Natural Resources Committee on May 16th, 2023

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. Thank you for that.

Where would that $500 million be allocated? Where is it located in the estimates?

[Monique Frison]

There are a couple of places in the estimates. We can send a list through.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

That would be great. Thank you.

[Monique Frison]

I'd be able to find them for you. There are probably three different line items in the estimates.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

In June 2022, this department released a document called “Canadian Dialogue on Wildland Fire and Forest Resilience—What We Heard”. In there, there were a lot of comments. I'm just trying to get the quotes associated with this minister in relation to “Wildland Fire and Forest Resilience” and “Building Resilient Communities and Financial Instruments to support Wildland Fire Resilience”.

To our colleagues here from the department, it says in these estimates that Natural Resources Canada requested $1.7 million in contributions supporting wildland fire resilience, a decrease compared with $2 million in the 2022 main estimates and $2.3 million in expenditures in 2021, when we are currently seeing more than 60 wildfires that are active and burning across our province, and indeed Alberta, and are are seeing more and more of these massive natural events.

Why is this money decreasing, and can you tell me how hundreds of communities are going to share $1.7 million to make themselves more fire-resilient? It's unbelievable when this number continues to decrease.

[Mollie Johnson]

I recognize that there is lot to do in a lot of communities, and my expectation of the funding profile is that we will continue to do the work.

Monique, is there anything you wish to add to that?

[Monique Frison]

No, just that there are a number of items in the main estimates that are related to fire. That's one of many of the investments we'll be making in the following fiscal year.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. I've seen two line items relating to wildland fire and fire. Perhaps you can direct me to where they are, and we'll have a look at that. I see “Climate Change Adaptation”. I would assume that's probably one of them. But again, I'm just assuming.

There's “Contributions in support of Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate”. There's also “Contributions in support of Wildland Fire Resilience”, which to me is really where the money should be spent in our communities and “fire-smarting”, whether it's our indigenous communities or rural and remote communities that are right on the front lines—or even deputizing some of our indigenous communities, loggers and farmers to be able to be on the front lines to protect their homes and well-being. One thing—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Doherty, we're out of the time. If you have a question, can you get to that?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'll do it right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Perfect.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I think $1.7 million for that just doesn't seem enough. Would you agree?

[Monique Frison]

We would certainly agree that prevention of wildland fire across Canada has to be a whole-of-society effort, and you certainly would have seen that in the “what we heard” report you mentioned earlier. We certainly also agree that there are plenty of communities in Canada that could benefit from further implementation of the FireSmart program, and we're doing a lot of work on that.

And as we said earlier, we'd be happy to provide you with the list of all of the fire items in the main estimates so that you can take a look at all of those.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Can you do that by the end of the week?

[Mollie Johnson]

We'll be able to provide that by the end of this week. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you, everybody.

I understand that the members to my right have agreed to not take their five minutes. With that, I'd like to thank the officials for being here. Those online, feel free to jump off. Thank you so much for always accepting the invite to come here and for sharing your information. We'll let you go to continue with your day.

For the members, I think we've agreed, but I'll ask the ask question. Do I have unanimous consent to vote the main estimates in one motion?

(Motion agreed to)

ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LIMITED

Vote 1—Payments to the corporation for operating and capital expenditures..........$1,541,555,307

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN ENERGY REGULATOR

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$102,009,593

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN NUCLEAR SAFETY COMMISSION

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$51,986,215

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$767,362,423

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$29,227,432

Vote 10—Grants and contributions..........$2,517,543,940

(Votes 1, 5 and 10 agreed to on division)

NORTHERN PIPELINE AGENCY

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$539,949

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the votes, less the amounts voted in interim supply, to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I have one last thing before we go. Colleagues, we sent off, just at the start of the meeting today, the revised travel proposal for the fall trip related to the power grid study that we will have some time this fall. When we had sent it off to logistics for costing, for all of the places we had put in there, it would have been a 14-day trip and a budget much beyond what we would ever hope to receive.

So I did ask the analyst to go through and pare it down, and that is what was distributed. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, the locations we costed out for this trip would include Fort Nelson, Fort St. John, Edmonton and Fort Chip, as well as Fort McMurray, and then Regina and surrounding areas, either Boundary Dam or Poplar River Power Station. So we wouldn't be able to do either, but the costs are about the same if we do Regina and one of those. And then it's also including Montreal for some site visits there.

I can get the analysts to speak to it if people have looked at the proposal and anybody has any questions and then if there's discussion.

Mr. McLean, we'll go to you.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The environment committee is considering the same trip up to Fort Chipewyan and Fort McMurray, obviously, and the surrounding communities, and it might be an economy if we can get there all together and both participate in what we need to see there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I can speak to the chair of the environment committee if we get approved.

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

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

If this is about electrification, shouldn't we have one out to the maritimes because the Atlantic loop is a big issue?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

The issue then becomes either adding time and cost or dropping one of the areas that we had.... I don't know if when the analysts looked at it they were trying to give a variety of the types of projects we'd be seeing, and I can have them speak to that briefly if you'd like to hear the rationale for why. Ideally, it would have been great to go—

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

I just want to get out of this room, so wherever we go, I don't care.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Well, we have a proposal that's before you. People have had a chance to look at it. Are you willing to submit this to the Liaison Committee for a request as our fall travel? All in favour? Opposed?

Okay. That's carried. We'll send that to the Liaison Committee for their consideration.

With that, folks, as you know, we have the constituency week next week. When we come back, we have Paper Excellence confirmed for the Tuesday, with witnesses, and then Friday will be the officials for an hour. The just transition or the sustainable jobs report, draft version two, has been distributed, so on the first Friday back we can get into the beginning of the review of the report. That will continue until we complete it.

With that, have a great rest of the week and a safe constituency week.

We're adjourned.