Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[Tracy Sletto]

Certainly, in the context of any projects that are under the review of other regulators, either under the purview of the Major Projects Office or regulated by provincial entities or other regulators, they'd be in a much better position to speak to specific projects. I can tell you that as part of the family of federal regulators, we are speaking often and closely with our counterparts to ensure we have those relationships and that the communication lines are open.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I'm going to take from your answer that the CER has not had any contact with the MPO related to the north coast transmission line that will feed the Ksi Lisims LNG project.

[Tracy Sletto]

We have not.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Okay. The MPO isn't actually one of the regulators; the three regulators are. The MPO, according to its own website, is an office that's supposed to direct proponents to the various regulators, which is why we called on the Liberals to fix the laws and regulations they're trying to work around in Bill C-5 for all proponents in all sectors across the country.

Your organization has announced the possibility of having indigenous ministerial agreements between the natural resources minister and indigenous governing bodies. To that end, can you confirm that the coastal first nations will not be integrated and given formal roles in the regulatory process?

[Tracy Sletto]

You're speaking about the regulatory development under way for indigenous ministerial arrangements regulations. That regulatory development initiative is currently being led out of Natural Resources Canada, not the CER, so questions around that specific piece of regulatory development would best be handled by Natural Resources Canada. I'm not in a position to speak to the specifics of what's being contemplated under that piece of regulatory development.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I think these answers are illuminating. A year after this government was elected, and five years after Bill C-69 was declared unconstitutional, which it hasn't fixed and which is the mandate that governs your board.... It is proving that a year in, there is no clarity or certainty. Certainly, checking out the MPO's website process map would confirm that for any normal Canadian.

Thank you for confirming that there's still uncertainty and a lack of clarity. When you're the top regulator...the government has a lot of work to do, obviously.

To your point, though, NRCan has offered to engage with the Assembly of First Nations, but you'll recall—because I was there and questioned her—that the national chief, Cindy Woodhouse, said at committee in June that she doesn't have the right to speak for rights holders. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that the federal Crown must consult with them.

Given that you just said you are in the family of regulators attached to this process and all of these projects, how will the CER ensure that consultations with rights holders are adequate?

[Tracy Sletto]

I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak about that, because in our approach to Crown consultation, both in the consultation necessary under CER decision-making processes and as the Crown consultation coordinator for projects that are regulated by the CER, we take the duty to consult very seriously. We appreciate the distinction you're making around the importance of that consultation with rights holders.

Since 2019, we have been the Crown consultation coordinator for projects that are regulated by the CER, and we have, I would argue, quite a disciplined and intense process for ensuring that the consultation duty is met, including—and I would focus on this—ensuring that we have relationships built with communities over the life cycle of the infrastructure we regulate. It's more than having relationships during the hearing process; it's thinking about those relationships early on in a project—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

You are so right, and that is exactly the story of successful natural resource and energy development, certainly in my backyard in northern Alberta, which has gone on for decades. This is always a best practice.

You have illuminated precisely the problem, because consecutive judicial decisions.... In Bill C-5 and Bill C-69, the government designates the minister and cabinet as the final decision-makers, but judicial decisions have said that decision-makers have to be at the table with a two-way dynamic and demonstrate accommodation to end up doing this process in a good way. The problem is that they rejected my amendment to ensure that the federal Crown, not the regulators, which, as you've just explained, are absolutely punching beyond their weight in this regard.... Legislators have to fix the law to ensure that the federal Crown can meet its duty.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Do any CER staff come from banks or the private sector on secondment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

That's your time, Ms. Stubbs. Perhaps Mr. McLean can pick up that question in a few moments, but we are now going to Mr. Danko for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Danko.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, all of you, for being here. Of course, as Canada's energy regulator, you have a very important role to play in the development of Canada's energy sector and our goal of being a global energy superpower.

The big change in the budget implementation act, as you said, is the licence time frame from 40 to 50 years. I believe that in the introduction, you spoke about there currently being one export licence in operation, but there are 24 valid licences.

I'm not sure what you can share about those other licences, but what stages are they at in the process before they get to exports? Maybe there's a little more detail about any of those projects that you could share.

[Tracy Sletto]

Thank you for that question. I will call a friend on this one. I'll turn it over to our chief economist, Mr. Christie.

[Darren Christie]

All of the holders of those licences and the licences themselves are public. I won't rhyme them all off, but I'll speak to them, and just for context, I don't have to withhold at all.

A lot of the licences that are still valid were issued in the 2016 time period. That was the first wave of heightened interest when global LNG prices were a lot higher. That is a bit of context for the situation with a lot of the projects that are associated with those licences. I'll say we don't hear about some of them anymore. They're projects that are no longer actively being pursued.

Then there's another camp of projects that are most commonly discussed today as either the ones under construction, or projects like Ksi Lisims that are approaching the possibility of a positive FID. They also hold their licences. In the context of those ones, they're the 40-year licences, whereas a lot of the projects that are dormant hold the 25-year licences and never came back in to increase them to 40 years.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Are we expecting that this change will help accelerate interest in LNG exports, especially from some of the dormant projects that perhaps originally applied for a 25-year licence and are seeing much more favourable conditions? How are we gauging the interest currently in moving forward?

[Darren Christie]

That's probably a question best answered by Natural Resources Canada, other than to say I think some of those projects are truly dormant and are certainly not coming back.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I wanted to pick up on Mr. Bonin's theme about net zero by 2050 and the licence being granted to 2075. I think it is an important point that the Prime Minister and our government has made a commitment to net zero carbon by 2050.

Can any of you comment on how Canadian LNG compares to other global LNG exports? What other options are there for LNG—for example, blue hydrogen as part of natural gas production? How are our exports going to achieve net zero carbon? You mentioned that they are required to. What are the mechanisms they use to actually do that?

[Erin O'Brien]

As I had started to say in one of my previous answers, Canadian LNG is widely recognized as having one of the lowest emissions profiles globally. That's due to a number of reasons.

One is the very nature of Canadian natural gas being generally of a low-emitting profile. It's also due to government requirement that new projects, particularly on Canada's west coast, be net zero. Many of them are advancing that due to the electrification of the liquefaction facilities. For instance, LNG Canada, which is currently the only export facility in operation, has an emissions profile 35% lower than the world's best performing LNG facilities and 60% lower than the global weighted average.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

We're on to Mr. Bonin for two and a half minutes, please.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. O'Brien, I would like to know what you have to say to the environmental groups that have called for an amendment to that section to restrict the validity of licences to 2050 so that Canada can meet its climate commitments.

[Erin O'Brien]

In the measures we put forward, we've tried to balance different public policy objectives. One was clearly environment and climate change objectives, but that balanced against energy security and the need for economic growth. We feel that the 50 years appropriately balances these different public policy objectives.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Did the private sector ask for the time frame to be increased from 40 to 50 years?

[Erin O'Brien]

I think those views are likely shared by the private sector—

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Did these people ask you for that?

[Erin O'Brien]

—but not solely.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Did companies ask you for that outright?

[Erin O'Brien]

As I indicated earlier, the genesis of this measure came from conversations we've had with project proponents—