Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 5th, 2026

[Lisa Baiton]

Absolutely. As I said, Canada is a global model to follow with natural resources, and oil and gas in particular. From our perspective, indigenous partnerships and participation are integral to the success of oil and gas projects.

The industry has worked for many years to be a strong partner in indigenous economic reconciliation. We're very proud of where we're at today and the future partnership opportunities that are going to enable us to be a reliable and stable provider of energy to the world, but that relationship started with being the largest employer of indigenous people. It then morphed into being the major facilitator and supporter of indigenous-owned supply chains, and then it morphed into being a really important source of private equity ownership in actual industry projects, whether that's pipelines, tank farms, power plants, LNG terminals and more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you. I'm going to have to stop you there and move on to Mr. Simard.

Mr. Simard, you have six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to note for my colleague Corey, whom I hold in high regard, that he was speaking a little quickly earlier. That's difficult for the interpreters.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Point taken.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm glad you're with us today, Ms. Baiton. Perhaps you'll be able to shed some light on this for me. When we talk about Canada's role in energy security, I see a few inconsistencies that I'd like to explain to you.

If we look at Canada's energy exports, 75% to 80% of all Canadian exports go to the United States. Looking specifically at crude oil, 91% of Canadian exports went directly to the United States in 2025. We're in a trade dispute with the Americans, and oil is not subject to tariffs. I fail to see how building new infrastructure can help us in that trade dispute. Quite the contrary. If we look at who owns the major oil companies, we find that American companies retain 60% ownership. If we look at the profits these companies generated from 2021 to 2024, we're talking about $131 billion in profits and $80 billion in dividends, most of which went to the United States. That's a capital outflow of roughly $12.5 billion.

When I see the federal government investing in oil and gas infrastructure, I tell myself that this is not being done to the benefit of Canadians, and even less so to the benefit of Quebeckers, but rather to the benefit of Americans. I even have difficulty understanding the economic model you're operating under, because you're making record profits.

This year, Cenovus will have earned profits four times higher than it earned in 2024. You're making record profits, yet no oil company wants to pay for the infrastructure. The Pacific Link pipeline, once again, comes with a price tag of $43 billion, but nobody from the oil and gas sector is stepping up to pay for that infrastructure.

I'm trying to make sense of all this. I see investments that primarily benefit Americans in the context of a trade dispute involving a non-tariffed product, namely oil. The United States receives 90% of our oil exports. We're going to pay for their infrastructure, they're making record profits, and I'm having trouble seeing anything positive in that.

I'm glad you're here. Perhaps you'll be able to change my mind.

[Lisa Baiton]

Let me start with your first question on the United States. I would just say this again: Two things can be true at the same time. Canada should absolutely be pursuing a parallel path to diversify our access to more global customers. The more countries that come to rely on Canadian energy, the more it enhances our geopolitical standing, strengthens our hand in negotiations and strengthens our own economic security and economic sovereignty.

However, even with all the uncertainty, threats and trade challenges being caused by the Trump administration, we really have to recognize that the U.S. is the largest oil and natural gas consumer on the planet, that it will remain that and that it is, by far, Canada's largest customer. We've traded energy virtually tariff-free for nearly 150 years. Our companies operate seamlessly across the border. Our energy infrastructure has been built over that century. Pipelines, refineries, power plants and export facilities have deliberately been highly interconnected because of that century-long relationship. For this reason, the U.S. will remain a major destination for Canadian oil and natural gas far beyond the Trump administration's time in office, and we strongly support the continuation of the tariff-free oil and natural gas trade between Canada and the U.S. because the current system does benefit Canadians.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

Your answer suggests that, in the near future, the United States will remain our largest export market for energy. When people argue that we need to invest in oil and gas infrastructure to free ourselves from dependence on the Americans, in reality, that argument is a bit of a sham, because ultimately the United States will still be our principal energy partner.

[Lisa Baiton]

No, it's not.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If you can prove otherwise, I'm all ears.

Does your association have any figures? Do you have targets when you say we need to wean ourselves off American customers? Do you have targets for increasing exports elsewhere and reducing that alarming ratio whereby 90% of our crude oil exports go to the United States? Do you have targets involving Europe, for example, to bring that figure down to 50%, or something along those lines? Is that the kind of thinking your association is engaged in?

[Lisa Baiton]

Again, I'll just say that Canadians can walk and chew gum at the same time. North American energy security is directly tied to Canadian national and continental security. Maintaining or growing energy trade with the U.S. strengthens Canada's hand in economic negotiations.

In parallel, the world is coming to Canada as a reliable, secure and trusted source of energy. Making sure that we can meet that demand not only benefits Canada and Canadians economically but also ensures that our allies have access to oil and natural gas—direct access, without having to go to the U.S.—so both are incredibly important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you both.

We're going to start our second round, colleagues, and we're going to start with Mr. Patzer for five minutes.

Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm just going to start with a few questions for Manitoba Hydro.

Could you just let this committee know where you export electricity to from Manitoba?

[Dave Bowen]

We export to the U.S., Saskatchewan and Alberta. There are two products. There's a firm, dependable product that's typically in two-year to five-plus-year term sheets. Also, there's a spot-market product. This largely goes to the U.S, but a little bit does go to Ontario as well.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Where do you import electricity from?

[Dave Bowen]

We import it primarily from the U.S., but there could be a little bit from Ontario and a little bit from Saskatchewan.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

You faced some pressures on your system because of low water levels in Lake Winnipeg. What did that do to your grid here over the last year or two?

[Dave Bowen]

We've had three droughts and four low-water years in the last five years. We have both an energy product and a capacity product. Energy is that all our light bulbs are running kilowatt hours. Capacity is that every light bulb is on for an instantaneous moment, and we need to handle that moment. In wintertime in this last year, in January, we imported a record amount from the MISO market in the U.S. We do cycle our plants to take advantage of pricing, but we did import a lot. Keep in mind that we have an energy criteria that we can handle the lowest flood in over 100 years, but for economic reasons and to help us through the drought, we did rely on the U.S.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Okay.

If some major industry came to you today and asked to put in, say, an AI data centre or place some kind of large-scale draw on your system, would you be able to handle that capacity?

[Dave Bowen]

We have about 200 to 300 megawatts of additional capacity. We have a need date for new resources in 2030, and that's for the whole province. If it were larger than probably 20 to 50 megawatts, we would need new generation.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Do you have new generation earmarked? I think there's an expansion for natural gas in Brandon—

[Dave Bowen]

That's correct.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

—and one in Selkirk as well. Is that still happening?

[Dave Bowen]

As part of the IRP, the integrated resource plan, yes, we have new generation earmarked. For 2030, our new CTs will come online.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Okay.

I'm going to switch to Ms. Baiton for a little bit here.

Under the current agreement between the federal government and Alberta on the industrial carbon price, the cost of a barrel of oil for production in the oil sands, and this is in U.S. dollars, mind you, is about $58 a barrel. With a $95-a-tonne carbon pricing agreement with the feds, that's going to jump to $75 a barrel, and it could go up from there when the carbon price reaches $140 a tonne.

Are you hearing concerns from industry about that added cost that isn't being applied to other competing jurisdictions?

[Lisa Baiton]

I would say the new industrial carbon tax plan improves on earlier proposed versions, yet it still represents a significant and unique cost to Canadian oil and natural gas producers. If growing Canadian energy exports is our goal, we should not be adding costs to Canadian natural gas and oil production when no other country that we directly compete with has done so.