Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 5th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Colleagues, let me call this meeting to order.

It's good to see everyone. I understand that no one missed me while I was away.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

We all missed you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

That's what I was looking for: a little empathy.

Thank you, Ms. Stubbs, for taking the gavel while I was away. I really appreciate it. I'm sure it will happen again sometime; however, I plan to be here for the next little while.

Let me welcome some new members around the table.

Ms. Thomas, it's nice to see you. Welcome.

Mr. Rowe, you're kind of a regular now, so it's good to see you, too. Thank you for joining us.

Mr. Clark joins us on the Liberal side.

We will now get under way. I'm going to start, as we always do, by acknowledging that we are meeting on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation. This is meeting 22 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

Before we begin, I'd like to ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including our amazing interpreters. You will also notice a QR code on the card; it links to a short awareness video.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. We have two witnesses here virtually and one here in person.

I would like to remind participants of the following points. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you. Those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. Those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. Those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Thursday, September 18, 2025, the committee shall resume its study of Canadian energy exports.

I would like to welcome our witnesses. Online, we have Lisa Baiton, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, CAPP; and Catherine Swift, president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada. We also have Francis Bradley, president and chief executive officer of Electricity Canada.

You will each have five minutes for your opening remarks, after which we will open the floor to questions.

Ms. Baiton, we're going to start with you. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Lisa Baiton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today and contribute to this critically important study. I say “critically important”, because expanding Canadian exports, particularly oil and gas, is one of the most effective ways in which we can strengthen our economy, improve our productivity and safeguard our national sovereignty.

It is very encouraging to CAPP and my membership to have a federal government and members across parties looking to grow Canada's role as a global supplier of responsibly produced oil and gas.

Let me begin with the global context. World events have substantially altered Canada's economic and geopolitical circumstances. The ongoing uncertainty with the Canada-U.S. relationship in the context of global trade is putting Canada at risk. Other nations, from China to Russia, have shown that they will use whatever strengths they have to dominate or control valuable resources—in particular oil and natural gas resources, because of the dominant role they play today in the global energy mix and will play in the future.

Around the world, such traditional drivers as population growth and the rapid modernization of economies, especially in the global south, continue to push energy needs higher. In the global north, electrification, data centres and artificial intelligence are escalating energy consumption at a pace few anticipated. Even with the continuing growth of renewables, the world will continue to rely on conventional energy for decades. Over the last 35 years, the share of hydrocarbons in the global primary energy mix has barely shifted—from 85% in 1990 to roughly 80% today.

We need to approach energy with an “addition” mindset. The growth of renewables will simply be layered on top of the growth of conventional energy in order to meet a voracious, growing global appetite for all forms of energy. The core question before us is not whether energy demand will continue to grow; it's whether Canada will choose to help meet that demand. It is an urgent question for a resource-rich and trade-dependent nation like ours, where economic force and not market fairness is now shaping the rules.

Today, most Canadian oil and natural gas exports are sold at a discount to a single customer—the U.S.A.—costing our economy nearly $50 billion U.S. over the past 15 years. This is despite Canada having one of the largest untapped resource endowments on the planet.

Canada can and should be a global energy superpower. We're seeing the benefits when export infrastructure gets built. CAPP estimates that the Trans Mountain expansion will contribute $4 billion in additional revenues every year, increasing Canada's GDP, improving productivity and delivering higher revenues for governments. On the natural gas side, every full LNG cargo leaving Canada's west coast is worth approximately $59 million.

The benefits to Canadians are profound.

First, diversified markets strengthen our trade leverage, ensure that we secure full value for our resources and enhance the strength of our nation's sovereignty. Oil and natural gas represent more than 20% of Canada's total balance of trade.

Second, over just three years, the sector contributed approximately $116 billion in taxes and royalties. Those revenues are essential to funding our defence spending and public services.

Third, since 2017, more than $5 billion in indigenous equity has been invested in energy projects. This is a true partnership. Canada's conventional energy sector is emerging as a global model.

Fourth, our sector is foundational to Canada's economy, providing about 450,000 direct and indirect jobs in every single province across the country and contributing more than $85 billion to GDP just last year.

To continue to realize these benefits at this consequential moment in our history, we must avoid policy changes and choices that increase costs, compliance burdens and uncertainty, such as the newly amended methane regulations and the proposed changes to industrial carbon pricing, which will impose billions in new costs when no competitor producer nation is doing the same.

If Canada truly wants to become an energy superpower, we need a new policy approach. In this new era of economic nationalism, major change is required to attract investment, rebuild our economy, create high-quality jobs, enhance our energy security and strengthen our sovereignty.

The window for Canada to act is open, but it won't be open indefinitely. Canada can and must move with urgency. The future will require more energy, and if we set the policy conditions right, it will be more Canadian energy.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Ms. Baiton. I gave you a few extra seconds there.

[Lisa Baiton]

I'm sorry about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

That's all right.

Ms. Swift, it's on to you for five minutes, please.

[Catherine Swift, President, Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada]

Thank you very much.

My organization, the CCMBC, represents the interests of small and medium-sized manufacturers and businesses in other sectors, but the preponderance of them are in the manufacturing sector.

The Canadian manufacturing sector has been shrinking for some time. Since 2018, manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has decreased by 5%, while the comparable U.S. number increased by 10%, which is clearly a major difference that hasn't been seen before. This is important, because the manufacturing sector in any country is a key source of innovation, productivity and well-paid employment.

The manufacturing sector and the energy sector are closely linked, especially in Canada. Many manufacturing companies in eastern Canada are heavily dependent on the oil and gas sector for their success. Too many Canadians believe that if punitive policies are imposed on the oil and gas sector, it's Alberta's and Saskatchewan's problem, when in reality it significantly affects the welfare of the entire country.

Manufacturing used to represent about 20% of Canada's GDP, whereas it now sits around 10%. There are a lot of different reasons for that: growth of the service sector, technological change and different laws, regulations and so on in different countries.

The admission of China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 is often viewed in hindsight as a huge mistake, as much manufacturing in western countries went to lower-cost China, which does not observe the same environmental, human rights, wage and other policies of western nations. China also abuses intellectual property rights, dumps goods into Canada at unreasonably low prices, does not abide by WTO trade rules and interferes in elections and other elements of other countries, including Canada. Our government's recent move to bring us closer to China is a mistake for our manufacturing sector and our economy in general, not to mention our sovereignty.

Much of the decline in manufacturing in Ontario and other provinces can be linked to the so-called green policies that drastically increase the cost of electricity. Manufacturers are big consumers of electricity and were made much more uncompetitive by these foolish policies.

The industrial carbon tax and methane regulations that Ms. Baiton referred to will fall heavily on the manufacturing sector and the energy sector, the two most productive sectors of the Canadian economy. We know that Canada has a serious productivity problem, so to impose such an onerous regime—regulatory and tax—on the two sectors that contribute most to productivity, which is a proxy for our standard of living, is ridiculous. Once again, our businesses are being asked to compete with one hand tied behind their backs, as their foreign competitors don't face similar taxes and regulations.

Increasing energy exports will boost manufacturing, as the sectors are so closely linked. Building pipelines and other infrastructure to enable increasing exports can and should be done in Canada. Unfortunately, some recent energy projects have actually helped foreign manufacturers much more than our own. The Kitimat LNG facility, for example, used modules from China in its first phase and is slated to use modules from Korea in its second phase. Many of our manufacturing members have said they would be capable of providing infrastructure for these projects but were never given the opportunity.

Boosting oil and gas exports would also bring well-paid employment to Canada and more revenues for governments and would boost our flagging economy, which appears now to be in recession. Neglecting our most important individual industrial sector—oil and gas—for the last decade is the key reason for our weak economic performance today. A weak economy makes us much more vulnerable to the punitive policies of other countries, such as the U.S. and China, among others. Additional government revenues from more energy exports should be used to pay down our massive public debt and implement policies to lower taxes and the onerous regulatory burden that is making all of our Canadian businesses less competitive.

I want to make a few comments on Bill C-5, which permits the government to selectively override various pieces of legislation. What this bill concedes is that these laws are bad, or they wouldn't have to be overridden to get anything done. Why not get rid of the bad laws completely? The fact that they sit on the books further discourages foreign and domestic investment, which has been fleeing Canada for years. Bill C-5 also facilitates winner-picking by government, which has never been a workable strategy. Just look at the billions of tax dollars that have been wasted on the EV battery sector at a time when Canada has no money to waste.

Finally, the business community wants a trade deal with the U.S. as soon as possible. Implying that Canada can significantly replace U.S. trade with that of other countries is pure fiction. We should always be seeking to diversify our trading relationships, but pretending we'll be able to replace the U.S. as our largest trading partner by far is just lying to Canadians for partisan political gain to whip up Canadians' dislike of President Trump. Meanwhile, Canadian businesses and workers suffer, losing jobs, going out of business or moving out of Canada.

Uncompetitive conditions in the Canadian economy drove many manufacturers out of Canada long before Trump came along. Once a country loses its manufacturing sector, it doesn't come back for a very long time, if ever.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Ms. Swift. You're right on time. I really appreciate that.

Finally, we are going to Mr. Bradley.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Francis Bradley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Electricity Canada]

Thank you.

My name is Francis Bradley. I'm the president and chief executive officer of Electricity Canada. Thank you for inviting me to speak to the committee as part of its study on Canadian energy exports.

This study is timely. Canada's ambition is to become an energy superpower. Electricity has a major role to play in this plan.

Electricity Canada is the national voice of the electricity sector. Our members generate, transmit and distribute electricity in every province and territory.

Clean, reliable and affordable electricity powers the Canadian economy and is a competitive advantage for Canadian industry.

These three stats demonstrate how exceptional our sector is. The first is 84%. That's the percentage of non-emitting electricity generated in Canada. This makes our grid already one of the cleanest ones in the world. Next is 99.98%. That's the reliability rate of our grid, ensuring that the lights turn on when needed. The last is 51%. That's how much lower our electricity rates are compared to the OECD average, solidifying our competitive advantage over our peers.

The electricity sector plays a fundamental role as an exporter and enabler of energy exports. The electricity sector is a net exporter, having exported an average of 40 terawatt hours annually to the United States over the last decade. In 2024, the value of this trade was $4.484 billion.

While the trade surplus has been smaller in recent years, two-way trade still serves an important and ongoing role for reliability and resilience. However, electricity is essentially exported in every other sector of the economy, from LNG to aluminum. Almost every export in Canada is, to a degree, an electricity export.

For example, the electrification of the expected Cedar LNG facility with clean B.C. electricity has been foundational for the project's advancement. The natural gas liquefied at this facility is destined to go overseas and will be marketed as among the lowest-carbon LNG in the world.

Electricity also powers the production of aluminum in Canada, which is mostly exported. In 2021, we effectively exported over 40 terawatt hours of electricity in the form of aluminum.

The list could go on and on, from critical minerals to petroleum refinement. Electricity makes it happen.

As Canada seeks to diversify its trade relationships, advance nation-building projects and strengthen the competitiveness of its industries, the electricity system must grow with these industrial priorities while preserving our sector's competitive advantage. Canada is experiencing a rapid increase in electricity demand, which is expected to double by 2050. To meet demand, we are going to have to build more electricity infrastructure in the next 25 years than we have in the last century.

Our task is to build again, decisively and ambitiously, to grow the electricity system that is at the heart of Canada's long-term prosperity. Last month, we launched our 2026 state of the Canadian electricity industry report, “Forging Canada's Electricity Future”. It provides recommendations to support the government's ambitious goal of making Canada a global energy superpower.

To achieve this, we have three key recommendations.

First, we must modernize our regulations for a 21st-century electricity system. To start, the government should implement a two-year federal approval timeline for all electricity projects.

Second, we must mobilize capital to finance the build-out. This means making the most of existing supports and removing barriers to investments, things like the EIFEL rules.

In conclusion, we must strengthen the capacity and resilience of the sector. To this end, we must work with the sector to mitigate the impact of extreme weather and to tackle growing labour shortages and supply chain issues. We have a rare opportunity to unlock our country's potential, and we must seize it.

Thank you for the opportunity to join you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you so much, Mr. Bradley.

Now we're going to our first round of questions.

Ms. Stubbs, we're going to start with you.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses today for your messages of unity and calls for action for Canada to thrive and to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, which are needed now more than ever before.

Ms. Swift, you've already sketched out part of what has occurred and why Canada is in this position it's in. I agree with you completely that there are many ways in which it has been self-inflicted.

To both you and Lisa, do you have confidence that there will be the transformative change in policy and regulation that you require, given that the Liberals are talking about building big projects but so far have brought in Bill C-5, which clearly indicates all the laws and regulations that block projects, but they haven't repealed or reformed any one of them?

Ms. Swift, we'll start with you. If you want to add in there the points of competitiveness with the United States, that would be appreciated.

[Catherine Swift]

As the old saying goes, the best predictor of future performance is past behaviour.

As much as the current federal Liberal government is very similar to the one that kneecapped pipelines in Canada for years, I would like to believe that we are going to see a pipeline, but no, I don't have full confidence. I think we haven't seen action to date. We've seen things like MOUs, which are fine, and they do lay out certain details that are important, but they're not binding by any stretch.

Talking with many people in the energy sector—and Lisa undoubtedly has a lot to say about that—I hear the whole notion of carbon capture and storage as a precondition for a pipeline is, among other considerations, a hugely expensive thing. Do we really need such a massively expensive exercise to so-called decarbonize carbon? It makes you think of maybe water that isn't wet or something like that. Basing the price of a pipeline on such things, I feel, is totally unnecessary. I know that carbon capture is feasible, and all that has been proven and whatnot, but I think the cost of it merely drives up the cost of energy, something we already have an issue with in Canada, and of course, it makes us less competitive internationally.

I have my serious doubts, but I'd sure like to be proven wrong.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Lisa may wish to comment, given that there were two private sector proposals for intergovernmental pipelines for export in federal jurisdiction, but the federal government didn't use all of the tools in its power to ensure that those proponents could build, so they've abandoned the country, as have other companies, to build pipelines in other countries.

Lisa, although a pipeline has been mentioned in the MOU, there is still a minister unwilling to say that they'll assert federal jurisdiction. The minister continues to say that there needs to be a private sector proponent, although a premier had to put three together because no one is willing to do it alone, and there's no clear pathway to one at all. Do you have any comments about that?

[Lisa Baiton]

From CAPP's perspective, we are pipeline-agnostic. We do believe in fast-tracking necessary infrastructure to develop existing and new markets as the best way to achieve Canada's vision to make our country into a global energy superpower. CAPP supports any new commercially viable capacity.

In respect of the pipeline that is in discussions as part of the Alberta MOU, the Alberta government has a desire to see production grow to six million barrels per day by 2030 and eight million barrels per day by 2035. CAPP is supportive of the Government of Alberta's work to advance a west coast pipeline and do whatever it can to de-risk the project and make it as attractive as possible for private investment.

We have learned from experience that building pipelines in Canada has proven to be a very significant challenge and requires a highly coordinated, transparent and collaborative approach. That also means meaningful engagement with indigenous communities early in the process.

You referenced the Trans Mountain pipeline—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I was actually referring to northern gateway and energy east, which the Liberals killed through death by delay and moving the goalposts.

What is perplexing to those of us who want to see Canada prosper is that the Liberals are maintaining ban after prohibition after tax after mandate, which the United States does not impose on itself federally. If we are indeed in wartime footing and we are dealing with an aggressor that is our biggest customer and our biggest competitor because of this last federal government, then what do these guys need to do to prove to Canadians that they're serious?

Go ahead, Catherine.

[Catherine Swift]

Get rid of all the bad laws. Again, I find it ludicrous that there's backstopping legislation that gives the government a very selective ability to override things. If you have to override them, clearly there's a big problem. Just get rid of them.

The methane regulations are terrible, as Lisa highlighted. They haven't had enough attention, frankly. The industry itself is extremely concerned. There are all the taxes and so on. I think Premier Danielle Smith calls them the nine bad laws. Some of them are being softened somewhat for this project, but if we want to attract investment, when investors, both foreign and domestic, see those laws on the books, they're not going to risk their own money. Governments don't risk their own money. They risk our money. Unfortunately, they lose quite a bit of it in the process.

All of those bad laws should be gone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you both.

We'll go now to Mr. Hogan for six minutes.

Mr. Hogan.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses.

Ms. Baiton, it is good to see you again. I am of the strong opinion that every committee meeting needs a few good Calgarians. Thank you for being one today.

I totally agree that there will be oil and gas demand for many decades to come. I believe even in a world that uses less oil, demand for Canadian oil and gas can continue to grow. The question this committee has is, how do we take advantage of that opportunity and do it in a way that is distinctly Canadian?

Oil and gas production from 2015 to 2024 was up 34% in Canada, and globally about 6%. Growth in the oil sands in Alberta is up 40%, or I believe around there. That's been very good for this country. It has created jobs across this country. Steel for pipelines comes from Ontario. The INNIO Waukesha engine comes from Ontario. It's straddling all sorts of technology all across this side of the continent—or the part I'm from, I should say.

I'm in Ottawa today. The outcomes are really good. According to the UBS “Global Wealth Report”, median wealth in Canada is $152,000 U.S., and median wealth in the U.S. is $124,000 U.S. We've done a good job of creating broad wealth.

I know that Ms. Swift says that past performance is the best indicator of future behaviour. Those results would give comfort, but I'd like to not leave that to chance. I'd like to keep that going. I'd also like to know that we're doing it in a way that's less reliant on the U.S.

I apologize for the long preamble to my question, Ms. Baiton. Of course, there's always a lag between FID to operations. Some of the growth we're seeing comes as a result of decisions a decade ago.

I'm curious about the pipeline forward—excuse the pun. I'm not arguing for the status quo, but how do we expect production to evolve under a status quo case in the next few years?

[Lisa Baiton]

I will just repeat that CAPP doesn't take a position on one pipeline over another. What we really push for is two things. First, it should be commercially viable, and then we invite people to remember that a business case is required to attract capital and go through the process to build a pipeline. Separate and distinct from that is the requirement for what producers need to attract capital of their own, to scale up and to fill and keep filled any new pipeline. I would say that this portion of the public discourse has been largely absent.

That's why we are really focusing on policy that on the producer side.... There are two parts. There's a whole equation, and we've only been focused on one part of the equation. For our part of the equation, we're really focused on regulatory certainty and competitive policy—as I said in my opening remarks, carbon policy that is competitive with other producing nations.

We're very focused right now on both the methane regulations and industrial carbon pricing. The new federal methane regulations were released just before Christmas. As written, they are incompatible with operations. We identified very early on that those regulations were unworkable. Insufficient amendments were adopted in the final regs to address industry concerns. By the federal government's own analysis, those new methane regs will place a net additional $14.6 billion in new compliance costs on the industry. Again, no other producing nation is doing that.

On the industrial carbon system, Canada's system really has to be competitive. There was a discussion paper released in December that was fundamentally misaligned with both the direction from the Prime Minister and the commitments in the Canada-Alberta MOU. As proposed, it's going to impose billions of dollars in costs on the oil and gas industry and other resource-based industries. Again, higher costs for carbon directly reduce Canada's competitiveness.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

That's perfect. I think we need to get into that with some specificity, and I encourage you—I know you already have— to submit a written report to the committee for consideration.

[Lisa Baiton]

We did, yes.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I want to pick up on something. You've given me the point that I wanted to get to in question two.

You said in your opening remarks, “economic force and not market fairness is now shaping the rules.” You talked about new costs with no competitor nations doing the same. Market fairness is really important to me. I want to make sure we're competitive, but it doesn't seem like this is a market that's being driven entirely by market economics. Between Europeans creating rules around carbon intensity—Japan may be following—and China using its heft in the market, what do we need to do to protect a functioning global market? We're a country that doesn't really use state power to drive industry but instead allows industry to thrive on its own, or at least that's what we aspire to.

[Lisa Baiton]

I think it's not a one-size-fits-all situation, and a direct comparison of Canada to Europe probably isn't relevant.

I will speak to the USMCA negotiations. As I said in my opening remarks, the Canadian oil and gas industry represents over 20% of Canada's entire balance of trade. The majority of that currently—I think it's close to 95%—goes to one single customer: the U.S.

The USMCA will be a big component of that, because even with all the uncertainty, the threats and the trade challenges being caused by the Trump administration, we still must recognize that the U.S. is the largest oil and gas consumer on the planet and remains by far Canada's largest customer. We've traded energy virtually tariff-free for nearly 150 years. Our companies operate seamlessly across the border, and our energy infrastructure, pipelines and refineries are highly interconnected. That's one piece of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Ms. Baiton.

Thank you, Mr. Hogan.

We're now going to Mr. Simard for six minutes.