Natural Resources Committee on April 14th, 2026

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

Natural Resources Canada is proposing to set up indigenous ministerial arrangements between the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and indigenous governing bodies. I want to know whether you can confirm that the Coastal First Nations alliance won't be part of the regulatory process and won't be given a formal role.

[Kimberly Lavoie]

The indigenous ministerial arrangements regulations under the Canadian Energy Regulator Act have not yet been put into effect. The regulations have not yet been created. We are in the process of gathering information. We had over 30 engagement sessions over the last fiscal year. A discussion paper was written, from which we got information from both industry and indigenous groups on what those regulations could potentially look like and what some of the impacts of those regulations, if put into place, might be.

There are no regulations for these arrangements at this particular point in time. A decision has not been made as to whether those regulations will be put into place, but if they are, it will be up to indigenous governing bodies to determine whether they want to be part of them.

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

Given that Natural Resources Canada is responsible for the majority of projects submitted to the Major Projects Office, is this department in regular contact with the Major Projects Office?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Give a quick answer, please.

[Kimberly Lavoie]

Yes, the minister works with the Major Projects Office quite closely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Wrapping up, Mr. Clark, you have two and a half minutes.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

Mr. Leyburne, I believe this is most likely a question for you, but if it's better referred to someone else, feel free to do that.

Electricity is a huge issue in my part of the country, particularly in Nova Scotia. As I'm sure you know, we have the highest power rates in the country, generally speaking, and the highest rates of energy poverty in the country as well. However, we have a lot of optimism and hope for the future as it relates to electricity generation and the Wind West project, which, in a full build-out, could generate up to 60 megawatts of offshore wind. Hopefully, we can then intertie that into the rest of the country for export, which is, of course, the point of this study.

Could you give me your thoughts, generally speaking, on that project and the importance of having interties across the country in the east-west way, as opposed to the traditional north-south way?

[Drew Leyburne]

I probably won't go into too many details about the specifics of the Wind West project, but what is most interesting about it is that it has so many parts. It's not just one wind project. It's looking at storage, transmission, new interconnections and the way hydro could be integrated into the model, and it brings together a sense of Atlantic Canadian unity around electricity that we haven't seen for a long time.

NRCan has done its part to try to help with those conversations with the Major Projects Office in putting more bounds around what Wind West represents. In the last year, it's funded things like the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia intertie to help some of the calculation move along.

Generally speaking, the benefits of interties within Canada are that they allow for better coordination between provinces and territories, they improve system reliability and grid reliability generally, and they play to the respective jurisdictions' strengths so that a hydro jurisdiction can be supported by a variable renewables jurisdiction and we can make sure that we're making the most of all the assets we have.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I'm out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

You had a bit, but thank you for being generous and offering it back.

Colleagues, let me thank, on your behalf, the witnesses from the Canada Energy Regulator and the Department of Natural Resources. Thank you so much for appearing before us today.

We are going in camera, colleagues, to deal with committee business. I would ask our witnesses to make their way to the door quickly so we can get on with our committee business.

Thank you again to our witnesses.

We are suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]