Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 9th, 2022

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

Okay. I'm reading this, and it says that they're asking you to prioritize early and deep reductions. This is as serious as it gets.

You're mandated to prioritize early and deep reductions at a time when the Prime Minister is standing on the world's stage saying he's got an emissions cap, and he hasn't talked to anybody about it. At the same time, we have the Canada Energy Regulator promoting an increase of 1.2 million barrels a day coming out of the oil sands.

How do you square that? You're going to be pushing for deep reductions while the government you're working for is promoting massive increases in the oil sector.

[Dan Wicklum]

I would say that the sequence of operations went like this.... I'll start by qualifying—

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

I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude, but I don't have much time.

[Dan Wicklum]

Yes.

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

I'm not interested in the sequence. I'm interested in the policy conflict.

How do you push for these early and deep reductions while the government you're working for is telling the world that they're going to be looking to at least a massive increase of over a million barrels a day? What do you say to that?

[Dan Wicklum]

First of all, it's not our job to decide whether or not Canada is going to have a cap. That's the government's job. They did that, and now they're asking for our advice to help put the cap in place. That's completely consistent with the act and our terms of reference—

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

Okay. Your act is also telling you not to allow for increases in GHG emissions. Don't you call the minister and say, “What the heck are you guys doing promoting a 1.1 million-barrel-a-day increase?” That is contradictory to your mandate, is it not?

[Dan Wicklum]

Well, look, I would say that the Canada Energy Regulator is a Crown corporation. I mean, it's actually not the government. They have their own independent board and their own independent management.

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

They do.

[Dan Wicklum]

Yes. I do know.... I'd have to talk to the government, but I do know that the minister has messaged them quite strongly. The minister wanted the Canada Energy Regulator to align its operations and philosophy to a net-zero 2050 outcome. I know that is happening as we speak.

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

Okay. That's good to know, because you said to my colleague that you weren't looking at whether new projects would be under the cap, but the International Energy Agency, hardly a hotbed of radicalism, is saying that there should be no new oil and gas if we're going to meet our targets.

Is that something in line with you? If your mandate is to not allow for increases in greenhouse gas emissions, how is it that you don't look at the new projects coming on and at least be under the cap or, like what the IEA is saying, whether they should be allowed at all?

[Dan Wicklum]

Again, I think that's a degree of resolution that is not aligned with our mandate, but the government is going to have to struggle with that. If there's a cap, what is it, and what are the implications for existing or new projects underneath the cap? That's the government's responsibility.

We are interpreting our terms of reference and our task as providing guidance on a higher strategic level and leaving those types of decisions to government.

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

I'm looking at this thing here that's really reassuring Canadians. You guys are going to be prioritizing early and deep reductions. I'm trying to figure out where these early and deep reductions are happening.

I want to go to the other principle that this Liberal government is working on and that you seem to support.

The emissions that are coming from our offshore sales of oil and gas are more than all of the emissions made in all of the sectors of Canada combined. When we add the TMX pipeline, which is designed for export, 900,000 more barrels will be exported. You don't think that has to be considered if we're going to look at actually saving the planet? That's somebody else's problem...?

[Dan Wicklum]

I need to be clear on this. We don't have an opinion on that—

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

You don't have an opinion on that?

[Dan Wicklum]

—because it's outside of the purview of the act that makes us real. It's not in our terms of reference—

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

This would be a great discussion in 2006, but what the IPCC is saying is that the planet is burning.

We have a government that is going to massively increase exports to places like China or India where this will be burned. Your job is to warn the government to prioritize early and deep reductions and make sure that we don't have greenhouse gas emissions. They are exporting upwards of a million barrels overseas so it can be burned there.

Don't you think that you have at least the moral obligation to warn the government and to say, “Come on, guys, you can't pull this kind of stuff and meet our obligations on the international stage”?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time on this round.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut it off there. If Mr. Angus wants to come back to that, we should get back to him one more time.

Right now, we're going to move into our second round. It's slightly shorter.

Mr. Melillo is first up with five minutes.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to go back to Mr. Wicklum and pick up on a question asked by my Liberal colleague Ms. Dabrusin. Perhaps I misinterpreted your answer, and correct me if I am wrong, but I'd like to get a bit of clarity there.

In talking about how we measure net zero, you mentioned there are the natural forests we have that are sequestering carbon; you mentioned the removal technologies that we have, which are great, but as I understood it—and of course I'm paraphrasing—you were saying that you see those technologies as something later down the road that we can rely on if other measures don't work.

From my point of view, we want to lower emissions as quickly as we can. We want to lean on all the technologies we have and develop those technologies, so why would that not be something we would look at using right away? I just want to get your comments there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're not getting you, Mr. Wicklum. I'll stop the clock now.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I can't hear him.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

You're good now.

[Dan Wicklum]

There's a nuance here. When you take a look at our principle, in our summary report, about not getting caught in the net, we are concerned that people will start using removal technologies as an excuse to delay action or as an excuse not to reduce emissions, and we are adamant that a successful pathway to net zero is going to have to rely on deep actual emissions reductions and minimal reliance on—

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I understand that, but if we don't use these technologies, are we not delaying action? We're not going to use removal technology to lower emissions because you want to lower emissions using another way, but, if we're not doing that, why would we not use those technologies?

[Dan Wicklum]

Again, how do you lower emissions? Using removal technologies should be, we think, reserved for the most difficult-to-remove emissions. If we focus on removal technologies now, we are quite concerned that will de-emphasize or take focus away from the very difficult job of actually reducing emissions.

That is our very strong opinion, which is why we put it as one of the key principles. These are legitimate technologies—