Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #107 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tolls.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #107 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tolls.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer and Senior Managing Director, Project Reconciliation
One of the strongest negotiators in the industry has been charged with negotiation. That might be a guy called Murray Edwards, so it'll be an interesting negotiation.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you very much.
Mr. Detomasi, given that we've heard what this means to the economy, from the pipeline, and given what the benefits of the oil and gas industry writ large mean to our economy, do you think that Canada could and should be building more pipelines to expand what we have?
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
I think Canada should take a strategic approach to building more and greater infrastructure projects related to energy and resource across our natural resources base.
This is largely for a couple of reasons, as has been mentioned earlier. Our reputation out there is that of a place that cannot do things and won't do things, and capital goes elsewhere. Secondarily, I believe doing so would foster a national sense of pride in the development of our overall resources, which I feel is lacking now. In my ideal world, the kid in Ontario would take as much pride in the Alberta oil sector as the Alberta kid does, and vice versa; the Alberta kid knows about Ontario mining, agriculture and forestry. I think we should develop a national sense of pride in these things.
Liberal
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you.
I thought it was interesting just to talk about the need to make sure that we're getting Canadian energy out to our allies and to other countries as a point, but I think it's an important point. It gives me a moment to mark a bit of a celebration, I think, on this side that Bill C-49 has passed, which means that our offshore wind industry in our Atlantic provinces is going to have many great opportunities. I know that our European allies have certainly shown a big interest in what that might provide for us as far as green hydrogen is concerned, so we just take that moment to talk about the varied forms of energy that are available from Canada and what those opportunities might be.
I was hoping to start, if I can, by asking Mr. Gooderham just one question because we've been talking a bit about regulatory certainty. We've been talking about some issues around the impacts on emissions and have been hearing a lot of conversation about this. I was reading the Canadian Climate Institute report analyzing Canada's emissions for 2023. It showed some very promising signs for Canada's emissions dropping. I was wondering if you had a chance to review that report.
Lawyer (Retired), As an Individual
No, I have not. I'm aware of the general findings. What I wish to say, and it's another important aspect of this whole question—
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I'm sorry. If I may, I just want to jump in. I just wanted to check to see if you had read it because I only have a few more minutes. The reason I wanted to ask you about it was that they had found that the largest source of emissions dropping—the largest regulatory piece—was actually carbon pricing. Both the consumer and industrial versions were projected to reduce emissions by as much as 50% by 2030. I was wondering if you were aware of, and if you agreed with, that analysis.
Lawyer (Retired), As an Individual
No, and the answer is I haven't read it. The problem is that all of heir numbers totally ignore our downstream emissions from our oil exports, so that makes this whole discussion totally unreal. You can't go on talking about reductions in various sectors in Canada, in the sense that it's getting us anywhere, if we're increasing the downstream emissions from our oil production at a greater rate every year than any reductions we're getting in Canada, so the net result to emissions—
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I hear your point there, but what I'm just trying to get to is what we've been talking about: regulatory certainty. There is an issue of whether carbon pricing is seen to be the largest source of emissions reductions. I'm just telling you that it's actually in the report. That's what they say, that carbon pricing is projected to be the largest source of emissions drops, but you haven't read the report, so I—
Lawyer (Retired), As an Individual
No, but I'm saying that the emissions drop is insignificant in the context of the climate discussion.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Maybe I can go to Mr. Tombe, please. I also wanted to talk with you a little about carbon pricing, because I was taken by that study from the Canadian Climate Institute, and also about the fact that we're talking about regulatory certainty or uncertainty.
I saw that you had done some studies, I think drawing on Statistics Canada information, about the impact of carbon pricing on Canadians and about the carbon rebate. I just want to make sure I have that correct, but I think you were saying two things. One was that, for Canadians with low- to median-incomes, the carbon rebate provides more back to them than they would get if there were no carbon pricing system. Is that correct?
Professor of Economics, University of Calgary, As an Individual
That's correct in terms of the fiscal flows, which abstracts from the broader economic implications of carbon pricing.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Right. If I understood your comments about the economic piece—and I just want to clarify that piece because that comes up a lot as well—you were saying that any analysis right now, for example by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, doesn't take into account that the alternative is not to do nothing, and that there isn't a scenario where you would remove carbon pricing and would then have no kind of regulatory scheme to deal with carbon. Is that correct?
Professor of Economics, University of Calgary, As an Individual
That would ultimately be a choice for the government of the day to decide what type of climate policy it wished to pursue or not.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.
As chair, it's my prerogative to ask a question of clarification of Mr. Tombe. Have you looked at the impact on royalty revenue for the Province of Alberta, and have you done a cost-benefit analysis looking at the direct and indirect benefits of the pipeline, including the jobs and all of the benefits that come with building the pipeline, and what that would look like?
Professor of Economics, University of Calgary, As an Individual
It's really hard to overstate the financial implications of the pipeline for the Government of Alberta, where every $1 change per barrel in the value of what's produced here translates into about $630 million per year to the Government of Alberta's bottom line. Therefore, if we just take the $9 per barrel reduction in the differential, just for illustration, that's a little over $5 billion in additional resource revenues for the Government of Alberta. That would just be the direct royalty implications, not any kind of the indirect gains through income taxation of a boosted level of economic activity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Tombe.
If you do have more information on all of the indirect benefits, I think that would be a benefit to committee members. I know if would benefit me, and to folks across the country as well, particularly in my home province of Alberta. Thank you.
We will now go to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of the witnesses.
First of all, I'd like to direct some questions to Mr. Detomasi.
You have expertise in international business, which is something I think we read when we went through your brief earlier. You talked about the global issues and the fact that we have 2 billion people who have no real access to energy and 4 billion who have a little, and the rest of us act as though we are going to manage the whole world for them. I think that's really part of it. How we solve energy for the world's poor is something that we should recognize and be careful about.
There was also discussion about the sanctions as far as Russia is concerned. I spent some time with the OSCE, and we were talking about energy security, food security and, of course, security in Europe. On the discussion on sanctions and what that had done, it had taken any European industrial base and had reduced it to ruin. If the world is going to buy anything, it had to be bought from China or India. Therefore, we supported the war effort that way, so the concept of sanctions was not really something that was going to solve a lot of problems.
You also talked about our American neighbours who, on the first day of the last administration, shut down Keystone XL, thus stopping another source for our energy.
These are some of the issues that we deal with, and of course, we have people who talk about how you have to get rid of the oil sands. Mr. Birol from the International Energy Agency indicated that the difference between the heavy oil in Fort McMurray and conventional oil, if you took that differential as far as carbon is concerned, would be the equivalent of one day's emission in China. Therefore, does it matter if China gets its act together on January 1 or January 2? Yet, we are able to demonize an industry that means so much, not just for the world, as I had spoken about, but also for Canadians. I wonder if you could comment on some of the global aspects of Canadian energy.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
Sure. You've mentioned a couple of things.
One is that I think energy development has to be taken in the context of everything else, of which climate is one, security is another, economic growth is another and future generations is another. Sometimes I also think our focus on climate obscures some of these other questions to us, things we might be paying attention to, including the one about energy poverty among the world's poor.
It strikes a lot of those I talk to as just another form of neo-colonialism. Given that we've just had indigenous reconciliation day, I think it's something we should think about. This appears to be yet another attempt to stop them from developing in the way that they deem, and it's leading to a lot of resentment. Economic growth is what leads people to care about increasingly green policies. Rich people care about these things. Poor people, the evidence indicates, do not.
That's one, but there are many ways in which we should be thinking about this globally. I've mentioned the Americans, who are unpredictable at best, but we also used to have a very independent capacity in international affairs. Canada was called a middle power. We won a Nobel Peace Prize for introducing the concept of peacekeeping. We had independent values that we stood for and that the world saw. One of them is the clean provision of energy and others that might hearken back to...I wouldn't say the good old days, but it's at least something that I think is worth remembering.
Those are a couple of comments. It's a very big canvas you've opened up, but I'll start with those.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you very much.
One of the discussions had to do with innovation and commercialization and the way people say, well, that'll never happen. In my hometown of Innisfail there is a company called Deep Sky Labs, which has just opened up its operation. It will take about $100 million over the next 10 years. There is no government support for this; it is simply a commercial venture. They're talking about different types of projects. It is a lab that will look at different ways of capturing CO2 and different things that can be done with it. I think that's one of the important aspects.
Just in closing, I've said that the colonialism we speak about is environmental colonialism. Some people argue that it doesn't exist, but I do believe it does.
Thank you very much.