Evidence of meeting #82 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was moratorium.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Heather McCready  Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment
Marc Bernier  Director, Environmental Science and Technology Laboratories, Department of the Environment
Gregory Lick  Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Kim Kasperski  Director, Environmental Impacts, CanmetENERGY, Department of Natural Resources
Carl Brown  Manager, Emergencies Science and Technology Section, Department of the Environment
Christine Siminowski  Director, Canadian Oil, Refining and Energy Security Division, Energy Sector, Department of Natural Resources
Ken Veldman  Director, Public Affairs, Prince Rupert Port Authority
Peter Xotta  Vice-President, Planning and Operations, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority
Marina Spahlinger  Manager, Regulatory and Stakeholder Relations, Canada, Royal Vopak
Joel Smith  Operations Manager, Province of Quebec, Vopak Terminals of Canada, Royal Vopak

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)) Liberal Judy Sgro

I'm calling to order meeting number 82 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, on Bill C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia's north coast.

I'm very happy to welcome the officials here today to help provide the committee members with some very valuable information. From the Department of the Environment, we have Heather McCready, director general, environmental enforcement; Michael Enns, executive director, environmental enforcement; Marc Bernier, director, environmental science and technology laboratories; and Carl Brown, manager of emergencies science and technology section.

We also have, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Gregory Lick, director general, operations. I have to acknowledge, since we're celebrating Navy Day and the Coast Guard, that Mr. Lick has received an award for his long-standing career and achievements and dedicated service to the Coast Guard. Congratulations, and thank you for your service.

We also have, from the Department of Natural Resources, Christine Siminowski, director of the Canadian oil, refining and energy security division, energy sector, and Kim Kasperski, director, environmental impacts, at CanmetENERGY.

Thank you all very much for being here today.

Ms. McCready, who would like to go first?

November 21st, 2017 / 3:35 p.m.

Heather McCready Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

I don't know if you have preference by department, but Marc Bernier will present our opening statement for Environment and Climate Change Canada.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Mr. Bernier, please go ahead.

3:35 p.m.

Marc Bernier Director, Environmental Science and Technology Laboratories, Department of the Environment

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, vice-chairs, members of the committee, as director of the environmental science and technology laboratories, science and technology branch, I supervise a team of scientists who undertake a research program to study the effects of spilled chemicals on the environment and the cleanup of spills.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has more than 40 years of experience in understanding and responding to oil spills. Much of the research on conventional heavy crude oil and fuels is long-standing; however, emerging challenges in recent years have included unconventional heavy products such as diluted bitumen. This research continues under the oceans protection plan.

The most basic part of the research involves understanding the physical behaviour and chemical nature of oil. ECCC has assessed hundreds of domestic and international oils and makes these results publicly available on the Internet. The ECCC oil catalogue is the largest publicly available oil-spill-related database in the world. The great majority of data are for persistent oil products.

In an effort to measure the composition of the oil, ECCC has also led research on the forensic identification of oil, which is used to determine the source of spilled oil. This is important for enforcement of Canada's environmental laws, which were used recently in cases such as Lac-Mégantic in Quebec and the MV Marathassa spill in Vancouver, British Columbia.

ECCC also studies the fate, effects, and behaviour of spilled oil. We look at the many ways in which an oil spill can change in, and interact with, the environment, including evaporation, emulsification with water, dispersion into water, mixing with sediments, and other mechanisms by which an oil may sink, for example.

We also have a special focus on how oils interact with shorelines, in particular how they can penetrate and become sequestered in riverbanks and marine shorelines.

All of this contributes to ECCC providing predictive models of the trajectory of a spill and its impacts on habitats and ecosystems as well as our communities.

Spill modelling is used not just for response to spills; it is also key to planning for contingencies and for assessing the potential impacts of new projects as they arise through the environmental assessment process.

ECCC also studies how to clean up oil spills using both traditional response techniques and newer alternative response techniques in both laboratory and large-scale experiments. ECCC has a major focus on the evaluation of the effectiveness and toxicity of spill-treating agents, including chemical dispersants and surface-washing agents. Much of this work leads to international standards to codify best practices for spill response.

ECCC has also led in the development of oil spill remote sensors and the assessment of oil contamination on shorelines. As an example of our work, I'd like to highlight recent studies on the potential for spills along the northern and southern coastlines of British Columbia.

First, we surveyed the BC shorelines, to understand the existing geology and biology, and also the existing background levels of oil-related chemicals. This is essential both for planning for potential spills and for understanding what the target endpoints for clean-up need to be following a spill.

Secondly we've examined the potential for heavy oils, both conventional ship fuels and non-conventional diluted bitumen, to sink and migrate, especially as small particulates in water, again using sediments and beach material taken from BC coast lines. The potential to sink, move with currents as particulates, and for penetration, or "stickiness", have been identified as major issues affecting spill clean-up in recent years with conventional oils like ship fuels and non-conventional oils like diluted bitumen.

All of this work is focused on improving Canada's capability to respond to marine oil spills including those involving persistent oils. Understanding how the properties of spilled oils change over space and time is critical to better predictive models of spill behaviour, which in turn enables better planning and response.

ECCC also plays a role under its mandate in enforcing environmental laws and regulations that pertain to the marine environment. While Transport Canada remains the federal government's lead for monitoring, regulating, and enforcement with respect to ship-source pollution, ECCC enforces the pollution prevention provisions of the Fisheries Act that prohibit any substance that is deleterious to fish from entering water frequented by fish, the disposal-at-sea provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act, which contains penalties for birds oiled at sea.

In summary, Environment and Climate Change Canada continues be engaged in Canada and internationally with governments, academia, the petroleum industry, spill responders, non-governmental organizations, and the public to identify oil spill research needs and establish priorities for future activities.

All of our stakeholders have identified the need to improve our understanding of the fate and behaviour of spilled persistent oils. Recent oil spill research and development activities undertaken by Environment and Climate Change Canada and other federal departments have led to an improved understanding of persistent and heavy oils.

I would like to thank the members of the committee for their time and welcome any questions that you might have.

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Mr. Bernier.

We'll move on to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Mr. Lick, you have five minutes, please.

3:40 p.m.

Gregory Lick Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members. It is my honour today, particularly on this Coast Guard and Navy Day, to thank you very much for the honour that you gave me.

I'm going to discuss the Coast Guard's role in supporting the government's commitment to creating a world-leading marine safety system. My remarks will focus on the Coast Guard's area of responsibility in monitoring vessels in and around Canadian waters, as well as our marine pollution response capabilities.

I shall start by pointing out that our marine pollution response and the monitoring of our waterways are both part of the Coast Guard's bread and butter. Assuring the safety of the longest coastline in the world is one of the pillars of our mandate. It's easy to measure safety in human lives saved—for us, 13 people are saved on average per day—but it also means ensuring that every one of our 243,000 kilometres of rugged coastline is protected from pollution events.

The Canadian Coast Guard monitors vessels navigating Canada's waters through its Marine Communications and Traffic Services network. On average, this means our MCTS radio officers are keeping an eye on 1,254 ship movements every day. We do this by providing our 12 MCTS centres across the country with cutting-edge maritime monitoring technology. On the west coast alone, we are implementing six new radar stations that will enhance our monitoring capabilities in the Vancouver Island Inside Passage area and throughout Seymour Narrows. Additionally, over the course of a six-year capital project that wrapped up in 2016, we've completely modernized our communications control systems, allowing for more effective monitoring of our waters.

We're proud of these accomplishments, but a big part of our agency's culture is the desire to always do more. That's why the oceans protection plan has invigorated the Coast Guard. The oceans protection plan solidifies the Coast Guard's role as the backbone of Canada's marine safety system, and the OPP is allowing us to beef up our MCTS network capabilities with the addition of 24 new members into those centres.

We've already begun to strengthen our 24-7 emergency response capacity by providing our members with the tools and resources they need to respond to marine emergencies and ensure a coordinated response that will better protect our waterways. Again made possible by the OPP, the operational network initiative aims to ensure full redundancy in our telecommunications network and provide contingency measures for enhanced business continuity. This way, if any kind of outage occurs, our services will remain online.

To keep our waterways, we must know who and what is on the water, but we also have to see what lurks beneath. Another component of the oceans protection plan is ensuring that hydrographic charting and navigation tools are helping to improve marine safety. To that end we've already surveyed four priority ports, including Vancouver anchorage, Prince Rupert, Port Alberni, and Stewart.

Also, and with the help of our partners, we've increased our eyes and ears on the water. One example is the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, a Canada-wide network of hundreds of coastal communities whose 4,000-plus volunteer members contribute vital resources to Coast Guard-led marine pollution response efforts.

The oceans protection plan supports the Canadian Coast Guard's shift from being an agency that reacts to spills to one that can also help to prevent them before they even happen. One example of this is an increase in emergency towing capacity to rescue vessels in distress and avoid potential marine incidents. We're also installing towing kits on all major Coast Guard vessels and providing higher-level training for our crews to operate this new towing equipment. We're also leasing two offshore vessels capable of towing large ships in distress on the west coast.

Of course, the Coast Guard doesn't do this alone. We are currently engaging indigenous and coastal communities, industry, academia, and other key stakeholders to complete a needs assessment on emergency towing requirements on the west coast.

When a pollution event does occur, however, we are ready to respond. On average, Coast Guard personnel respond to three pollution incidents every day. If we take the west coast as an example, environmental response caches dot British Columbia's coast in 18 places, with three of them staffed in Richmond, Victoria, and Prince Rupert. When we receive word of a pollution event, we swiftly dispatch our resources to the incident.

As I stated off the top, the Canadian Coast Guard is on the front lines of supporting the government's commitment to creating a world-leading marine safety system and is expanding its marine pollution response and monitoring capabilities to meet this commitment.

Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity, and as with my colleague, I'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Mr. Lick.

We'll move on to the Department of Natural Resources.

3:45 p.m.

Dr. Kim Kasperski Director, Environmental Impacts, CanmetENERGY, Department of Natural Resources

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

I am pleased to be here, along with my colleague Christine Siminowski, to represent Natural Resources Canada, together with colleagues from other federal departments.

Natural Resources Canada seeks to enhance the development and use of Canada's natural resources and the competitiveness of Canada's natural resource products. NRCan develops policies and programs and conducts innovative research in our facilities across the country. Our CanmetENERGY laboratory in Devon, located near Edmonton, has decades of expertise in the development of cleaner fossil fuels, refining, and related environmental technologies. Close to 130 scientists, engineers, technologists, managers, and support staff generate knowledge to help provide solutions to industry and advice to government policy-makers and regulators. This was the case when NRCan was called upon by Transport Canada last year to assist in developing this moratorium legislation.

More specifically, NRCan provided input on the chemistry, properties, and classes of hydrocarbons associated with petroleum production and their analysis. This was used to support the legislation's definition of “crude oil” and the products in the accompanying schedule that were designated as persistent, and hence banned for transport.

As mentioned, scientists and engineers at CanmetENERGY at Devon conduct research to understand and improve the production of fossil fuels, while reducing the environmental impacts of that production, and in particular heavy oil production. For example, this includes research on oil spill behaviour, including how a spill of diluted bitumen compares to a spill of conventional crudes, which complements the work carried out by our colleagues at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, representatives of which join us today.

NRCan continues its work to ensure that the development of natural resources remains a source of jobs, prosperity, and opportunity for investment in Canada, while at the same time protecting the environment.

Canada is open to investment and remains one of the most globally competitive energy producers, including in the oil and gas sector. The government's approval last November of the Line 3 replacement and of the Trans Mountain expansion oil pipeline projects is expected to meet increasing demand for Canadian oil in North American markets as well as open new markets for Canada's producers on the Pacific coast and in Asia. Moreover, possible future exports of liquefied natural gas or propane, for example, would both be permitted under the moratorium.

We wish to thank the committee for this opportunity and are ready to answer your questions.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Ms. Kasperski.

We'll go to Mr. Lobb for six minutes.

3:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

Thanks very much.

The first question I have is for the people who are here from the Department of the Environment. With regard to the duty to consult, this is one the questions that has been brought up a few times with the minister. It's been brought up by different indigenous groups who have appeared here before committee, both those in support of the ban and those who are against the ban.

What are the consultations you guys have inside the department around how we should embark on consulting when consulting with the Department of Transport? Are there any discussions there?

3:50 p.m.

Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

Heather McCready

None of us here are the people who are experts on the particular aspect you asked about. There's actually a new branch at Environment and Climate Change Canada that deals with that specifically. We could get an answer back to you from them if you prefer.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

I did notice that on the list, nobody was from environmental assessment. I find it interesting that nobody from environmental assessment appeared, because it's been brought up a few times at our committee.

One of the questions I asked the transport minister when he appeared was that it seems to me like there are a number of different standards that are put in place on who's required to do environmental assessments, how they're to do environmental assessments, and whether or not consent is required.

Anybody who is here today is welcome to join in.

One of the examples I referenced was the environmental assessment requirements for a project in my riding to do with a deep geological repository. The level of consent and consultation—and I'm not saying I'm against it—far exceeds anything that has been done here. I'm just wondering what the committee is supposed to do to make sure that the minister is properly consulted when all the people who have appeared at the committee who are indigenous Canadians have said they weren't consulted.

3:50 p.m.

Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

Heather McCready

I apologize. I should know this. Have you had anyone here from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency yet?

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

No.

3:50 p.m.

Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

Heather McCready

You may wish to direct some questions to them, specifically about the environmental assessment process writ large. I think they would probably be a better help to you.

I'd love to answer, but I don't want to start answering things I don't—

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

Thanks. That's probably a good idea.

I have another question about diesel fuel. NRCan can respond; you guys can respond.

What kind of a tanker would you envision heading up the coast that would be able to carry diesel fuel?

3:50 p.m.

Director, Environmental Impacts, CanmetENERGY, Department of Natural Resources

Dr. Kim Kasperski

Tankers are not my expertise, but I quickly googled it today. Any tanker that is made for petroleum products.... As I understand, there are two types. One type carries crude oil, and one carries refined products. I imagine it would be one of the refined product tankers. The size would be dictated by where it wanted to travel.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

That's fair enough.

Are any other persistent oils entering Canadian ports today, from Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia?

3:50 p.m.

Director, Environmental Impacts, CanmetENERGY, Department of Natural Resources

Dr. Kim Kasperski

Any crude oil that's entering Canadian waters is a persistent oil, whether it's coming up the eastern coast of the U.S. or from wherever. I don't know what oils are being imported, but if it's a crude oil, it's persistent.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

I know you have used the term “persistent”, and the indigenous people who were here, specifically Eagle Spirit, will be one as well. Their argument is that you're putting this ban on them because it's persistent and there's a risk to the environment, yet other ports in Canada are going to be receiving persistent oils with the same inherent risks. How do we square that? Use whatever term you want to use. How can the ban apply to one, when those risks are not dealt with in the same way for the rest? How do you deal with that?

3:50 p.m.

Director, Environmental Impacts, CanmetENERGY, Department of Natural Resources

Dr. Kim Kasperski

That's not in my area of expertise.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

Does the department provide any advice? Does Environment Canada provide any advice to the minister when she asks if this is the right course of action to take?

What we heard from Eagle Spirit and the other indigenous groups was that if it's so bad, maybe the ban should be everywhere, or if it's good for some, it should be good for them too.

You can see that we as a committee are trying to use science, and we know that's an important term for government to use, yet we're throwing up our hands on this question.

I have one final question. I think I might have time. You mentioned the size of a tanker. I've read some information on the size of a tanker. Does Environment Canada do any modelling using 12,500 tonnes, which is the number in the bill? What would that look like if there were a disaster, versus a much larger amount of diesel fuel if it were, God forbid, to spill? Was any modelling done to say diesel is fine, but persistent oils are not so fine?

3:55 p.m.

Director, Environmental Science and Technology Laboratories, Department of the Environment

Marc Bernier

Are you talking about the oil spill moving when there is an actual spill in the environment?

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

When the schedule says yes to diesel, yes to propane, yes to gasoline, but no to persistent oil, surely science was done somewhere to say the environment can handle a massive diesel fuel spill but not a persistent oil spill. Is there data that the committee could look at to say we agree with that or disagree with that?

3:55 p.m.

Dr. Carl Brown Manager, Emergencies Science and Technology Section, Department of the Environment

Yes. When looking at persistent oils or non-persistent oils, we do have the capability to model those differences, and certainly we do that.