Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2024

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That's members of Parliament—sorry—that do not support the Prime Minister and his leadership. Perhaps this is something they are doing to try to undermine the leadership of the Prime Minister. I'm not quite sure at this point—I'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall—but it would explain a few things.

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

Mr. Chair, I think the admission is that, literally, spaghetti is getting thrown at the wall to see if something sticks. Nothing's sticking, but you know what we could do? We could actually put this to a vote, and then we could just be done with it. If the Conservatives oppose it, that's fine. They can vote it down. That's the way these things work.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin. I think you're talking about relevance.

On that, I will just ask my colleague Mrs. Goodridge to be relevant with the motion at hand and speak to that.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Back to being relevant to the motion at hand, this is part of how there are some factual inaccuracies in the preamble as written. It's worth noting that over 30 first nations and all eight of Alberta's Métis settlements were able to be part of the site rehabilitation program, which cleaned up 2,145 sites across thousands of acres. In total, over 12,000 applications were received by the 104 different indigenous contractors that were approved during all the funding periods.

I remember being an MLA at the time and getting phone calls from indigenous contractors that were like, “I have always wanted to get into this, but I didn't know how and I didn't think I'd be able to compete with the big guys at doing some of this work. This is really amazing that my very small company can do this.” We allowed a variety of sizes of companies. The Government of Alberta decided to open it up so that it wasn't just giant contracts to spend the money quickly. This was about doing meaningful work that was meaningful for the people of Alberta and meaningful for the land, doing the right thing by the environment as well as creating meaningful jobs. That is part of the absolute challenge.

Mr. Chair, if you would give me some opportunity, I believe the clerk has already received the newest amendment, which I believe should be in compliance and is in both languages. In amendment second option, I would propose that we strike the preamble as written and make the following changes: “The Standing Committee on Natural Resources begin a three-meeting study on abandoned and orphaned wells in Canada,” and actually, it'll be easier if I just read the final motion as it would read, rather than trying to include all the cross-outs and cross-ins.

The final motion would read that “The Standing Committee on Natural Resources”—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm sure my colleague will have no trouble understanding that, if she herself is having a hard time reading the motion in her mother tongue and if she doesn't have the translation, it will be difficult for me to express an opinion on it.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Chair, we sent the motion to the clerk of the committee in both official languages. We took out the whole preamble. To make it easier for me, I will read the motion with the proposed changes.

It is that:

The Standing Committee on Natural Resources hold a three-meeting study on abandoned and orphaned wells in Canada, the federal 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.

Very simply, I think I've laid out every single argument.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Goodridge, I'm just going to suspend to make sure that we've received it and everything's in order, and we'll be back.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We are back. Members have received the motion in both official languages.

Thank you, Mrs. Goodridge.

I will now go to you, Mrs. Goodridge. Your amendment to the motion is on the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think that this has found a way whereby I hope we can provide some support for everyone around this. I do mean to have unanimous support for this.

I will cede to hear what other colleagues say, and I hope we can get this passed before the meeting finishes at 6:30.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

I'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen.

Go ahead, Mr. Dreeshen. You have the floor.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Hold on, Mr. Dreeshen. We have a point of order from Mr. Angus.

Mr. Angus, go ahead on the point of order.

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

Mr. Dreeshen spoke many times. I thought I was next on the speaking list.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus, it's because we have an amendment on the floor that was just sent to all colleagues.

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

I didn't put up my hand because I thought I was on the list.

[An hon. member]

Too bad, so sad.

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

Am I at the bottom of the list now?

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

Do you want us to filibuster with it, like your own?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Hold on.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Can we just call the vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I have a point of order.

Mr. Angus, on your point of order, we do have an amendment on the floor, and we had a number of members with their hands up. I can put you on the speaking list on the amendment, which you should have received.

Members online, you should have received it in your inboxes.

We have a point of order from Mrs. Goodridge.

Mrs. Goodridge, go ahead on the point of order.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

While I am not a regular member of this committee, I have attended this committee often enough to understand that the speaking order does reset, typically, in this committee when there is an amendment or a subamendment brought forward. It's not like Mr. Angus is new here, so he should understand these rules. Therefore, I would argue that his point of order is very much not at a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for your input and advice. I'm not sure if that's a point of order, but it's for clarification for me and for members.

I'm going to go back to the speaking order at hand. Mr. Dreeshen had the floor.

Did I miss anything else? I didn't.

Mr. Dreeshen, go ahead. You have the floor on the amendment to the amended motion.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

There are a couple of points, I believe, that are important for us to discuss.

First of all, I don't want us to get into a situation later where someone says, “We said five meetings, and now we're talking three.” That's the first substantial change that has taken place here. The rationale that I would use.... Perhaps the government might look at this from the perspective of not having to go through every one of the preambles and adjudicate on those if we are simply dealing with a straightforward motion.

That is not to say that this may not come up, but I am suggesting that we should be staying strictly on this. Therefore, it's two fewer meetings, meetings that perhaps might not need to have the technical experts come in to explain the difference between abandoned and orphaned wells, so that might minimize that.

Because it has a lot to do with wells that are on first nations land, it will be important to hear from them to understand what they do, and how they had tried to get up to speed in order to make this happen. I believe that will be important. That was never in the preamble, but it was, certainly, from my interventions, the main sticking point. The only money they wanted to take back was that which was given to first nations, so maybe we won't have to worry about that quite as much.

Therefore, my belief is that dealing with a three-meeting study on abandoned and orphaned wells in Canada would be significant. I know we've been attempting to get a bit of a schedule to see what we would have before we break for Christmas. Most likely, it would be easier for us to bring that into the schedule. That might be out there somewhere. I'm not 100% sure.

It is, of course, important, according to federal regulations, that companies be held to account for well cleanups. In addition to that, of course, and because it's a federal responsibility, no doubt we will get into the discussions about what the provincial regulators do and what we expect from them. That is the point I have for that.

There are also opportunities associated with cleaning up abandoned wells. We had spoken about one of those opportunities with first nations industries, and the fact that they have been able to get to a critical mass to do a lot of work. However, there are other types of things that can be done with these wells as well. It depends on where they are, and it depends on the infrastructure that is associated with them. I think that is important.

Of course, we have to report the findings to the House. I believe we already have two studies that we need to tidy up, but that can be fairly straightforward.

Some people look at the amount of money set aside to do their projects. I just want to give an example of well cleanups and what is expected.

Basically, in many cases, the actual site of the well, while it is being used, is about the distance that we have in this circular area between us here. That's about how big the well is. However, people may have had a four- or five-acre plot that they needed to have in order to do the construction. That is the part that is being cleaned up. It's not just the little patch that you have.

With that, there are numerous things, depending on the state of the well that they have. Some of it can simply be cutting it off and cementing it all the way down to the bottom to make sure that there are no chances.... With smaller wells, they might even use different techniques in order to sort that out. However, it isn't just a well. You have to get to it.

Therefore, in many cases, there's a massive road that has been built. That, too, is part of the cleanup of the site. That is something that one should be aware of. I've seen them working in our area. There would be trackhoes, caterpillars and massive trucks coming in and out for two or three weeks. When you think about what the cost is to the oil companies—in that case it was oil companies—or to the groups that are going to do this, you find that there's a lot of detail there. That's why getting the expertise is so critical; it's so that they're able to manage that.

Those are the things that I wanted to point out. If you do the math, it could easily be $100,000 to clean up that site.

Somebody mentioned the Clampetts earlier. Not everybody in Alberta who owns the land is in the situation where they have mineral rights. It is just surface rights that you are looking at.