Evidence of meeting #28 for Natural Resources in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Well, Minister, Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, says the exact opposite. She says, “In order to have an agreement and in order to have a negotiation, you [have to] have a partner. And thus far, the Canadians have not expressed interest [even] in engaging.”
Minister, this is right from the U.S. trade representative.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Well, this is from the Minister of Natural Resources: the U.S. has not been willing. We are.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Well, based on what my colleague Mr. McLean talked about in terms of clarity of outcome, I think we're seeing, with the exorbitant fluctuations and instability in our forest sector, and really in lumber prices in North America, we see this. On May 24, a Bloomberg news article, after the supposed confidence the minister is supposed to bring to the file, said:
Commerce’s International Trade Administration has calculated a preliminary duty of 18.32%, but the current 8.99% rate remains in place, because a final determination hasn’t been made.
The article continued with our own Susan Yurkovich from COFI:
“We find the significant increase in today’s preliminary rates troubling,” Susan Yurkovich, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council, said.... “It is particularly egregious given lumber prices are at a record high and demand is skyrocketing in the U.S. as families across the country look to repair, remodel and build new homes.”
Our sector needs stability, Minister, and this fluctuation just shows that a softwood lumber agreement would be instrumental in stabilizing the industry. Frankly, we haven't seen movement. You're saying one thing and the U.S. trade representative is saying another. I'll just say it. I was just in Prince George, and throughout my riding yesterday, they needed stability....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Mr. Zimmer, can you ask a question? I'll give him a brief time to answer. You're actually out of time now, but if you want to put the question to him, I'll allow him to answer.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
What are you doing to provide stability to the forest sector, Minister?
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
We are seeking an agreement. The U.S.A. is not willing to reach an agreement. We are.
I would also say, Mr. Zimmer, that I hear you loud and clear on the frustration of your constituents and your province. We share that frustration.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Minister.
Thanks, Mr. Zimmer.
Mr. Lefebvre, we'll go over to you.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, I hope everything is well. I have been waiting for a while to be in a position to ask you questions, and here I am.
I want to chat about what you mentioned in your opening remarks about the mining sector, which is near and dear to my community here in Sudbury. Actually, yesterday I met with a Glencore representative and discussed the footprint they have here in Sudbury. We have in Sudbury probably one of the greenest mines and greenest mining sectors in the world. Basically, the footprint of one of their mines is actually smaller than the Canadian Tire at the end of the street. It is amazing, the innovation going on in this sector and how it has transformed itself.
As we see our economy shifting in the energy sector to the clean energy that we require, battery-electric vehicles will be key to that. They will need batteries, certainly, and the critical minerals that we extract here and in your province as well. I know that Vale Inco is in your province and very important as well.
I really want to hear your input as to where you think this sector is now with the potential of the battery-electric vehicle sector and the role of Canada in the world. When I was PS, I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of international ministers of mines and energy. They were looking at us as one of the tier-one destinations and asking us what we were doing. Sometimes in Canada we don't look at ourselves like that, being the modest people that we are.
I really want to hear from you guys on where you think the sector is right now and the importance of this sector to our economy.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you, Paul. It is good to have you in that chair as well. You served very well, as I think other members of this committee know, as parliamentary secretary. It's good to see you.
I would say a couple of things. We should be less modest about these things. We should be prouder and speak it. It's a crowded and competitive international space, so we should be loud and proud about our natural resources sector, and in this particular case in mining. In terms of its future overall, I was reading the other day that the average offshore wind turbine will require 60,000 pounds of copper. That's a lot of copper. There are a lot of wind turbines being built right now.
Voisey's Bay in Labrador is very, very familiar to me. I actually have a core sample from Voisey's Bay from the 1990s. It's on my desk in Ottawa, which I haven't seen in quite some time.
On the nickel and mining products in general, to get back to my point about oil, some are better than others. The nickel that is produced at the Voisey's Bay find in Labrador, as Ms. Jones knows very well, is some of the cleanest and best in the world. There will be a demand for that sort of cleaner product. I think manufacturers and consumers will be very discriminating. As we learn more about battery production and as we learn more about mining, I think Canadian ESG will only shine in this instance. We are a transparent provider, we are a reliable provider, and we play by trade rules, unlike, frankly, some of our competitors. We are secure and we are sustainable.
That includes in critical minerals. As you know, we released earlier this year our critical minerals list of 31 critical minerals, such as aluminum, graphite, rare earth elements and zinc. We can and we will produce every one of them. Our workers, our prospectors and our developers, will lead the way. Those are the essential minerals for developing clean technologies like solar panels and EV batteries. They are essential to lowering emissions, therefore increasing our competitiveness and strengthening our energy security.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Okay.
On that point, I want you to speak to the circular economy, when it comes to that, and the potential it offers across the country. When we look at this sector, there is a limited amount of nickel and copper around the world. As we develop this sector, we need to make sure that we recycle these materials as much as possible. In my riding here, there is so much potential just in the waste piles we have. A lot of these rare earths and elements are stacked away in there.
I think there's a ton of potential in that sector for creating that circular economy. It is not something that even five years ago we were even talking about. Perhaps we could hear your thoughts on the potential of the circular economy when it comes to battery-electric vehicles and making sure that we recycle as many minerals as we can.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Maybe it wasn't clear. The one minute included the answer; it was meant to include the answer.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would just say, look, we're doubling down on critical minerals. We did in budget 2021. We established a critical battery minerals centre of excellence. We're working with the provinces and territories. We will be implementing the Canada-U.S. joint action plan on critical minerals. This is something that is very important to the U.S. as well, and we want to establish secure supply chains with the U.S.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Minister.
We'll move to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Minister, I'd like to come back to the $559 million invested in the emissions reduction fund. In my view, the oil and gas sector produces carbon, while the forestry sector captures it. There is a guiding principle for the environment, and it's called the bonus-malus principle, in other words, the polluter pays principle. You seem to be applying the polluter paid principle instead.
I don't know if you know this, but in the last four years, your government has given Quebec's forestry sector barely $70 million. And 75% of that is in the form of loans. That is 0.3% of the $20 billion that the forestry sector brings in each year in Quebec. It's not much. You get four times what you invest in the forestry sector.
I don't know if you can understand the dismay that some members of the forestry industry feel when they see those figures. Earlier, I did a quick calculation. In one year, you invest $559 million in the emissions reduction fund, when you have invested less than that in the forestry sector over the past 25 years.
Don't you feel that's unfair?
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you for the question, Mr. Simard.
Since, I think 2010, we have put $357 million into forestry transformation. We have $3.2 billion coming up for two billion trees. I think there are other mechanisms that are playing themselves out in the marketplace, as they should, right now. One of them is carbon pricing, and the second one is the clean fuel standard. Carbon pricing is playing itself out right now.
To flesh this out some more for you, perhaps, I'm going to ask my deputy minister, Jean-François Tremblay, to intervene here.
Jean-François Tremblay Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources
With respect to the emissions reduction fund, as the minister mentioned, we already have a price on carbon and we have already created standards governing fuels.
We created the fund to address the issue of methane emissions. We have also introduced regulations for methane. We're trying to get the highest reduction in greenhouse gases with our existing production.
If you read the reports carefully, including those from the International Energy Agency, you'll see that they clearly say that carbon capture, utilization and storage will be needed to reduce existing emissions. Just for the first tender, we have already reached 3.1 megatons—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you.
I'm sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt.
Mr. Simard, maybe you can get back to that in the next round.
Mr. Cannings.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to move on now to a couple of questions about the nuclear industry.
Specifically in the estimates, it says that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is getting over $800 million for decommissioning and waste management. I have a specific question on that. Is part of that to deal with the waste at Chalk River? I hear constantly about it from concerned citizens. They're concerned about the plans for just an open pile of nuclear waste there.
Second, I have just a higher-level question about an integrated nuclear waste management strategy that is developed outside of industry. Right now, we have the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is part of industry. You and your government have constantly said that you want to regain the trust and confidence of Canadians with regard to nuclear waste management. To me, an integral part of that is having a strategy that's developed by the people of Canada, by the government, and not by industry.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you, Mr. Cannings, for the question.
I'll begin and maybe ask Mollie to finish off my thoughts on this and get granular with you.
First of all, when it comes to nuclear energy, safety is our top priority. Radioactive waste has to be safely managed, there's no question, and we're always looking at ways to improve so we can have the best policy in place that is based on science and facts, and that continues to meet international standards.
We launched our engagement process on modernizing Canada's radioactive waste management framework back in October. I have participated in round tables on the issue because it's important to so many Canadians and specifically to indigenous peoples, so we have to take it seriously.
Mollie, maybe you can expand on this for Mr. Cannings.
Mollie Johnson Assistant Deputy Minister, Low Carbon Energy Sector, Department of Natural Resources
You bet. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cannings, you were asking first about the AECL spending. The funding in the estimates will be used to support the AECL in delivering on its mandate of enabling nuclear science and technology, adjusting radioactive waste management and fulfilling its decommissioning responsibilities. With this they're also supporting the renewal and the revitalization of the Chalk River labs.
With respect to your question on the radioactive waste review, I just want to be clear that we are accountable for the policy development itself. That is within the authority of Natural Resources Canada. On the strategy that would then be based on the policy, that's where the NWMO would come into play, but again the policy itself is within the authority of the government.
On engagement and consultation, we really did work in three phases. The first was to ask and engage stakeholders, indigenous people, provinces and territories how they want to be engaged; then we did the consultations, and now we're in the process of developing a “what we heard” report. That's the part of the process we're in right now. That will be done on Monday, actually, which is May 31, in terms of the feedback process that we're getting, and then we look forward to coming forward with the changes, but those will take us a little bit of time to develop.