Natural Resources Committee on March 21st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 90 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 17, 2023, and the adopted motion of Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the committee is resuming the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-49, an act to amend the Canada—Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Since today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of members and witnesses.

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This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair. Additionally, taking screenshots or photos of your screen is not permitted.

With us today to answer your questions, from the Department of Justice, we have Jean-Nicolas Bustros, counsel; and also Jean-François Roman, legal counsel. From the Department of Natural Resources, we have Abigail Lixfeld, senior director, renewable and electrical energy division, energy systems sector; Annette Tobin, director, offshore management division, fuels sector; Lauren Knowles, deputy director; Cheryl McNeil, deputy director; Daniel Morin, senior legislative and policy adviser, renewable and electrical energy division.

As well, we have, as the legislative clerks from the House of Commons, Dancella Boyi and Émilie Thivierge.

We will proceed.

At the last meeting, the committee adopted clause 125. There are no amendments submitted to clauses 126 to 135.

Do we have unanimous consent to group them for a vote?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

(Clauses 126 to 135 inclusive agreed to: yeas 9; nays 1)

(On clause 136)

We have new CPC-11.

Do we have a member who would like to move CPC-11?

Mr. Patzer, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate it.

I would move that the bill, in clause 136, be amended by replacing lines 1 to 3 on page 94 with the following:

(2.1) An order made by the Regulator in a case referred to in paragraph (1)(a) with respect to a submerged land licence takes effect immediately but is subject to sections 38.1 to 38.3.

There is no specific requirement to consider the fish or their habitats or any applicable regional or strategic assessments by the minister or the regulator making decisions on a call for bids or submerged land licences. If the American experience is of any value, then you'll note that, once a call for bids or SLL is issued, the pressure for development is overwhelming, regardless of the environmental issues that are later identified.

At minimum, Canadians should expect to see such required consideration in the parent legislation that enables the call for bids or the granting of submerged land licences.

It seems like a pretty common-sense addition to the legislation, and I think we heard some compelling witness testimony that would make this a solid addition to the bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

I'll now go to Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Actually, I was just hoping that maybe I could ask some of our experts here for some information.

My understanding is that the regulator can already decide to issue orders to address safety issues and the like, but in here, there's a piece that seems to be dealing with ministerial decision-making too. Could you explain to me what the impact would be of the amendment that's proposed?

[Abigail Lixfeld, Senior Director, Renewable and Electrical Energy Division, Energy Systems Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you very much for the question.

This particular section of the bill deals with prohibitions, so it is orders that would be given to stop work or activities in the event of certain circumstances. In the event of a major health and safety issue, where life and limb is at issue, an order made by the regulator takes effect immediately because the regulator needs to respond to an emergency situation. All other decisions that are made by the regulator do need to go through a ministerial decision process, and that's what outlined in (1)(a).

The effect of this amendment would be that decisions of the regulator don't actually need to be considered by government and that the regulator would be able to take those decisions unilaterally. This particular amendment appears exclusively in the renewables section. The previous clause pertains to decisions taken under the petroleum side of the mandate, so there would be a discrepancy between a decision taken for petroleum and a decision taken with respect to renewables. Of course, that same clause does not appear in the Newfoundland portion of the bill as this particular amendment is only on the Nova Scotia side, and to the extent possible, we strive for symmetry between the Nova Scotia and the Newfoundland portions of the bill.

Thank you.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That's very helpful because obviously we need to be making sure that the two mirror one another. I also am interested by the fact that it would be impacting renewables differently, and I find comfort in the fact that, when it's a health and safety issue, orders would take effect immediately.

Based on everything that I've heard, I'll be opposing this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I had studied this. I was wondering and looked into it.

I thank our witnesses here for their testimony because I think it would send a very bad message if we were to put limits and obligations on renewables that petroleum is exempted from. That would send, I think, a very negative message. Perhaps it was brought forward with good intent, but it would definitely have negative consequences.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Stubbs, go ahead.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, thank you.

I can certainly see that the NDP is propping up their Liberal masters and will defeat this amendment, but to my colleague's comment, I would just remind him that if he truly is concerned about the difference in the treatment between offshore petroleum and renewable development in Bill C-49, then of course he should have agreed with our amendments that would have dealt with the fact that, in Bill C-49, the decision timing for a call to bid for licences under Bill C-49 will be triple the time for offshore renewables as it currently is for petroleum, which will also be maintained in its current timeline in Bill C-49. However, I can see that they've already decided what to do with this particular amendment.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I don't see any further debate. We'll proceed to a vote on CPC-11.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

(Clause 136 agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

(On clause 137)

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We'll now proceed to amendment G-15 on clause 137.

Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

This should be a fairly straightforward one. It's correcting a typo by removing the word “the” that appears before the word “an”. We need to remove the word “the”. It doesn't fit in grammatically. I'm hoping everyone will agree to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

I don't see any further debate. We'll now go to the vote on G-15.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 137 as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

We will now proceed to the next clauses. There are no amendments submitted to clauses 138 to 146. Do we have unanimous consent to group them for the vote?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

(Clauses 138 to 146 inclusive agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

(On clause 147)

We'll now proceed to clause 147.

On BQ-27, we have Monsieur Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I won't be moving amendments BQ‑27, BQ‑28 and BQ‑29. Since my proposed amendments to the first part of the bill were voted down, I assume that, for the sake of consistency, the same logic will apply in this case.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Monsieur Simard.

You're withdrawing BQ-27 to BQ-29, just to clarify. Thank you.

We will proceed to new NDP-2.

Mr. Angus.

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

I'm trying to keep a similar position between the Newfoundland and Labrador accord and what we have in Nova Scotia. We have a belief that when we're making these commitments we need to see that the jobs are not just being taken offshore, particularly to competitors in the United States, Europe or elsewhere. We have job obligations and commitments that we're looking for. Therefore, I will move this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I appreciate Mr. Angus's comments, but this is similar to NDP-1, which did not pass. To ensure consistency between the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia versions of this bill, I oppose the motion and suggest that we vote against it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

Mr. Patzer.

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

Thank you very much.

I echo the same argument we made with a similar motion done previously. It's that the intent behind them seems fine and all that, but when it comes down to practicality, you're going to have a bunch of people who will be trained for a job, and then they'll be out of a job not very long afterwards because there are only going to be so many machines set up. Then they, in fact, will be the ones who will be travelling internationally and abroad to do all that work.

While the intent is fine, in practicality, it just doesn't work, so I'm voting against it.