Natural Resources Committee on March 21st, 2022

[Dr. Nicholas Rivers]

That's a really difficult question, and I think there's not a clear answer for that from the academic community. It's clear that gas has a lower carbon footprint per unit of energy than coal or oil does, so, from that perspective, there's potentially some opportunity, and historically I think that's what we've thought.

There have been extraordinarily rapid improvements in renewable technologies in the last decade, however, and I think that's leading a lot of people to rethink their conception of natural gas as a bridge fuel. It looks as though we may be able to leapfrog over gas in many contexts rather than having to step through gas because of how quickly renewable technologies have developed.

I'll leave it there.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Do we have enough renewable—?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time on that one now.

We're going to move on, with regrets.

Monsieur Simard, it's over to you for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Olszynski, in your presentation you suggested that emissions from the oil sands have intensified. I, for one, am concerned about businesses attempting to use CCUS to try to increase production. It's not a cap on production, it's a cap on emissions. I get the impression that we're now trying to make oil a little more palatable in connection with the climate crisis we're experiencing. However, making oil a little more palatable involves a considerable investment of public funds.

If you have an opinion on this, I'd love to hear it.

[Prof. Martin Olszynski]

Thank you for the question.

I think what I would say is that, insofar as the federal government is concerned, it's the totality of emissions we're concerned with. Here we're talking about roughly 26% of Canada's national emissions, so I think the position has to be, speaking both practically and constitutionally, that if oil can be produced more effectively and efficiently, resulting in lower GHGs, then there should be no problem with producing that oil.

The evil we are concerned about is rising GHG emissions and their impact on climate. My understanding—and this is certainly more of a technical issue outside of my wheelhouse—is that we could make not insignificant gains in efficiency and reduce emissions through to 2030 even without CCS. Then from that point on moving forward, if CCS were feasible and it worked, then there might be further gains to be had.

So from the long policy perspective, we say that's your motive; that's your driver there. The cap would simply say very clearly that absolute emissions have to stay at that cap, and then over time that cap is going to decline.

We're talking about an emissions cap that is not just intensity-based. We are talking here about an absolute cap on emissions for the sector. So it would drive that innovation and those investments, and what we would see, and what the companies have all committed to, would be a net-zero pathway by 2050.

Whether or not it can be used to greenwash oil, at the end of the day we know that the downstream emissions—the scope 3 emissions from our vehicles and from other processes—have to be dealt with for sure. So I think this is really an interim step: As long as oil is being used, can we make Canadian oil and gas drive down its emissions so that it is more competitive, frankly, in a low carbon scenario?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time there.

We're going to move to Mr. Angus for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Olszynski, I just want to follow up on what my colleague was asking, because one of the things we've been hearing here is that the Canada Energy Regulator is planning for a massive increase in production of a million barrels a day. Certainly even before the war in Ukraine, they were looking to promote that for export.

It would be theoretically possible for us to be at net zero with a massive increase, since none of the emissions from this million barrels a day is going to be counted because it's burned offshore. Is that logical?

[Prof. Martin Olszynski]

Well, I think it's baked into the system that we're dealing with, both internationally and domestically. I had a chance today to quickly review the Net-Zero Advisory Board's submissions to the government, and that same perspective is shared there. What I think it does is that it just makes it clear that overall here, this isn't a panacea. We are driving—and need to drive—towards decarbonization of our economies. We need to move in that direction as hard and as fast as possible.

If, in the interim, the oil and gas industry sees fit to invest in these technologies so that it can get that last barrel, or whatever it wants to get, then my own view is that.... I'm fairly agnostic on that. I will say—and I made this clear, I hope, in my comments and in my submissions to you—that I have strong concerns about using any more public money towards that, in the current context in particular.

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

Yes, I guess the thing is that I feel this would have been the best conversation to have in 1998. In 2022, to be told, well, you know, let us do a massive increase in oil production, and I'm sure we're going to find efficiencies....

You mentioned the IPCC report. When I read that, the clock is ticking in a serious way. It may already have run out for us, and yet we're talking about an emissions cap that Mr. Guilbeault has now punted off to someplace in the distant future.

You say we need a hard cap. You also say that federally we have the jurisdiction. Why is it that we have the jurisdiction of the federal government to have a hard cap on emissions when we're talking about actually meeting our international obligations? Could you just explain that?

[Prof. Martin Olszynski]

I'll suggest that it is in part a question of constitutional law. Sections 91 and 92 have to be interpreted in relation to each other. Parliament has certain heads of legislative power under section 91 and the provinces under section 92.

When you look at the criminal law power, for instance, it clearly can be used to protect the environment, but we know, for instance, that the provinces have very strong jurisdiction over natural resources and the development of natural resources. Production falls very squarely in that.

I think it's absolutely a reasonable conclusion for Parliament to say, well, maybe in a hypothetical world in five years we can produce oil and gas and not have emissions, so we don't need to criminalize the production of oil and gas per se, but we criminalize and prohibit emissions, and we work on reducing emissions, and that's our goal. That's a valid use of the federal criminal law power. It is not a valid federal use of the criminal law power to micromanage production within the provinces. It might seem....

I'll leave it there.

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

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thanks, everybody.

Regrettably, we are at the end of our time today. The final part of this would be 10 minutes, and that would eat into the time that we need to....

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Yes, Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Do we have another couple of minutes to start another question? Or is there a minute each or something for maybe a few questions?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

The issue we're going to run into is that we have to go out of open session and into a closed session, which takes about five minutes.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I think it would be great, but what I was going to say to all of our witnesses who have joined us today is that if you have additional thoughts based on the conversation, or other thoughts that have come to mind, you are invited to submit a written brief of up to 10 pages. We have had many who, as part of the study, have built on the conversations we've had during our time together. That invitation extends to each of you.

I do want to thank each of you for all the information you've provided us today. There is a lot more for us to consider as we work on our report, which, hopefully, we will be tabling in Parliament soon to help the government deal with this very important issue. Thank you, everybody, for your participation today.

I'm going to suspend the meeting. For the members who are online, there's a new link for you to get into the closed session.

We'll be shutting down this part of the meeting. We invite people to get back in as quickly as possible so that we can get going with the in camera portion of the meeting for our committee business.

With that, I'll suspend.

[Proceedings continue in camera]