he used to have to walk so many kilometres out onto the ice to be able to harvest fish, and now he can almost do it from his door. What we are ending up with is a situation where the wisdom of elders in being able to know the land is changing, because the land itself is changing and the sea ice is changing. I want to get into the weeds of it. I'm going to go over to my deputy minister, Jean-François, to speak briefly about where we are right now with indigenous communities and northern communities getting off diesel.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Yes, for getting remote communities off diesel, we received $300 million. We've already received funding. As you know, we have I think more than 120 projects across the country that are helping communities to get off this dependency on diesel. What we are doing at the moment is working on the implementation of the new initiatives, building on the pipelines of projects that we already have, and we also will be engaging with indigenous groups over the next few months on how we want to work together.

Moving forward, our objective always has been.... As you know, there are many departments—Indigenous Services Canada and the Crown-Indigenous Relations—working on this file and this issue, and our objective is to make sure that we make it as easy as possible for indigenous communities, as well as remote communities, to work with us in developing plans to address the issue and finding solutions. We also want to invest in research in order to do that, of course, because in some cases it's a technological challenge, and to also, of course, invest in deployment and capacity. That's the way we want to address the situation.

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

Ms. Jones, I think you know how important capacity building is to me personally. Jean-François was my deputy minister at Indigenous Services Canada as well. Being able to build that capacity from the ground up so that the solutions we find for these communities are community-led is incredibly important. I look forward to some really good news on the ground, not only in your riding, but in other northern and indigenous-led ridings.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks, Ms. Jones. I think I'm going to have to stop you there, unfortunately.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

The minister has a hard stop at 2:30. We have 11 minutes left. If the Liberal members and Conservative members are willing to reduce their time from five minutes to three minutes, we will be able to have four more people ask questions—one person from each party.

Mr. Patzer, you're next. Perhaps I should ask you whether you're okay with that.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Well, I'd obviously prefer five minutes, if I could have it, but....