Natural Resources Committee on March 28th, 2022

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

Thank you for that.

I remember being here when I was told on the voluntary emissions cuts that if we let the industry work voluntarily, we'd be there. We're being told there's a new technology. CAPP, the association of Alberta petroleum producers, is asking for $75 billion because carbon capture is the new miracle solution, yet Adam Radwanski, hardly an environmentalist writer in The Globe and Mail, writes that even if we give them all this money we're not going to actually see anything from carbon capture, probably, until 2028-29. Professor Anderson, who just spoke to our committee, said it only captures 1% of emissions.

Wouldn't we be better off spending $75 billion in public money on other means, such as transitioning the economy, than on carbon capture, which is not going to come on stream for another seven to eight years?

[Andrew Gage]

I absolutely would agree with that. There's the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I think it applies absolutely to these respective technologies. With carbon capture and storage, you're trying to put the genie back in the bottle after you've already let it out. It's much better to reduce our emissions wherever possible.

If carbon capture and storage or negative emissions technologies are used, it should be for the most difficult to decarbonize industries only, and for those that we cannot possibly move away from, as well as, in the case of negative emissions technologies, to actually suck the carbon dioxide that's already in the atmosphere back out and try to make the situation better than it will otherwise be.

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

Thank you for that.

We had a letter from 400 scientists and environmentalists, pleading with the government to see that this was unproven technology, but then big oil had 6,800 meetings with the present Liberal government, so we know who has their ear.

For that, I'd like to go to you, Professor Adkin. I think what's frustrating is that we're looking at Alberta still as the land of huge opportunity. Alberta will lead in the energy transition if the investments are made. The report by Edmonton Global and Calgary Economic Development talks about the potential of an economy of $61 billion for Alberta, and 171,000 jobs, if the investments are made in clean tech. What we see is Jason Kenney and this government backing them, continuing to support big oil.

What do you as an Albertan think of the potential to transform the economy by making a serious investment in clean tech?

[Dr. Laurie Adkin]

There have been a number of studies showing the potential for the creation of jobs in many new sectors, including renewables, energy retrofits, cleaning up the abandoned oil wells, dealing with environmental remediation, doing restoration work on the watersheds, and in regenerative agriculture and in tourism. There are many areas.

I would also just remind the committee of the testimony of Melody Lepine, when she was with you on March 21. She talked about the potential for development of indigenous economies that are not reliant on the oil sands or on oil and gas extraction. She said there has to be a transition framework, that they have been asking for the federal government to co-operate and to help fund such opportunities for indigenous peoples in the oil sands regions. She talked about the possibility of—

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

I hate to interrupt here. I'm just running out of time. Her testimony was very powerful and I think it will be very helpful.

[Dr. Laurie Adkin]

Sure.

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

I just want to end with this: My in-laws spent their career in the oil patch and they had a real belief, back when Peter Lougheed said that money was going to be used to build a better future for Alberta. Consecutive Conservative governments gave it away, and now we're stuck with the $1-billion program for abandoned and orphan wells. We don't have a government provincially that seems to have any kind of plan.

What do you think should be done in terms of our future potential? Should we keep giving it away to the oil lobbyists, or should we be investing it in an economy for the people of Alberta?

[Dr. Laurie Adkin]

As one of the signatories to the letter you just mentioned, I believe it would be a mistake for the federal government to hand over a $50-billion to $75-billion tax credit to the oil and gas sector for CCS technology. As I explained in my written brief, if the industry thinks this is the magic ticket to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in the time frame required, it should be financing this itself. The reason it's not financing it is that it knows that there's a very high risk that it will make an upfront investment like this and never get the return back before the industry becomes unprofitable. Therefore, the industry wants the public to pay for it.

We need to be putting our very valuable public revenue into the solutions that we know work. We need to be building out the renewable sector very rapidly, and we need to be investing heavily in energy efficiency areas where we have the greatest possibility of gains with the lowest ecological cost. Those are the things I would recommend.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'm sorry. With that, we are out of time. This went by very quickly.

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

Did it ever. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I would like to thank each of the witnesses for—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, this is a serious study that we're undertaking here, and you've given it short shrift.

We've had a number of witnesses here. We should be able to question some of the alleged facts they've put on the table. One hour without anybody questioning them on some of the information we've heard is giving short shrift to what should be a very serious report, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask you to open this up for the next hour, or perhaps schedule a business meeting for another time, because there are some important—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

This is a report. We can use only the information we hear at this committee in the report. I will say, very clearly, that there's been a bunch of misinformation that we need to question the witnesses on. We need that time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I appreciate your point of order, but we published a notice and we need to stay with that. We said there would be one hour for witnesses, and we have important subcommittee business we need to get to. I've explained to previous speakers, when you haven't been here, that we are extremely tight on House resources right now, and the only time we can get to committee business, including planning our next study, is in the next hour that we have allocated.

With that, we're going to adjourn today's....

Mr. Angus has a second point of order.

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

I would normally completely agree with Mr. McLean, because I think these witnesses are incredibly important. This issue is.... It was the Conservatives who said they wanted to do committee business and cut our meeting by an hour. We agreed, because the Conservatives wanted to bring back their motion. Otherwise, we'd be doing what we should be doing, which is hearing witnesses.

We agreed to suspend so we could get to committee business to help the Conservatives out. That should have been a discussion they had before they came to the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're going to conclude the meeting right now.

Thank you to the witnesses.

The witnesses do have an opportunity—

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

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'm in the middle of my sentence. I'm taking only points of order right now, so if it's not a point of order, we're going to continue on with the business as published.

What I was saying was that I wanted to thank the witnesses for being here. I knew this was going to be a very tight one. You are invited to submit briefs of up to 10 pages. If you heard things from testimony that you don't agree with, you are able to—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I have one more point of order, Mr. Chair, if I may.

If you're going to let these witnesses go after one round of questioning, without our being able to test them on what they've put on the table, you need to call them back for at least another hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

The issue we're up against is this: We have a whole bunch of business that we have been asked to consider this spring. We have motions from all parties. As I've noted, we have very little time to do this. It's—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to protest, because—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

No, no. Where I'm going with this is that, in order to adjourn, we need to have a majority in support, so—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I'm still on a point of order here, Mr. Chair.

The issue we have here, of course, is.... There seems to be so much business and you're saying it's a lack of resources available in the House. I'm going to say, enough of that excuse—COVID and everything else. You have to start getting the resources available for this committee so that we can meet and discuss the important issues. I don't want to hear another reason, or that there's a lack of House resources. Get the House resources. Let's get these committees working well again, please, Mr. Chair.

This committee needs to come back so we can address some of the information that's been put on the table by some of the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Angus, do you have a point of order?