Natural Resources Committee on April 14th, 2026

[Drew Leyburne]

I'll supplement my colleague's response.

NRCan has worked for over a decade with provinces, territories and stakeholders to develop a major projects inventory that actually lays out—and this can be looked at retrospectively—all of the investments that are made across natural resources, including in energy. It does not include maintenance. It's more for newbuilds, or the creation of new infrastructure.

We can certainly share that information. I believe our colleagues at the CER do this, but Statistics Canada and the Canadian Centre for Energy Information also track a number of those data points.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

That's your time, Monsieur Simard.

Colleagues, we're going to our second round.

We have some committee business at the end. As you're aware, we have a committee report to approve.

I'll have to reduce our final two spots, for Mr. Martel and Mr. Clark, to two and a half minutes each. We'll do the regular round with the first three speakers.

We're going to start with Mr. Malette for five minutes.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Leyburne, the federal government's announcement to increase the size of protected land to 30% of the country's land base is of concern. This initiative could hinder resource development particularly in the region I represent, one of the big ridings in this country.

I'll mention a few names. You start near the Quebec border in Kirkland Lake, which is a gold mine producer. You move on to Matheson and Val Gagné, which have very strong agriculture. It's probably one of the country's fastest-developing areas in agriculture. You continue on Highway 11 to Cochrane, which has gold mines and forestry. Smooth Rock Falls, Kapuskasing and Hearst have strong forestry. Then you go to Hudson Bay and Peawanuck, and back to Moosonee. Then there are gold mines around Cochrane again and lumber. In going to Timmins, you go through one of the largest nickel deposits. There are gold mine producers in Timmins. There is Chapleau and forestry.

Now, where is this 30% of the land base going to come from? What measures are being taken to ensure that the resources of these communities are not going to be affected by this new designation?

I named a few communities, but there are 300 forestry communities across this country. There are probably as many in mining and thousands in agriculture. What measures are being taken?

[Drew Leyburne]

To be honest, I'm not able to speak specifically to the commitment and how the processes for protecting those lands are being managed, because they're done through other departments in the federal family. However, I can say from the Natural Resources Canada perspective that we contribute to an assessment of the resource potential of the areas that are being considered for protected areas, to make sure that a natural resource—whether energy, mines or other natural resources—is considered in the decision-making processes about where those protected areas will be.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Was Natural Resources Canada consulted prior to this?

[Drew Leyburne]

Do you mean prior to the announcement of the 30%?

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Yes.

[Drew Leyburne]

Yes, I'm sure that through cabinet and other processes NRCan was involved.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

I ask because there's a very grave concern. All of these communities live off the land base, so we'd like to know where it's going to come from. We know today where the gold mines are, but we don't know where tomorrow's gold mines will be or where rare mineral deposits are.

Could you come back to the committee with some further information on that?

[Drew Leyburne]

We could endeavour to work with the other federal departments to see how much detail they have on where those areas will be.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Here's my other question. Most of the area I've described is provincial Crown land, so, again, how will that be worked out?

[Drew Leyburne]

I can see if we can also provide more information to the committee about the process that will be used to define the protected areas.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

I have another question, for Mr. Buffalo.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

He's gone.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Oh, he's gone. All right.

We'd appreciate receiving some information on this, realizing how important it is to thousands of communities in this country and how complex this can be.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Malette.

Mr. Hogan, you have five minutes.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

It's wonderful to see you all. I always say it's good to have Calgarians on every panel. I'm glad to see that this study has been good for continuing a really strong streak of that, Mr. Christie.

I'm grateful to our professional public service. You are non-partisan professionals implementing the agendas of elected officials. I was a senior official in the governments of former premiers Notley and Kenney, and I know first-hand that it is not always fun to be treated like a tennis ball being smashed between nets. I will endeavour not to do that, but I am going to ask you a question that many witnesses have been asked.

We as a country have an interest in east-west connections. We have an interest in energy sovereignty. We have an interest in optionality. The market, being rational, will not always default to long routes because there are shorter routes to tidewater.

Energy east was withdrawn by TransCanada because of economics—not because of government regulations—and because this is a north-south continent and supply chains have developed to reflect that reality. If you're in Ontario, it's cheaper to get energy from Pennsylvania than Alberta; that's the simple reality. That's just geography.

When we think of exports, that's also true. It is cheaper to export over short distances to neighbours than long distances across the globe.

Profit is always going to be the driver in the free market, but we're not finding that entirely in our interest as a nation. How can the government incentivize these public priorities—energy sovereignty and optionality of markets—without significantly distorting the free market upon which we rely and under which we operate?

[Erin O'Brien]

You've raised a number of really critical issues that we're currently thinking about and trying to solve.

You're right that Canada's pipeline infrastructure in particular—but this isn't unique to oil and gas—has for the past 50 or 60 years been developed according to a north-south route, and that has served Canada very well over these years. That is a relationship that we will need to continue to nurture, but we've realized that this dependency has created some vulnerabilities, and we're looking to address those vulnerabilities by increasing market diversification and expanding opportunities with allies in other markets, particularly facing Asia.

As you noted, commercially speaking, it makes a lot of sense for Canada to look at increasing our egress opportunities to tidewater. In terms of transportation and shipping distances alone, Canada is unparalleled in the competitive advantage we have there, so we are working constructively with provincial counterparts, as well as industry, to ensure that we are setting the proper conditions by which industry will be incented to make these critical investment opportunities.

In addition to tidewater, we are actively exploring other opportunities. There was a previous question looking at opportunities from our Arctic tidewater, and there are energy projects under development in central and Atlantic Canada. That's done in partnership, ensuring that the government creates the right conditions for industry to make those investments. A lot of those initiatives are under way.

In terms of setting up the Major Projects Office, for instance, I've made reference to some measures that were present in budget 2025 to incent LNG production and the work we are continuing to pursue with Alberta in advancing the MOU to ensure that, collectively, we see these important investments for Canada's energy sovereignty, as well as our continued economic growth.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thanks very much.

To follow up, if you can provide any further details on how the government might be able to incent this kind of optionality with minimal market distortion, that would be helpful for our report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you both.

Monsieur Simard, you have two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Christie, I recall the testimony of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. He appeared before the committee to tell us that, in his opinion, the Trans Mountain infrastructure would hardly be profitable over a 40‑year period. We know that, even today, we're all forced to subsidize this infrastructure. The industry isn't paying the price that it should for the use of this infrastructure.

I'm wondering about the fluctuations in oil prices. We know that oil prices are quite high owing to the geopolitical situation. However, electrification is making headway, particularly in China, a major consumer of gas and oil. China wants to significantly reduce its gas consumption, not because the country is nicer than the others, but because this approach provides a strategic advantage. I'm guessing that this will affect the price in about 10 or 15 years. I'm also guessing that, like the proponents of this infrastructure, the Canada Energy Regulator figures that this infrastructure may not be profitable over a 40‑year period.

Do you have any data on this?

[Darren Christie]

I'll say a couple of things.

First, long-term prices are tied, of course, to demand, whether it's in China or in other nations. The approach we take when we look into the future in our energy futures report is to have scenarios, because our expertise is in Canadian energy supply and demand. When it comes to global demand, we look at what other agencies and forecasters are seeing, and suffice it to say, they don't all agree. There's a fair amount of uncertainty.

We take an approach of looking at a range of prices in the future. The low range is not as low as one might expect, because even in the scenario where demand peaks and falls off globally, the expectations are generally that there's not a really sharp decline in demand. Further, in global oil production, the cheap barrels have been produced, so when you factor in the cost of producing around the globe and the expectation that even if demand falls, it's a moderate decline, the prices are fairly strong long-term.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Our last two speakers, Mr. Martel and Mr. Clark, have two and a half minutes each.

Mr. Martel, we'll start with you.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Leyburne, I would like to know how many people work at Natural Resources Canada.

[Drew Leyburne]

It's approximately 5,000. I think it's closer to 4,500 over the longer term.