Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 16th, 2024

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We will now go to Mrs. Stubbs for the next round of five minutes.

I believe you're sharing with Mr. Falk.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I am.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'll begin with you.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Chair. I have just a quick question before I cede to my colleague. I also want to mention that I found the line of questioning posed by MP Angus to be extremely important. We'll do our work to get accountability for these answers too.

Mr. Giroux and Mr. Stanton, three months ago the Auditor General, as you probably saw, said that the government “issued a non‑competitive contract in October 2022 without a justification clearly linked to one of the exceptions to competitive procurements”. That contract was worth nearly $33 million. It was related to the Trans Mountain expansion. It was given to, as these Liberals love to do, their insider cronies and buddies at McKinsey & Company.

Are you familiar with that information? Would you be willing to also review and analyze and pursue that information that the Auditor General has highlighted, given the yeoman's work in your office to support Parliament by exactly, as you always emphasize, promoting greater budget transparency and accountability?

[Yves Giroux]

It's not something that we have looked at. We take the construction costs as a given and, in our past reports at least, we adjusted for future potential increases or decreases to construction costs. We're not typically mandated to do audits of the costs that have been incurred or whether each and every one of them was justified. We take them as granted, and I think—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Giroux, what I'm talking about is this $33-million contract that the Auditor General highlighted that was non-competitive and is somehow linked to TMX. This government hasn't given any answers to taxpayers who now, because of it, are on the hook for TMX and also on the hook for this $33-million uncompetitive contract given to McKinsey & Company for this mysterious work that was done for TMX. It looks like the Auditor General's office did the work that they could.

I would love to be able to figure out ways to work with you and your office to get you to do a deep dive on whatever the heck that issue is to get these needed answers for Canadians.

[Yves Giroux]

That would be work that would typically be done by the Auditor General, but if the committee were to pass a motion asking me to look specifically into this issue, it's something I could do in conjunction with the Auditor General.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you very much.

I'll cede to my colleague Ted.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Giroux and Mr. Stanton, for your presence here today.

You said that you reviewed this project at several stages—at the time of purchase, in 2022, and now again—and that you looked at project costs, budgets and estimates. Can you provide this committee with a detailed construction breakdown from the initial costs as compared to what the actual costs were at the time of completion?

[Yves Giroux]

We have the construction costs in aggregate when the project was in its early phases, the estimates. As these estimates evolved upwards, we have the overall amount, but we did not request the amount of detail that would allow us to determine whether each and every one of them was justified or the reason each and every one was—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'm not looking for reasons or justifications, sir. What I'm asking for is actual amounts. You will have had a detailed construction breakdown given to you at the beginning of the project. I'd like a comparison on a completed project as to what those costs ended up being and any additional costs associated with the project. Those you would have had. I'm not asking for justification or explanation; I just want numbers.

You did mention that the government was going to divest some of the assets it purchased with TMX. Has the government divested of any of the assets associated with that project?

[Yves Giroux]

To my knowledge...no.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay.

When you do an evaluation of the project, if you were to look at that project on an income basis, based on the revenues or the tolls that the project is currently generating at today's interest rates, if one were to finance the entire project with a 1.1% debt service ratio, what would the value of the project be today?

[Yves Giroux]

We haven't done that analysis. We would have to run these specific numbers to be able to answer that specific question.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay.

You say you have done an evaluation of the project. What basis or rationale have you used to determine that value?

[Jason Stanton]

I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

You've indicated that you—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Falk, unfortunately, the time's up, so we'll have to hold that.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

He's asking for clarification to answer the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Time is up, so we're going to—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I think Mr. Jowhari—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Maybe somebody else can pick up with that line of questioning. Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Jones for five minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank our witnesses who are here today.

I have a couple of questions for Ms. Levin. I'll start there and then go to Mr. Giroux if I have time.

First of all, Ms. Levin, obviously we have been using a carbon price as a tool to fight climate change. I'd like to know what your position is on carbon pricing.

[Julia Levin]

Yes, sure.

Canada has two carbon prices, the industrial carbon price and the retail carbon price. The support behind this policy is that economists around the world agree that this is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. A recent report from the Canadian Climate Institute found that the industrial carbon price is really doing the lion's share of emissions reductions in Canada across a suite of policies and that retail carbon pricing is also playing a smaller but significant role in reducing emissions. I'd say that we're in a climate crisis and that we should be using every tool in our tool kit to fight the climate crisis while also ensuring affordability for Canadians.