Natural Resources committee  I'll turn it over to my colleague, Bruce Sloan. Very briefly, there are two main tax expenditures. One of them is for accelerated capital depreciation for the oil sands area. That's about $1.5 billion over five years, over $300 million per year. That's due to be sunset by aroun

Natural Resources committee  It's an absolutely great question. When we were scoping this, we looked specifically at what the statement was, the obligation under the G-20 commitment. Under that, it was to look at it to identify, reduce, and eliminate those subsidies related to the fossil fuel sector. But,

Natural Resources committee  Without question, the government is moving with direction on this important issue. The reason, I would say, is twofold. One is that you don't want to have one measure undermining the commitment this government has made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through regulations. And t

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I'll try to be as brief as possible in an opening statement. Mr. Chair, I'm very pleased to join this committee and present the findings of our fall 2012 report, which was tabled in the House of Commons this morning. Our report examined several e

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I certainly would agree with you. The fines are a very clear signal within the act. We looked at fines in the past and said in past reports that they were low enough to have no effect. So increasing those fines would be aligned with something we found in past audits.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  By Thursday?

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  What I will say is that we are doing an audit right now, so I can't comment on it, but we will be reporting later this year on what the strategic environmental assessments are for both boards, as well as the environmental assessments, and that would include, then, what has been d

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  That's what the agency is using—

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Just to reiterate, Ms. Rempel is absolutely right. The majority of screenings are very small projects for which there are no significant adverse environmental impacts. The agency has estimated that 94% of screenings would not pose significant adverse environmental impacts. We had

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Under the bill they are moving from the current regime of 100 responsible authorities to three, which are named. There is a fourth one, which is an agency which will carry out regulatory responsibilities. Our understanding, from discussions with the boards, is that they would the

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Briefly it is—

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  It's largely for smaller projects or projects that will—

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I can give you different examples. Do you want a big one or a small one?

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I'd say it's partially correct. I'd say there are also larger projects, which is what I had mentioned: exploratory wells; seismic wells for offshore drilling; pipelines under 75 kilometres would be under screenings.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I think that's the critical question, and that's what I said in my opening statement. That's why I think the project list will be critical. My understanding now is that the project list is going to be based on the comprehensive study, not on larger screenings.