Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I move to amend clause 19 by adding, after line 19 on page 7, the following:

(1.1) The Regulator shall include with the recommendation a plan that sets out

(a) the impact of the project on fish, birds and the environment;

(b) the process for decommissioning and disposing of the project; and

(c) the site remediation to be done when the project's life cycle ends.

Once again, I think this is providing certainty for the region in which these projects will be built. It's just to make sure there's no collateral damage, I guess, for lack of a better term, when the project is done or when it's past its timeline. It's to make sure there are no breakdowns that are simply falling into the ocean and not being cleaned up.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

We'll go to Mr. Aldag, and then Mr. Angus.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

I would start off by saying that there are aspects of this that could be supported in the intent of the amendment, but ultimately I'll have to oppose it. There are some very clear reasons for that.

I'll start with the implementation, which has to be done as part of the regulatory review process and future proposed regulations under part 3 of the act that will impose specific requirements on project proponents related to safety and environmental protection. There's that piece. The regulator wouldn't be required to provide a recommendation on the subject matter at this stage of the process, given that there would not yet be a proposed project. That's my understanding. This section of the act pertains to the issuance of submerged land licences prior to formal project proposals being submitted to the regulator for review and authorization and prior to information being available respecting that specific impacts be based on future project design in chosen technologies.

It's a good intent, but it's the wrong place in the process. For that reason, I won't be supporting it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

I'll go to Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I don't know offshore wind specifically, but I know that in mining you can't get a mine approved without a closure plan, without passing the environmental on groundwater, certainly. I think offshore there will be the issue of fish and birds, given that you'll be dealing with wind projects.

I would ask our esteemed panel here about the regulator. To approve a project now, I would imagine it has to go through an environmental review that includes fish and habitat. Is that part of the process, or do they just approve projects?

[Daniel Morin, Senior Legislative and Policy Advisor, Renewable and Electrical Energy Division, Department of Natural Resources]

That is correct. The regulator, as part of these amendments for offshore renewable energy projects, would review project authorizations and applications. Those applications would include a lot more detail on the scope of the project—the intent, the size, the technologies used, the location—and a lot of the requirements over the life cycle of the project to address such things as decommissioning and disposing of the projects.

There are specific plans that need to be submitted to the regulator and reviewed by the regulator on these matters as the project moves forward through the regulatory review process and throughout the life cycle.

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

Could I follow up on that? They are different but they are similar, and if you're going to be building big platforms, whether for wind or for a new oil project, you have to have a plan to decommission that platform.

Is this already something that's within their purview and expertise? We're not introducing something they don't know how to do. This is what they do.

[Daniel Morin]

Yes, absolutely.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

We'll now go to Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

To create a vivid image for my colleagues across the table here, if we were able to travel for the IRA study to some of the areas we were thinking of going to, we would see the impacts when wind projects aren't cleaned up. When you drive through some of those valleys, you see nacelles hanging off the sides of towers. You see half a blade hanging off a rotor. You see crazy sights and things like that, which aren't being cleaned up and taken care of, and they become safety hazards.

I think this provides some extra certainty to make sure that it's expressly written in here to make sure that does not happen in our offshore as it is already happening in the North American context. I am stating it's in the United States where I've seen that. I'm not saying this is happening in Canada, but I'm making sure that we don't have that problem offshore, as we've seen it in other places around the world onshore.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

We'll now proceed to the vote. Shall CPC-4 carry?

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

We will now proceed to CPC-5. Do we have a member who would like to move this?

Mr. Patzer, go ahead.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I move that clause 19 be amended by adding after line 34 on page 7 the following:

(5) Any evaluation of offshore renewable energy projects should be done similarly to evaluations of offshore petroleum projects.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

Mr. Aldag, go ahead.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

In this case, I would like to indicate that in the drafting of the bill and in the contents we see before us, the expertise of the offshore regulators and their very sound regulatory practices have been pulled into the language of the bill, but it also makes the necessary changes to reflect the specific needs of offshore renewables.

The regulator has the same mandate to evaluate all aspects of safety and the environment that I talked about previously—the environmental protection of proposed projects—as it does for petroleum projects, while recognizing that the technologies will be different.

Again, the essence of the opposition to this piece is that the contents of the bill as stated already address what's being proposed in this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Aldag.

Mr. Angus.

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

I'm interested but concerned, given that we haven't been briefed on how these structures will be built. I don't know if they are similar. There are similarities, but there are going to be differences. What I want to know is that the regulator has the authority to do the job necessary. I'm worried about prescribing that it has to be similar to how the offshore oil is done.

With offshore oil, they have many years. They know what they're doing. What we're seeing with offshore wind is that they could be very different processes. I'm not sure of that, but I'm worried about prescribing it into legislation.

I think if we're going to trust the regulator to do the job, we have to trust that the regulator has the expertise to decide how similar and how different those reviews are going to be.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay.

We'll now proceed to the vote. Shall CPC-5 carry?

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

We'll now go to BQ-6.

Monsieur Simard? No?

Okay. We will not go to BQ-6. We will pass that.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Why are we skipping BQ-6?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We're skipping it because it hasn't been presented or moved by the member.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Oh, I see.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Shall clause 19 carry?

(Clause 19 agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I just want to get some clarification either from you, Mr. Chair, or from our legislative clerks.

I noticed that last time we tried getting unanimous consent to lump some clauses, it was given a no. It is the ability of members not to agree to that. I wonder if there might be wording that.... Instead of an all-or-nothing clause, I wonder if we might see if there are any clauses that members would like to vote on separately from that grouping. I noticed that there were some that all voted in favour of or that people didn't want to speak to. Therefore, instead of having just all-or-nothing lumping together, I wonder if we could call perhaps that clauses 20 to 27 be lumped, unless anybody wants to pull out a specific clause to vote on separately.

I'm not sure if that can be done procedurally, but some lumping, some grouping, could be a way of helping us move forward, if that is allowed.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for that, Mr. Aldag.

We have a point of order from Mr. Small.

Mr. Small, go ahead.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Mr. Chair, can we suspend for just a couple of minutes while we discuss this, please?