Natural Resources Committee on April 21st, 2026

[Alison Nankivell]

Yes. We have fairly broad activity with Brookfield that has nothing necessarily to do with specific.... I'd have to get back to you on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Mr. Hogan, you have five minutes.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. It's great to have all of you here today. This is an important conversation, and you bring an expertise that will inform a report that I think we're all very excited about, because we do see the opportunities—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Hang on, Mr. Hogan.

Folks, there's a lot of noise coming from this side of the table—occasionally from that side of the table. If you do speak with one another, whisper, please, or go away from the table. Thank you.

We stopped your time.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just jump right into the question.

Ms. Nankivell, EDC provides support on commercial terms. You regularly interact with capital, both domestic and international, and your insights are very important to this committee because you see opportunities that are both present and evolving in the market, and you have a great sense of the market.

Can you expand on your views of trends in energy exports—short, middle and longer term—of which this committee should be mindful?

[Alison Nankivell]

I think one of the things we're seeing in terms of energy exports is a need for us to think of Canada's positioning not just as an exporter of commodities but an exporter of energy solutions, and the full value chain around that. That is something we're very concerned about, because we believe that competitiveness in exports of energy does not come without having the rest of that value chain associated with it. As I've said before, you cannot scale up an industry if you don't have the requisite equipment, technologies and engineering know-how to go with it. That is something we're very focused on.

The other thing that I think is important to understand is...and this is something that when I first joined EDC, I spent a lot of time on out west and having this discussion directly. I've had it with the energy and related technology companies and with the energy value stream elsewhere. It's the mid-market, where the gap is, which is why we're so focused on financing that gap, because there are fewer choices.

The upstream is relatively well serviced by the commercial industry of all large sectors. Actually, Hydro-Québec is one of those areas that's been so well financed that they haven't needed us, which is why it has been harder, necessarily, for us to always balance in terms of the large. We spend a lot of time working with the medium and the small.

The third thing I would say is that there's a huge transition going on where many companies involved in the energy value chains are not involved just in conventional energy. They're involved in transition and renewable energies. They're moving quite quickly to having adjacencies in their businesses. For example, if you're an expert in drilling in oil and gas, you're probably also an expert in drilling for geothermal, and you're now building new businesses in that area. There is starting to be great demand for Canadian services in places like Indonesia or in Europe, where geothermal is replacing district heating.

We're seeing that in other sectors in energy: traditional energy to hydrogen and to renewable fuels. The monitoring and the know-how we have when we are drilling in holes, that monitoring know-how is being used across a number of value chains now, and those are the companies that we say are important for creating the energy systems and energy solutions that we're looking to export globally.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

Of course, globally, two out of every three dollars are going to green energy. It's certainly a market that Canada wants to be on top of, and it's great to hear that our conventional expertise is so portable.

Mr. Cooper, one of the things the MPO is charged with is taking the learnings from its work into the broader regulatory framework. You talked about simplifying rather than lowering the standard. I think that's something this whole committee can get excited about. Those are zero-cost wins, and you've emphasized the importance of long-term partnerships with indigenous nations.

I'm just wondering if you could expand on where you think there are opportunities for reforms or rationalizations and just for ensuring that we are walking a stronger path of reconciliation while still meeting this nation-building moment. I say, “while still”, but that's not even fair, because these things are not at odds but about how they can unlock nation-building moments.

[Chris Cooper]

I'll use phase one versus phase two as one simple example. When we came into phase one, we put in place the usual impact and benefit agreements with the various first nations, both on the pipeline and on the plant. Our agreements cover both phase one and phase two, so it would have been quite easy to stop there and say it's done. However, since phase one was taken as an investment decision in 2018, we have had things like UNDRIP, with much more development and, let's say, maturing of our understanding under truth and reconciliation.

On phase two, we've taken those impact and benefit agreements and have put billions of dollars into phase one, in local and indigenous contracts, apprenticeships, training people, etc. We've doubled down on that in phase two, not only by meeting the IBA commitment we made in 2018, but also by exploring equity opportunities to bring the first nations into phase two in a meaningful way that goes beyond phase one, which we didn't really need to do. I think that's the kind of thing we need to do, whether that's facilitated through government or through industry. That's the Canadian way, and that's what we're doing.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, both.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Currently, one of the sectors most subject to tariffs in the context of the trade crisis with the United States is the softwood lumber sector. The combination of the anti-dumping and countervailing duties and tariffs brings the total duties to around 45%.

Does EDC have an action plan regarding this?

Has EDC taken action to support the forestry sector in this context?

[Alison Nankivell]

Thanks for the question.

Softwood was one of the sectors covered through our trade impact program launched in March last year. It is a $5-billion program of support over two years to help those sectors most impacted. We see that as softwood, aluminum and some areas of manufacturing.

In softwood, we've been instrumental in continuing to support, through that impact program, longer buyer terms and actually put bonding in place for support. For Canadian softwood producers who have to pay tariffs, we will fund the posting of those tariff bonds, which would otherwise be a draw on their working capital and would make them unable to afford to continue to transact business.

We provide a guarantee to the bank, and the bank frees up capital. Therefore, we're effectively guaranteeing those tariff bonds that have to be put up. That has helped significantly.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I followed this very closely, and I can tell you that it wasn't always received positively in the industry, as it was very complex and didn't live up to expectations. I get the impression—perhaps the documents you’ll be able to submit will dispel this impression—that the support you are providing to the oil and gas sector is disproportionate to the assistance provided to a sector like the forestry sector. That is why I am interested in seeing a breakdown of the structural investments you are making, as I still get the impression that EDC is making structural investments in the energy sector, but not in Quebec.

As you pointed out earlier, you don't receive many requests from Hydro‑Québec, so you're making structural investments in sectors outside Quebec. However, in economic sectors specific to Quebec, when there are one-time needs, such as during the softwood lumber crisis, EDC's response is still lacklustre, I would say, and timid.

That's what I've observed since the beginning of this crisis, which gives me the impression that your mandate applies more to the oil and gas sector than to other economic sectors.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I would accept a brief answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

We'll go to Mr. Rowe for five minutes.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Thank you.

My first question is for Mr. Cooper with LNG Canada.

LNG is a big topic in Atlanta Canada and all through Canada. We have imports of LNG into Atlantic Canada, which is very strange, considering the abundance of natural gas right across this country—in Alberta, in northern Canada. There's even natural gas in people's water supply. We have an abundance there.

I was in Alberta, where we're selling our natural gas for less than five cents a unit. It goes to the States in a pipeline, where it's liquefied and sold for over $12 as LNG. Germany came to Newfoundland a few years back. The Liberal government met with the Germans and said there's no business case for offshore liquid natural gas. I find it hard to believe that there's no case for offshore.

Would you expand on that and try to make some sense out of that argument, as quickly as you can? I have a few more questions.

[Chris Cooper]

A very simple version of that.... I've done these investments in Nigeria, Oman and Australia. I've done onshore and offshore, so I understand this stuff.

The big challenges with LNG investments are competitiveness, affordability and placing them in the right place on the cost curve. Onshore facilities come with their own challenges, and they're hard enough. Making the economics of offshore facilities work with these very large vessels can be a challenge.

I think it's doable. I agree with you that there's an absolute abundance of gas here. There's a massive opportunity here, but it's about streamlining policy and aligning the different stakeholders around that investment, and then working together to make it competitive or it will not go ahead. Capital will go overseas.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

You mentioned policy certainty, and you mentioned it previously with Shannon. Do you think the barriers that are killing competitiveness are our own barriers, whether that's over-regulation in Bill C-69, the major investment risks of Bill C-49 or Canadian over-regulation in general?

This current Liberal government has proven that our economy is over-regulated, because it said we needed to bring in Bill C-5 so that it could mow over those regulations. Do you agree with the Liberal stance now? Do you agree that we are over-regulated and that's why there hasn't been a business case for LNG in this country?

[Chris Cooper]

I can see it both ways.

To be fair, the regulations you have in Canada are among the most stringent in the world. That leads to really good outcomes on carbon and methane emissions. That's a very good place. That's actually seen as a differentiator and a positive to investors overseas as they look to decarbonize. The flip side of that is that it can really slow things down. That erodes your competitiveness, and by the time you've aligned, the investment's gone elsewhere.

It's about asking whether you want to put all the layers of regulation and policy in place and then ask what an investment looks like, by which time it's gone, or you want to say, “This is the investment we want. How do we streamline policy and interests around that to make that investment work?” I think the latter is probably the pathway for us to take.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

I understand what you're saying about seeing it both ways. There is a lot of thought that goes into that.

I think if the world really wanted to have very highly regulated, carbon-neutral facilities, it would make it even more the case and we would see trillions of dollars flooding into Canada's economy. We'd see these projects going up, but we're not seeing that. What the world says it wants and what it really wants are different things, because we're seeing investment in the United States and other countries, except for Canada.

Going forward, should we pipeline our natural gas from Alberta into Atlantic Canada, where we can take our importing facility and modify it to be an exporting facility, or should we continue with the status quo of where we're going?

[Chris Cooper]

That's a fair point. You don't see the market giving a premium for low-carbon LNG at this point in time. Who knows whether that will come in the future? It's about future resilience as well.

I agree that if you look at the amount of gas Canada has, not having a pretty meaningful LNG industry is questionable. I think we missed it the first time around. We have the opportunity the second time around. The question is, can we align our policies and simplification to make it happen?

I think we are on phase two. That's a start. There's a significantly bigger opportunity. The revenues and benefits that brings to the country are immense, and they can be redistributed into other things quite well, including investments in offshore infrastructure and clean tech.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

I appreciate your wisdom on this.

The Conservatives are going to fight for the LNG sector, especially for the offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador, where there's big potential. We look forward to getting your insight at another committee date.

Thank you for your wisdom.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, both.

Wrapping up this panel is Mr. Clark for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here this morning and for this very interesting conversation.

Mr. Cooper, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about LNG in general. There are many values, but one of the great values of LNG is that we can see it in some ways as a transitional or mid-tier fuel source between traditional, higher-emitting fossil fuels and the point when massive, large-scale renewables come online across the country.

What is your perspective on LNG's role and potential in Canada as an export in general, and that transition or phase for our country?