Natural Resources Committee on April 6th, 2022

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

There have been times when a witness has been absent due to technical problems. However, I do not believe it is acceptable for a deputy minister to use such problems to avoid appearing before us. With the announcement of the Bay du Nord project resulting in an awkward situation, I had many questions I wanted to ask Mr. Moffet, but they will go unanswered.

So I would ask that we call the deputy minister again, as we have done before with witnesses who have been absent. I find it unacceptable for a deputy minister to use technical problems to avoid appearing before the committee, especially on a day that is inconvenient for the government, as is the case today.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I hear your frustration. We had done the technology check. He's travelling today and found himself in a hotel room with a broken headset, and there was no time to get a new one—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

This is too convenient.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

It's the situation we have.

Look, what I would suggest is that we go through the questions—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I hope he will appear before the committee in the near future. He can't just avoid us like that. If we accept this, in other committees, deputy ministers could cite technical problems to avoid appearing. This could set an awkward precedent.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'm not going to make excuses. Like I say, we had him online, but he could not pass the technology check that we did for today's session. What I'm going to suggest is that we go through this with the witnesses we have for the remaining time, and then, when we go for the report discussion, we can discuss this if we need to do anything else.

In the meantime, Larry had the floor with 42 seconds left.

I think Ms. De Silva was going to weigh in on a comment in the absence of Mr. Moffet. I'll leave it to you where you want to go.

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

Yes. I have these questions that my colleague had. I'm just going to table them with the clerk, and we can get a reply from them at that point, if it's okay.

I have a question here. Have any of the top ten oil-producing countries in the world imposed an emissions cap? Have Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, China, the UAE, Brazil and Kuwait in particular—any of those countries—imposed an emissions cap?

[Gitane De Silva]

Again, that would be a question of policy. I would defer to Glenn Hargrove, who I believe is there in the room from NRCan and who might have that information.

[Glenn Hargrove, Assistant Deputy Minister, Fuels Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you.

The answer is no, not to our knowledge.

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

Okay. I'll table these with the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Perfect.

Now we're going to Ms. Dabrusin.

You'll have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first questions are for Canada Energy Regulator.

I'd like to get more details. I know there have been a fair number of questions that we've heard about imports and foreign oil. It might be helpful to perhaps get a bit of clarity on that.

Am I correct that the regulator reviews the amount of oil imports to Canada? Is that part of what you do?

[Gitane De Silva]

The regulator does authorize exports of hydrocarbon, and only imports of natural gas. We do track imports. If you have specific questions, Monsieur Charlebois is chief economist and that's part of his role. He could answer those questions.

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

Sure.

If we compare the level of oil imports now to, say, 10 years ago, are they going up or down?

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

As a general trend, oil imports are trending down in Canada.

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

I was looking at what I believe is a market snapshot that was released at the end of March. Is it correct that crude oil imports to Canada are the lowest amount imported since 1988? Does that sound correct?

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

It does, yes.

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

Thank you.

The other question that seems to come up a lot is where this oil comes from. Where does the largest amount of our crude oil come from?

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

It comes from the United States.

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

Thank you. That's helpful.

Do you know roughly what percentage of our oil imports comes from the U.S.?

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

In 2021, it was 66%.

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

Perfect.

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

I might point out that, as we look at past trends, the United States is taking an increasing share of this. If we go back 10 years, we can see that Canada was importing oil from a more diversified group of countries.

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

Thank you. That's helpful.

So that's actually changed over the past...I don't know if I caught how many years. Did you say it was 10 years?

[Jean-Denis Charlebois]

Yes, about 10 years.