Natural Resources Committee on April 6th, 2022

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

No, no. You can't kid a kidder.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time on this one.

It does make it very challenging for the interpreters when there's more than one conversation going.

We're at the six-minute—

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

Since they interrupted me, do I get an extra minute?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

You got an extra half-minute there.

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

Oh, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

No, no. You've already gone over time.

We're going—

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

So, quickly—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

No. We're done with that six minutes.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

You were already half a minute over.

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

Oh, “I'm outraged”!

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Yes, yes.

I always—

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

You're used to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Exactly.

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

That's a permanent condition of being Scottish.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Exactly.

We requested the ministers to be here for the first hour, but we were late getting started.

I'm going to hope we can keep you here for at least the next round, which would take us 25 minutes.

With that, we're going to go over—

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I think we can do another round.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Maguire, we will jump right to you for a five-minute round.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was really wanting to just sit back and watch the “marriage” continue here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

But anyway, I think even my colleague from the NDP will agree with me that there is a new reality out there.

By the way, welcome to both ministers as well.

You both referred to it in your opening comments, that there's a new reality. The world has changed in the last month and otherwise.

We've had a lot of witnesses come before us and state that increasing Canadian natural gas is integral for countries to transition away from coal and some of the higher carbon-emitting forms of energy. Industry experts have also stated that imposing these caps on natural gas will impede their ability to get more Canadian energy to market, at a time when you're indicating that we need that.

If the mission is to reduce the global greenhouse gases—and it is—why is your government moving forward with an emissions cap that could hinder the exports of Canadian materials?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I can maybe start on this.

The cap is on emissions, it's not necessarily on production. The focus there is driving people to increasingly improve the emissions performance.

If you are going to look at exporting LNG as a transition to hydrogen, which is where everybody in Europe and North America wants to go, you need to do it in a way that's low emission. You can't do it by using natural gas to liquefy. You have to use it by using electric drives. You actually have to tie it to displacement of other hydrocarbons in other parts of the world. You have to ensure that it's part of a broader energy transition. You need to implement the methane regs to ensure you're actually reducing the emissions associated—the content associated with—natural gas, so that it exactly works in the right direction.

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

Thanks. I just wondered if you recognized that an emissions cap on natural gas could slow down the energy transition in other countries from being able to transition away from coal.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

No.

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

You don't.