Natural Resources Committee on June 13th, 2024

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

Can you tell us a bit more about some of these delays? What's happened? What's going on? What's causing them?

[Paul West-Sells]

In 2023, there were a number of delays with the regulatory process. The positive is that you have first nations, federal and territorial governments all working together on comments. The negative is that it takes a long time to get all those comments collected. Sometimes there are delays through that.

When we look at 2023 on the guidelines.... We saw a lot of comments that were potentially a bit unnecessary or more detailed than they needed to be. These were from the federal government. The territorial and first nations government comments were as expected. The federal government comments were quite deep and not environmental assessment-related. Rather, they were permitting-related comments, which is a subsequent process after environmental assessment.

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

It sounds like there's going to be some duplication going on. Would that be correct?

[Paul West-Sells]

With the comments heard from the territorial and federal governments, there's duplication going on, absolutely.

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

Would it be helpful to have a streamlined process that would, hopefully, eliminate a lot of that duplication?

[Paul West-Sells]

Absolutely, yes. I certainly am encouraged by what we're hearing from the federal government in terms of streamlining the process, but excited to see what that actually means, particularly for northern locations such as the Yukon, which has a somewhat unique regulatory process.

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

Yes, absolutely. We've had some similar comments from other witnesses in other studies as well.

How might your experience in the Yukon compare to any proposed projects in a different province? Is there a difference between where you're located and one of the other provinces in the country?

[Paul West-Sells]

I think one of the key differences specific to what we're talking about here today is that access to power.

You have an isolated grid in the Yukon that is completely over capacity at this point in time. You're looking at any additional mining projects that come on and that need to either generate their own electricity or connect to a grid.

Right now, the last megawatts that are being added are with rental diesel generators, so essentially the Yukon right now is being developed on carbon-based power, and any future development is looking at that at this point in time.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

We will now go to Mr. Brendan Hanley.

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Hanley. It's great to have you here. You have six minutes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I want to thank my colleagues and committee members for allowing me to take a turn on this committee.

I think this is a really important study to explore, develop and build. To me, electricity and the national grid should be looked at as a nation-building exercise. I want to make sure that the northern perspective and northern needs and opportunities are included in this study.

I will concentrate my questions on Mr. West-Sells—and thank you to all of the witnesses, by the way—but first, I'm really interested in your testimony, Ms. Hickson. I'm interested to know if you can comment on the geothermal potential for northern Canada. Of course, I'm particularly interested in the Yukon territory. I know there has been some activity there. Can you perhaps update me very briefly on geothermal energy in the north?

[Catherine Hickson]

Yes, I would be happy to. Actually, coincidentally, I have just been working with the Yukon government to develop a geothermal regulation.

I have global expertise. I've been in the geothermal industry for 43 years now and have been working not just with the Yukon government, but also with the Government of Northwest Territories and with the Government of Nunavut.

Yes, the Yukon certainly has a better potential than Nunavut. The southern western part of the Northwest Territories has very good potential as well. In the rest of Nunavut, mostly, and the northern NWT, what we need to do is more research and development into these enhanced or engineered geothermal systems.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much. That's very interesting.

Mr. West-Sells, it's very good to see you. We've had many conversations on this particular topic and others around the Casino project. You've already discussed some of the unique features of Yukon's energy grid as an isolated northern grid.

What do you see as the opportunities in connecting to B.C. and in what I would like to phrase as really connecting to the national grid? What specifically is the support that you think you need, particularly at the federal level?

[Paul West-Sells]

Thank you, MP Hanley. It's good to see you again.

Obviously, the opportunity I'm presenting here is Canada's largest critical minerals mine: copper and molybdenum for 27 years, plus a number of decades, and likely up to 100 years. That's a large opportunity in and of itself. Behind us, there are a number of other critical minerals projects as well, but that isn't the only thing we're talking about.

Since this idea has has been floated—and it has been floated really at the territorial government level for the past year or so—there is opportunity in terms of generation that has been brought to my attention, particularly in northern British Columbia. There has been opportunity in terms of other northern British Columbia mining projects that would be opened up by this.

Essentially, the way I think about this is that one of the key things that opened up the Yukon was the Alaska Highway. That was built around World War II. The next big highway that needs to be built is the electrical highway, and that electrical highway needs to go up into the Yukon.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I think Casino is a really interesting case study of the relationship between modern mining, critical mineral development, and then the need for the energy to support it. At the same time, of course, critical mineral development is critical to support the energy transition.

Can you talk about what your understanding is of where British Columbia is in pursuit of a B.C.-Yukon connection?

[Paul West-Sells]

It's my understanding that Premier Eby from British Columbia has publicly put his support behind this. I believe the application that was forwarded by the Yukon government into the critical minerals infrastructure fund includes a letter of support from Premier Eby. At that political level, there's absolutely alignment on this.

As I said, this is not just about opening up the Yukon. It's about opening up northern British Columbia and the Yukon as well.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

That's a great point.

We've heard, of course, the presentation on the potential for geothermal. We talked about the only choice apart from grid connectivity, really, being LNG.

Can you talk about the role of renewable technologies, either in the medium term or in the long term, if we really are looking at decades of mining potential at Casino and other sites around the north?

[Paul West-Sells]

It's part of our regulatory application. We need to show what potential there is for green energy. Those studies have been done.

What we found is that there wasn't really a cost-effective opportunity for our mine specifically. That doesn't mean to say that there isn't an opportunity, if you expand the grid, to look at a number of different opportunities around the area, that that can't be brought into the Yukon and added to the energy mix.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Monsieur Simard for six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Balaban, could you confirm that interpretation is working?

[Dan Balaban]

I can hear you. Thank you.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Balaban, you finished your presentation saying that the renewable energy industry is unfortunately suffering from political polarization and that some politicians tended to demonize the costs associated with the necessary transition. We see it constantly here, in the House of Commons.

This leads me to ask all the witnesses the following. Do you think carbon pricing is essential if we truly want to transition to renewable energy?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Who would you like to begin with, Mr. Simard?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'd first like to hear from Mr. Balaban.