Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 29th, 2024

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Come on, Chair; this is a simple answer.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

—with DFO and with the Province of Nova Scotia to ensure that we're addressing both of those issues. We want to see renewable energy move ahead. It has to be in a manner that's consistent with the protection of fish and fish habitat.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Chair, you need to get control of this committee. I asked one simple question: How many fish were struck? How long was that question? Was it 10 seconds? How long was the foolish answer? Was it a minute and a half? We still don't know the answer.

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

Chair, that's not a point of order. That's his time. You count that as his time. Is that correct?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I didn't ask for a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

The time has been running. I will stop the clock now.

Colleagues, once again, if you ask a question, we want to give the minister time to answer it. If you don't like his answer, that's your prerogative. The minister is taking time to come today to answer your questions, so just give him enough time to answer them.

I'll turn the floor back to you, Mr. Ellis.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Once again, it's a very simple question. How many fish were struck by the sustainable marine project in the Minas Basin?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I'm more than happy to ask the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for an answer to that question.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Minister. Clearly you don't know.

That being said, as we begin to look at the economics of the hydrogen case, which you want to talk about so much, tell us a bit about green hydrogen and the cost to develop it on a per kilogram basis. What's the cost in, let's say, euros per kilogram.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

It totally depends on the scale. It depends on the wind speeds. It depends on a whole range of things.

Look, you're from Nova Scotia. There is a leading company there called EverWind that has developed a business case. They can certainly tell you what their estimate is for their cost of production, but I'm not going to give you their internal numbers. That's commercially confidential.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I would suggest, sir, that you have no idea about that, because you're not even calculating the capital costs, the creation costs and the shipping costs for hydrogen, which you want to talk about as such a great thing for our European partners. We very clearly know that it has an insurmountable cost at the current time without your government pouring incredible—

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Talk to the CEO of EverWind, who has spent $200 million of his own money developing a business case for this.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I didn't even ask a question and now we have an interruption from the minister. What kind of a committee is this?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

It's a great one.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

It's a great one. It's a poorly run one.

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

You are counting this time.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Now we have chirping from someone else who doesn't even have the floor.

That being said, what we know very clearly is that there is no business case at the current time for shipping hydrogen in the state of ammonia. We know that, and everybody around the world knows that, but here you are saying that what we need to do is have wind on the offshore, which could potentially interfere with many things, especially the fishery in Nova Scotia. We don't even have a fully realized onshore wind industry in Nova Scotia.

Here you are touting this business case, which your government is wont to do, telling us how great things are, without any business case and without the ability to provide any numbers whatsoever as to the cost of creating hydrogen, for example, which you want to be the crown jewel. I'll use that word.

So—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Minister, I'll ask you for a brief comment.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I'm not sure how much experience you have in business, but typically the business case is developed by a company. There are a number of companies in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Japan that are looking at the development of hydrogen and shipping it as ammonia.

I'm more than happy to sit down and have a longer conversation about this with you, but your facts are just not facts.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Minister.

I will now go to Mr. Blois for five minutes.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here before the committee. It has been interesting to be back on the committee. I would say sorry to the interpreters for the amount of interruption.

Minister, for Canadians who are sitting at home, including those in Atlantic Canada because this is a piece of legislation that uniquely impacts Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, why is this legislation important? I heard some of our colleagues, including Mr. Simard, ask why we are doing this. The Atlantic accords are really important to the shared governance of the Atlantic offshore for oil and gas. That remains the case, but why was this needed to help drive green hydrogen?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

At the present time, there is no regulatory structure for the development of offshore wind, so you cannot have projects proceeding at the present time without this bill being passed. As I said, both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have identified the development of offshore wind and onshore wind as critical for their economic future. That is about providing electricity to the grid and is also about producing hydrogen that will be shipped to others around the world. They see this and I see this as an opportunity to create thousands of jobs and prosperity.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

You touched on the point that this is joint governance. I'll come back to that in a moment.

Obviously, the government made a deliberate choice to engage with the provinces. I'm sure conversations would have gone back and forth with your colleagues at the provincial level to utilize the existing legislative framework for offshore oil and gas. Why was that decision taken?

We sometimes hear colleagues, including those in the opposition, talk about not creating more bureaucracy and more redundancy. I see this as leveraging the strength of the existing offshore petroleum board. Can you speak explicitly to why the vehicle that was already in place was used and enhanced instead of creating a whole other regulatory agency?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

It was exactly for the reasons that you touch on there. The offshore boards have developed an enormous amount of expertise about how you do projects in the offshore and how you can permit projects in the offshore. Rather than starting from ground zero where setting up a new agency would take years, and even more years to develop the requisite competence to do the job, we are leveraging the expertise that exists within the offshore boards, which will allow us to go much faster. In a world that is moving, with countries around the world looking to seize the economic opportunities enabled through the transition to a low-carbon future, we needed to move.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

As I sit here as an Atlantic Canadian MP and hear some of the concerns—I would call them more rhetoric—being levied, particularly the Conservative Party highlighting their opposition to this and resistance to the Government of Canada, what I think is being missed in this conversation is that this is not the Government of Canada imposing downwards on any province or territory. This is a partnership where this legislation was developed in concert with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

You've mentioned it many times, but quickly again, Minister, let's highlight the fact that this legislation is being supported by the legislatures in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia and that the governments therein are asking for it to be expedited as soon as possible. Is that a fair statement?