Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 21st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Dabrusin, we have a point of order. I'll ask you to hold on for a second.

I'm going to go to Mr. Patzer on a point of order.

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

Chair, in the previous meeting where she brought this up, you actually adjourned the meeting while debate was ongoing. Therefore, I believe Ms. Dabrusin would need unanimous consent in order to bring the same motion back to life in this meeting, and I'll just save you the bother and tell you that unanimous consent will not be granted.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for your point of order.

I'm going to go to a point of order from Mr. Angus.

Mr. Angus, go ahead.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Patzer, I think, is fundamentally wrong on this, because she actually has the floor, so she can move a motion. What I would ask is that, out of respect to our witnesses, who've given us excellent testimony, we allow them to leave so that we can get out our hammers and bats and jump all over each other.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer. Unanimous consent is not required as the member does have the floor. If the member is moving to resume debate on the motion, on which I want clarification, then we can proceed with that. Ms. Dabrusin does have the floor.

Before you go, if you are going to continue with resuming debate on the motion, I know Mr. Maki has to leave at 12:30, so I would ask that we release the witnesses as per Mr. Angus's suggestion, which I see Mr. Simard supporting as well. I think that's where we're going to be headed. I just wanted to take a moment.

You have a point of clarification, Mr. Maki. Go ahead.

[Mark Maki]

I learned early in my career that I always left the field a lot smarter when I went out there and actually saw what people do day to day. I know there's lots of difference of opinion at the table here about the importance of Trans Mountain and whether the pipeline should ever have been built or not, but I think everyone who's here, especially given what the mission of the committee is, would benefit from a visit. We are absolutely open to that. We did a tour for the City of Burnaby not long ago. We'd be happy to have people from the committee, in a few groups or however it works, out to see the western side of the system or Edmonton or whatever makes sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Maki, for offering that. I'll take you up on that at some point in the future, and I'm sure others will as well.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today. I will remind you that you can submit a brief to the clerk if there's anything you missed or anything you want to add directly.

I will suspend for a couple of minutes so we can release the witnesses, and then we'll continue on with Ms. Dabrusin's motion.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Dabrusin, you have the floor, and I am going back to you.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'm moving to resume debate on my motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

That is a dilatory motion. We will have to proceed directly to a vote to resume debate on your motion.

I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

We will resume debate.

I'll go to you, Ms. Dabrusin, to continue.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to remind everyone of exactly what we're debating today, the motion is as follows:

Given that:

There are 1,600 abandoned and orphaned oil wells in Alberta polluting farmland, waterways, and air;

The number of wells in Alberta are set to increase by an additional 1,800 to 2,000;

These additional abandoned wells will cost more than $200 million to clean up;

The Government of Alberta sent back $137 million because they failed to use the funds provided by the Government of Canada to clean up abandoned wells and create jobs in the pandemic;

The Government of Saskatchewan used their allocated funds in their entirety to clean abandoned wells and create jobs;

Companies who abandon wells and fail to pay for their cleanup negatively impact provincial taxpayers and municipalities;

Orphaned and abandoned wells present an economic opportunity to support energy solutions like geothermal energy.

The Standing Committee on Natural Resources begin a five-meeting study on the impact of this failure to clean these wells in Alberta, the impacts of the pollution from not cleaning up abandoned and orphaned wells, the costs of cleaning up abandoned and orphaned wells, the regulations to hold companies to account for well cleanup, and the potential opportunities associated with cleaning up abandoned wells, and report its findings to the House of Commons.

Mr. Chair, I feel that this study is a really important one. It touches on a lot of really important issues that, frankly, we need to take a deeper look at. It includes parts about federal funds and programs that were put in place to deal with this issue and that were not used by the Province of Alberta but were used in Saskatchewan. It's about what future energy solutions and opportunities are presented by these orphaned and abandoned wells. It's about environmental remediation.

As we talk about our biodiversity commitments and our commitments to nature, I believe right across this country, regardless of political parties, we all actually care about nature a lot. We care about what the lands and waters for our future generations will be like. This is about requiring people—when I say “people”, I mean businesses—to take responsibility for the damage they've created. The federal government stepped up. When we stepped up, we didn't see all of the funds we put forward being used.

I think this is an important study for all of us. I'm hoping the committee will pass it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

I do have a speaking order established.

I'll go first to Monsieur Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I tend to agree, but I would like to propose minor changes to Ms. Dabrusin's motion.

It's mostly the last paragraph. I think the direct reference to Alberta should be removed. The motion says “this failure to clean these wells in Alberta”, but we could talk about wells in general.

I would also add the word “federal” to clarify that we're talking about federal regulations. As you know, protecting provincial jurisdictions is kind of my hobby horse.

Therefore, I would like the study to focus on federal regulations and all wells, not just ones in Alberta. I think these small changes would clarify the intent of the motion. I don't think they in any way change what my fellow member Ms. Dabrusin is trying to do.

Is the amendment I'm proposing clear to the clerk?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I was listening in translation.

Mr. Clerk, are you just able to clarify?

Mr. Simard, you would like to propose an amendment suggesting that we eliminate...so it's not just Alberta. That's what you're proposing.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

After “the impact of this failure to clean these wells”, I would delete “in Alberta”. Then, two sentences later, where it talks about “regulations to hold companies to account”, I would specify that it is federal regulations.

If those changes are made, I will be in favour of the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Simard, I'm getting clarification so it's presented properly. I'm going to have the clerk provide you clarification and support so we can get this right.

Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Thomas Bigelow]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My only note is that we're trying to amend the text in two places at once here. I think there is a way to do it.

Mr. Simard, I will explain it to you.

The only thing I recommended to the chair is that we make both changes to the text through a single amendment. I would suggest, then, that all the words after “these wells” be amended to reflect the two changes you've proposed. We would remove “in Alberta”, the sentence would continue and we would add “federal” before the word “regulations”. The two changes would appear in both languages.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm fine with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We have a proposed amendment on the floor, and I'm looking for folks.

Mrs. Shanahan, I've seen your hand up. I know I got you on the main motion. Would you like to speak on the amendment as well?

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Yes, absolutely, Mr. Chair.

The amendment that was just proposed by Mr. Simard is very intriguing. However, I'd like to understand a little more.

With respect to the content of the motion, which deals with oil well cleanup, Alberta is clearly the main province concerned. In fact, this is a very important issue for the people in my riding who belong to environmental groups. They would basically like us to halt oil development altogether. They are right to raise the example of wells that have been abandoned by the companies. It's really shameful that this has been going on for so long. In the end, it is once again the federal government, in this case the Liberal Party, that is stepping in and proposing solutions, because things can't continue as they are.

I would like to understand a little more about the Province of Alberta's responsibility in this situation. I understand that there are also problems in other provinces, but, frankly, that's not what we're talking about here. I won't venture to give a concrete example, because I don't want to make a mistake, but if the problem raised doesn't apply to one particular province, we simply won't mention it. In this case, it is clear that Alberta has an abandoned oil well problem and has a provincial responsibility in all of this, which may be complementary to the federal responsibility.

That is my question about this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mrs. Shanahan.

Our next speaker on the amendment is Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I support the amendment because I think it's really important that this issue is framed in terms of the national interest and also our obligation to address the huge liability cost of resource extraction if the companies are not living up to their obligations.

I don't see this as an Alberta-specific issue. Rather, I would see this in terms of what the regions have done—the provinces. If one region has failed, then it gives us a better benchmark. I would remind people that long before Leduc No. 1, the first oil well in North America was in Sarnia. Even before the Americans came along, in Canada there was Petrolia. What happened with those wells? Those are fair questions.

Looking at this, if we're going to do five meetings, that's a fair engagement of time. We should do it right, so that we're providing a national perspective on each region. I'm going to bring in again the fact that, coming from northern Ontario, we have an enormous background in abandoned mine waste. At least our mountains in Cobalt aren't quite as big as Vivian's mountains and slag, but I live on an abandoned mine property.

The responsibility for the massive damage that was done in the Cobalt silver camp is, by and large, now under Agnico Eagle Mines. It's a very interesting company. Agnico Eagle didn't create the ecological disaster zone that many of our lakes and many of our forests were subjected to—this was early mining—but Agnico Eagle has the responsibility.

Just down the street from me is Cross Lake, which was heavily dumped with cyanide, arsenic and mercury. A hundred-some years later, a mining company has the legal obligation to monitor the wells to make sure that what's going into the streams and, in a lot of cases, into people's well water, meets a standard. That's a level of corporate responsibility that was imposed on a company that came in after the fact, and the province at the time said, “You want to mine here? Well, you're responsible. If you're going to take these old sites, you take their liabilities.”

We know that, certainly in northern Ontario, once mining companies—and some of the big ones—realized that the money wasn't going to be made anymore, they shifted it off to junior companies, shifted it to shell companies and walked away. We know that happened all the time in oil and gas, so that whoever ended up with the property at the end of the day could go bankrupt. They could change their name. They could be something else the next day.

If the system is set up so that nobody is left to pay for that except the taxpayer, that's a serious problem. It fits under federal jurisdiction in that, if the federal government is being asked to pick up the cost of damage that was done by companies who made money, it requires an investigation. It requires us going back to the taxpayer and saying, “Listen, there's a reason we gave x billion dollars to clean up something that was not our responsibility.”

What is that reason? We have to explain that to the public. We also have to shine a light on people who corporately weren't living up to their responsibility, or if the Alberta Energy Regulator is not living up to its responsibility of holding those companies.... We have to deal with that because, if, at the end of the day, it comes back to the federal taxpayer, I have to say to people in northern Ontario that this is why we're paying out for damages in Alberta now.

Many people in northern Ontario have lots of close relations in Alberta. Many of our people have worked in Alberta and vice versa. They come to work in our area. The last thing they want to do is pay for someone else's damage—that's a reasonable thing—so we have to be able to say that we're going to study this and get answers.

To that, I want to know that we're also going to look at the methane cost, because the majority of methane leaks we're now identifying are coming from abandoned wells. These are ecological carbon bombs that affect us and our global commitments. These are carbon bombs that can be fixed, but someone's going to have to pay for it. I think we should have the methane frame on what's being done. We know that a lot of the federal money during COVID was put on methane, and we didn't get a real, clear answer on how much of it went and actually did the job.

At the end of the day, I think everyone agrees that if you have an abandoned well in your field, the last thing you want is to have it leaking methane. Someone needs to come to fix that.

I think this is a very reasonable study. The one thing I want an assurance of is that it's not going to bump the final work that we're doing on TMX because I believe we have.... There are how many ministers still? They haven't appeared yet. I don't want them to be bumped down the list. I'd rather that this be worked in with our other work.

I support the amendment and the main motion, and I'm ready to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

I'm going to go to Ms. Dabrusin. Then I'm going to go to Mrs. Stubbs. I have you on the amendment.

Ms. Dabrusin, go ahead on the amendment.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I appreciate everything that Mr. Angus added into it. I was just telling him I recently watched a documentary about the history of his community. I think it was called Blooms. He can correct me if I got that wrong. It was really interesting, so I appreciate that.

I think I stated at the outset what my reasoning was behind it and why Alberta was singled out in the bottom part of the motion. The actual motion study is about the federal funds that have not been used by the province to clean up these orphan wells, although, as I mentioned in the outset, Saskatchewan used all the funds.

That said, that was the reasoning for the different wording in the motion, but I'm okay, actually, with the proposal that was put forward by Mr. Simard. I think that all of that still forms part of the study.

If I can provide an assurance to Mr. Angus—and I don't know if the chair has any updates—I would never expect this to bump the appearances of ministers on the TMX study. I don't know if we need anything to be more clear about that, but that's certainly not my intention.

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

I'm going to need a supply and contract agreement. I promise I won't rip it up.