Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 27th, 2024

[Glenn Hargrove]

Yes, it's a great question. When projects are being proposed, we have review committees with experts who take a look at these things to make sure that the right tree is planted in the right place at the right time.

You mentioned industry interests. Again I'll just repeat, these aren't commercially driven projects, and we are looking at things like fire resistance and things like that when we're reviewing projects.

Also, I would just say that 92% of the projects to date have been multispecies projects. I know there has been some criticism of the program of planting all kinds of monocultures, but that's not the reality on the ground: 92% of our projects have at least two species. Throughout the course of the program so far, we've planted about 250 different species of tree.

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

Thanks. I'm pretty much done, and I thank you for that, but it's really important—if the government's going to be doing this, and not industry—that we look at having mixed forests. Again, industry is making money off much more plantation styles, but those are also fire corridors now. We're seeing, in the boreal, the need to return to the fire breaks of having mixed aspen and birch in with the pine and the others. We need to have that balance, so I think that has to be the frame that you're looking at.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

I now go to Mr. Patzer. Mr. Patzer, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the officials for being here.

I'm just wondering, how much money has the federal government spent on orphan well cleanup on indigenous lands, on treaty lands?

[Erin O'Brien]

Funding for the cleanup of orphan wells was provided by the Department of Finance. I would suggest that the question would be best answered by those officials.

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

Great.

As you know, natural resource development on reserve land is a federal responsibility for the department. On the back side of that, and on the cleanup side of it as well, do you think you'd be able to come back with that information and table with the committee a document that would have that broken down by province? Would that be possible?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Patzer, we have a point of order.

Ms. Dabrusin.

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

Perhaps it's a point of clarification.

Mr. Patzer is showing an interest in this motion. Is that expressing his interest in actually supporting our motion on orphaned and abandoned wells?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for your point of order, Ms. Dabrusin. As you also said, it's not a point of order but maybe a point of clarification. We don't use points of clarification on that. I appreciate your raising it, but it is not a point of order.

Mr. Patzer, I will go back to you so that you can continue.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know it's a sore point for the government, seeing as how they forced the Province of Alberta to return the $137 million they were intending to use to clean up orphaned wells on reserve lands.

If the government is actually serious about it, I'm just curious to know whether any effort has been put into doing it. Again, is it possible to get that information and have it tabled with this committee? Natural resource development is a federal responsibility on indigenous lands.

[Michael Vandergrift]

We could follow up with the Department of Finance on behalf of the committee.

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

Thank you very much. I would really appreciate that.

When the minister was here earlier, he was talking about carbon capture, utilization and storage facilities. I mean, I don't believe his assertion on all the jobs being created here, but I'll play ball for a second. Let's say there will be tens of thousands of jobs created. How many carbon capture facilities will have to be built in order to create tens of thousands of jobs?

There must be some data out there somewhere for him to make that claim. There must be some information available to back that up.

[Michael Vandergrift]

I think the minister was referring to the full range of activities involved in decarbonizing the industrial sector and decarbonizing the gas sector, one of which is carbon capture and storage. There are methane reductions. A large number of technologies can be put in place in terms of reducing emissions.

I think the minister was referring generally to those types of projects. Those types of projects require engineers and all sorts of trades to implement what are pretty significant, large and technically challenging projects.

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

Okay. On a lot of these large projects, he'll be trying to lump construction jobs in there as well, right? I mean, construction jobs are important, but on one facility they're there for only a couple of years. Then they're off to the next project. In order to replace the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have already been lost, and also the 100,000 jobs that are projected to be lost with the emissions cap, again, he must have some actual hard data, and I would assume the department would have that data on the number of carbon capture units.

Again, on the supplementary estimates, he said there are provisions within them to build for carbon capture. How many carbon capture units will have to be built in order to create the tens of thousands of jobs he was referencing?

[Michael Vandergrift]

There is an analysis of the employment impacts of the proposed regulations in the regulatory impact assessment statement that was tabled with the regulation by Environment and Climate Change Canada. I'd refer the committee to that for analyzing the impact of the regulation.

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

Okay.

I'm just wondering, for the department here, if it's standard practice for the government to invest in companies on the verge of bankruptcy.

[Michael Vandergrift]

I think every investment decision has a full and detailed set of calculations behind it, looking at the business case before making an investment decision.

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

Shortly after getting the big announcement on the amount of money that was going to be spent on the battery plant in Quebec with Northvolt, the parent company in Sweden filed for bankruptcy protection. They went bankrupt. Now, I know they're claiming that it won't impact the Quebec plant, but Premier Legault is already up in arms about some of the details here about the securities being demanded to try to bail out the parent company.

What provisions do we have in order to make sure that Canadian taxpayers' money isn't simply being used to bail out a foreign company?

[Michael Vandergrift]

My understanding is that no fines have been allocated to that company under that proposed transaction, but we are not directly involved in that.

I would suggest talking to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, for example, which has been leading that project.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

The time is up. Thank you for your questions and answers.

We'll now go to Ms. Lapointe. You have five minutes.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I also have some questions about the 2 billion trees program. A few weeks ago, the commissioner reviewed the program and weighed in on the progress that was being made. I believe he expressed some concerns about the targets.

Can you please provide an update to us on how we are doing with the program? Where are we with targets? Do we expect to achieve the overall goal of 2 billion that we established?

[Glenn Hargrove]

We've made really significant progress since the commissioner did his study of the program. Right now, we have agreements in place or under negotiation to plant 716 million trees. That's nearly triple what it was a year ago. There's been a lot of progress.

We have about 200 agreements. In the first three years of the program, partners planted 157 million trees toward the target of 2 billion. That includes trees planted under the low-carbon economy fund and the 2 billion trees program. We've co-developed an indigenous funding stream. We're exceeding targets in the federal and urban streams. We're at nearly half in the indigenous stream and the private lands stream. We have agreements with nearly every province and territory across the country. There's a lot of great progress.

It is an ambitious goal, though, and there are lots of challenges in ramping up supply chains and working through partners. Provinces and territories have to find their matching funds, as do other kinds of partners, as well as the land to plant. We've had some really challenging fire seasons that overlapped with planting season. There are a lot of complications that run into a very complex supply chain.

We're making really good progress, in my view, and we're committed to the goal.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Are there best practice models that we can look to in other regions or parts of the world?

[Glenn Hargrove]

There aren't any that I'm aware of that have similar circumstances to Canada's. Part of it is that 90% of our forests are owned and managed by provinces and territories. In order for us to deliver on a really ambitious goal like this in the Canadian forestry context, we need to work very closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues, and that's what we're doing.

We knew going in that it was going to take some time to ramp up those supply chains. What we have really been focused on is working with partners to develop the long-term agreements that will drive the demand and help to build supply chains so that we are getting the right seeds and developing saplings.

That whole planting cycle all the way through to monitoring is in place.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I'll move on to critical minerals now. I think our government has done a good job of anticipating the ramp-up of global demand for critical minerals. We launched a critical minerals strategy. In the 2022 budget, we allocated $3.9 billion, I think, for critical minerals.

Can you give us an update on where we are in terms of the number of projects we've approved and the funding that has flowed? I'm interested not only in the sourcing of critical minerals, but also in the development of the value chains. That's a really key part of the critical minerals strategy in creating generational wealth for our country and communities.