Transport Committee on Dec. 6th, 2023

[Sonya Read]

I don't have that information, unfortunately.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay. I think it would be significant, if we're talking about the millions of tonnes here. Westshore's annual report for 2022 said that there were 16 million tonnes of thermal coal moved, all of it by rail. Prince Rupert shows over two million tonnes. That's 18 million tonnes of thermal coal just on the west coast. I don't have information for Thunder Bay because until today, I didn't realize there was thermal coal exported through Thunder Bay.

If an average carload of coal weighs 105 tonnes—that's what Statistics Canada indicates—the math would indicate that there are about 170,000 rail cars per year that would be exposed if there was an accelerated cut-off. Does that sound possible? Does that sound about right?

[Sonya Read]

The information that we have for coal in general is that it would be over 417,000 carloads of coal, but I don't have the breakdown between thermal and metallurgical.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay. It's significant anyway, I think it's fair to say.

Has Transport Canada had any discussions with supply chain partners about what the impact of this accelerated phase-out would be on their operations? We've obviously heard from Westshore, which indicates that an accelerated phase-out would cost it billions of dollars.

Have you talked to CN Rail, CP Rail or any of the other supply chain partners as to what they expect their operating losses would be, should this accelerated phase-out be adopted by this committee?

[Sonya Read]

We have not.

I would defer to colleagues at ECCC regarding conversations around that.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay.

Certainly in Vancouver—and I would assume Prince Rupert would be the same—we're dealing with a lot of coal that is mined outside of Canada. It's coming from Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. There would be contracts, as was discussed earlier this week. These contracts and the planning and infrastructure required are planned out, often decades in advance, and we heard, obviously, that this is the case when we're dealing with our most important trading partner, the United States.

Has Transport Canada done an analysis of what the impacts of the proposed accelerated export ban would be on Canada's trade obligations?

[Sonya Read]

No, we haven't done that analysis to date.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay.

Have you done the analysis on what the value would be of the coal contracts that would be cancelled or lost as a result of this accelerated phase-out? Do you not have that information either?

[Sonya Read]

We don't have that information right now. We would have to work with other departments to get that information.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Do you know if U.S. officials have been consulted on this proposed change, and if so, if they have communicated concerns to Transport Canada or any other government agency that you're aware of?

[Sonya Read]

I am not aware of any consultations with U.S. officials with respect to this proposed amendment.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay.

That is 90% of the coal coming from the United States, and there have been no consultations about what the proposed impact would be on that trading relationship and on those contracts, and about what exposure there would be to the government and taxpayers as a result of actions that would be taken as a result of those actions.

Do you know if there has been an analysis by Transport Canada or the Government of Canada of the World Trade Organization implications for this proposed accelerated ban?

[Sonya Read]

I wouldn't be well placed to answer that question. I would have to defer to colleagues in other departments regarding any analysis under the WTO rules.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I see. I think it's fairly clear that this has not been in Transport Canada's file, that this was never envisaged to be a part of this legislation, because I know that the public servants who serve the government in this country would do their due diligence and would have done all of that work, had they believed that the Canada Marine Act, in section 62, would be the method by which the government would choose to accelerate its own timeline for a thermal coal phase-out. I believe that there's too much professionalism, and that they would not leave a minister and the government and the taxpayers of Canada this exposed. They would have done their homework. In fact, it would have been a part of the bill to start with, had this been something the government intended to move forward with.

I want to go back now. The legislation we're dealing with, Bill C-33, comes out of a consultation process that was undertaken by the then minister in the ports modernization review. I'm wondering if we can go back to that to determine this. Did the transport minister.... In the summary of the evidence, in the summary of the hearings and what you heard from people who participated in the ports modernization review, was an accelerated thermal coal ban one of the priorities? Was that a priority of the people who engaged in the ports modernization review? Did this come up?

[Sonya Read]

This was not raised in the context of the ports modernization review.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay.

I would also like to draw attention.... The further we get into this, the more ridiculous it seems that the government members would be supporting this amendment. I can understand how a Bloc member can, with no affected workers and a different goal in mind, but I'm very surprised that the Liberal members on this committee would allow this amendment and indicate their support for it, when it so clearly has not been part of the consultations done by the minister in advance of this legislation. Quite frankly, the work has not been done to justify any of the job losses proposed. It seems, in fact, that the information on the proposal in amendment BQ-5 has not been considered at any level—international, national, provincial or local—or by the unions involved.

I can tell you that when President Rob Ashton of the ILWU was before this committee, he did not bring it up. It was not brought to his attention. I can assure you that, had it been brought to his attention, he would have strongly advised that he would be fighting for the 350 jobs that will be impacted at the port of Vancouver alone. He certainly told us that. Since the government announced its intention to move forward with this Bloc amendment and support it.... The fact that he was here and was not asked about it, or given an opportunity to provide his input on it.... I think he would be quite surprised that he and his workers are being taken for granted. That's 350 in Vancouver. We don't know the numbers that will be affected in Prince Rupert or Thunder Bay. Maybe it's a handful. Maybe it's hundreds. That analysis has not been done, yet members of this committee are prepared to support an amendment that could throw the entire system into chaos and advance this thermal coal ban.

Again, no one is disputing that this is going to happen. What we are talking about is a professional, reasonable process that respects workers, the investments made, the contracts signed and the discussions that are currently ongoing in Ottawa, which are being undermined by members of this committee, who should and do know better. They're telling the workers one thing at one table and are prepared to come here and sandbag them at another. It's quite outrageous.

I want to go back to when the former minister introduced this bill. The whole point of Bill C-33 was this: “Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act: Minister...introduces a new bill to make our supply chain stronger”.

I'll go through the list of what the bill aims to do:

amend current legislation and modernize the way Canada's marine and railway transportation systems operate;

remove systemic barriers to create a more fluid, secure, and resilient supply chain;

expand...Port Authorities' mandate over traffic management;

position Canada's ports as strategic hubs that support national supply chain performance and effectively manage investment decisions for sustainable growth;

improve the government's insight into ports and their operations; and

modernize provisions on rail safety, security, and transportation of dangerous goods.

Together, these measures seek to improve the supply chain, including the competitiveness of Canada's transportation system and operations that are safe, secure, efficient, and reliable. The proposed measures would support the flow of essential goods and would implement tools to mitigate risks and impacts of future supply chain challenges.

I guess the question is this: How does advancing the thermal coal export ban by several years improve the supply chain?

How does it improve the competitiveness of Canada's transportation system and operations that are safe, secure, efficient and reliable? How does it support the flow of essential goods and implement tools to mitigate risk and the impacts of future supply chain challenges?

Of course, the answer is that it does the opposite of that. I would argue that it actually throws a wrench into the supply chain. There are 170,000 cars that the rail companies have contracted to move goods until 2030, and suddenly that's slammed shut, and by several years they lose that traffic. They lose those trains. They lose those jobs. They lose that revenue.

I have no idea, nor does the government have any idea, how they will make up for that, or what the impacts on the supply chain will be.

Once again, we have heard evidence here that this is not well thought out, that this is not the place that the government, if it wants to change its mind and accelerate its thermal coal ban.... Again—I repeat it again and again—no one is disputing that thermal coal exports will be banned, but what is in dispute is the timeline.

By all measures, by all of the answers we've received, we don't even know what this will do, let alone what the long-term impacts will be. We don't know what it will do today. We don't have the information on the impacts today. I think it's completely irresponsible to consider moving forward with this amendment, given what we know and given what we don't know, which is significant, given what we've just been told.

Once again, I would urge members to think closely about what this will do and what we have been told this will do. This is not Conservative propaganda here. This is what we've been told by the longshore and warehouse union at the port of Vancouver.

We've been told that the impact on them would be devastating. We've been told that these are family-supporting jobs. We've been told that the company has been very responsive in working with them to try to find a way forward and to replace the jobs that will be lost by the thermal coal ban, by moving to a different commodity, but this takes time. It takes time that the government has promised to them.

The ILWU is very upset at the prospect of 350 of their members being out of work because the government has decided to support a Bloc Québécois amendment. That is what we're trying to put a stop to today. That's why we're talking about this, because of the impacted workers who have been told they have time to transition to a new commodity. On the one hand, they've been told the government will give them to time to make that transition, and on the other.... The government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth.

They're telling the workers, “We've got your back. Don't worry. There will be a transition. We'll let you have time to make this changeover,” and then on the other side now, at transport committee, tacked on to a supply chain efficiency bill, a ports modernization bill, we have a government that is willing to throw those workers under the bus, because we've heard again and again that no matter how you dress it up, this will result in several years of less opportunity at those terminals at Vancouver, the port of Prince Rupert and Thunder Bay.

We've heard that very clearly. No matter how long the regulatory process is supposed to be dragged out.... We have no guarantee of that. We've seen this government use orders in council, use the power of the cabinet, to make unilateral regulations on a whim. We saw it when they banned 1,500 firearms, including many hunting rifles. They just did that on their own. There was no regulatory process involved there. That was the cabinet making a decision on their own.

We take no comfort in the fact that the regulatory process is slow, because the government has shown that when they want to make a change, they can make it quite quickly; they can be unilateral, and they can make a change on a whim based on what the Prime Minister's Office wants to have happen.

We take no comfort in the fact that it usually takes three years to come up with regulations. It might take three years, three months or three days, depending on what the government decides. This amendment gives the authority to the cabinet to make those changes as soon as this law receives royal assent.

We've gone from 2030, in the mandate letter to the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, which is what that department and Natural Resources Canada have been negotiating with.... The companies, including Westshore Terminals, and the workers have been at the table discussing how this transition is going to go. I would have assumed that those negotiations were taking place in good faith, but when we have something like this that completely undermines it, that has to be questioned.

Once again, on this amendment, while perhaps it is something people can support—that there's a thermal coal ban coming, so why don't we just use the Canada Marine Act to make it happen...? I don't blame Mr. Barsalou-Duval for putting it forward, but I think we've proven, through questions, answers and the lack of information, that the work has not been done to justify its passage. We are not fighting for anything but the process that will protect the workers, that will ensure that they have the transition time they've been promised and that the companies can do their work.

That is going to happen. If you talk to people in the industry, no new thermal coal mines in North America are being approved. This phase-out is a fait accompli. However, this timeline, which has suddenly been thrust upon this committee through Bill C-33, is disrespectful to the workers who will lose their jobs and to the companies that are talking to the government in good faith on one hand while this is happening on the other hand.

I really think that, again, this exposes Canada to a number of risks, of lawsuits that could cost into the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. If we're talking about multiple-year contracts that are cut short by multiple years, Canadian taxpayers can expect to pay. That is not something this bill envisaged. It's not something former minister Alghabra spoke about in the House. It's not something Minister Rodriguez spoke about when he came before this committee.

This is a government playing politics and trying to jump on board to look like it is concerned about the environment and look like it wants to move this forward, but we've seen numerous examples where that is simply not the case, where there's no plan. This is another example of having no plan, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants approach, which, again, has a devastating impact, on workers.

It might sound great, in an Ottawa committee room, to do this, to move ahead and to accelerate the timeline, but it doesn't sound great to the people in Delta or to the workers in Tsawwassen and Ladner, who face the prospect of losing their jobs because this will come too quickly for the adaptation to occur. The planning is already well under way.

I would say that the government—the Liberals and the NDP especially, as there are no Bloc MPs in British Columbia—will have to answer to those workers, and the hundreds more workers who aren't in the ILWU but will be impacted by any shutdown of Westshore Terminals. They can't just wait around with an empty terminal for years while the potash mine gets going and the volumes get ramped up. This is complex stuff that takes billions of dollars of investment and years and years of planning. For all that to be undermined by a one-line amendment thrown in on a clause in a bill that didn't intend to deal with this is unacceptable.

It seems that the government has made up its mind that it's going to go ahead with this, but it's a shame, and it's a shame that it isn't listening to the workers and the communities that will be impacted but, for political purposes, is charging ahead with this.

I won't assume to know why, but I think it probably has to do with keeping the peace with the coalition, and that's not any way to govern the country.

Again, this is irresponsible. It is something that has not been thought out. Consultations have not been done. Legal analysis has not been done. Economic impact studies have not been done. It will throw supply chain partners into chaos. It will negatively impact many of the partners we rely on to move our goods and the workers we entrust to keep our ports up and running.

If the government, the Liberals, want to go ahead with this, they can answer to the ILWU who, trust me, will have a lot of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

Next we go to Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As everyone can see, I'm filling in for Mr. Bachrach today.

I think I might have a solution to amendment BQ-5.

I was listening to Mr. Strahl's speech, and I took note of the fact that he said that a lot of the players in this are expecting a professional and reasonable process, and I think much of the industry and the workers involved are working with an expected timeline, so what I'm going to do, Mr. Chair—and hopefully this solves some of the problems and issues that Mr. Strahl identified—is to take my opportunity—and I will give a lot of credit to Mr. Bachrach for doing the leg work—to propose a subamendment to BQ-5.

I think Mr. Bachrach's team has submitted that to the clerk, so hopefully it can be circulated. What I can do, Mr. Chair, is read my subamendment into the record. I'll just wait until I get some direction from the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We haven't received anything, according to the clerk.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

It was just sent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Is it in both official languages?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We're going to suspend for about two minutes, just to double-check that we have it and that it's distributed to all members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

I'll turn the floor back over to Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Now that everyone has their copy, it essentially rewrites (1.1) so that it states:

(1.1) The Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the prohibition, by December 31, 2029, of the loading and unloading of thermal coal to and from ships in a port.

Furthermore, Mr. Chair, there would be a new (1.2), which would read as follows:

(1.2) If no regulations are made under subsection (1.1) within 48 months after the day on which this section comes into force the Minister must cause a report stating the reasons that no such regulations have been made and establishing a schedule for making regulations to be laid before each House of Parliament on any of the first 10 days on which that House is sitting after the expiry of that 48-month period.

Just briefly, to the rationale, I think this helps clarify the timeline for the regulations spanning thermal coal to come into force. It kind of mirrors the government's commitment and would result in a transitional period taking place before 2030, which I think adds that degree of important fairness for workers.

The rationale for the proposed new subsection (1.2) would require regulations to be made within 48 months to allow time for the transitionary period.

I'll cease there, Mr. Chair.