Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[Scott Streiner]

Certainly whenever a major project is proposed in traditional territories, the Government of Canada recognizes that it needs to engage with aboriginal people. There is not, at the moment, an official Government of Canada policy that covers all consultation with aboriginal peoples in all situations, but there's a commitment to respect the jurisprudence that you're talking about.

You're absolutely right. It has been coming up more and more since the Taku and Haida decisions, and we're still in a learning period. We're only two years after those decisions, and so federal departments, sometimes under the guidance of the agency, will get together when there's a major project and major impacts on aboriginal communities and we will look at mechanisms for engaging aboriginal communities and for allowing them to provide input into the environmental assessment process.

But I don't want to suggest that there's a cookie-cutter solution to this. As you know, across the country, the nature of aboriginal claims, whether or not they're settled, and the size of projects vary, So we try to adapt the approach in each region and each project. But we are heavily engaged in the issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Good. Thank you very much.

We're going to have to move on if we're going to get this round in.

Monsieur Ouellet.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I know that you are in a difficult situation. I would say that you are between a rock and a hard place. I am going to give you an example. I was quite friendly with some people who worked at Hydro-Québec and who, for some time, were doing environmental assessments a lot like the ones you do. The type of report they produced inevitably varied depending on the vice-president who was there. As you say, the minister has never refused your reports because you are smart enough to adjust yourself to her level. At one point, they decided that it didn’t make sense to always do the studies internally and they decided to have the reports done by outside people, in order to reduce the level of criticism. They confided the task to outside engineers. What happened? When they were asked to do a study for a project that was to cross wetlands, they didn’t say not to do it, because they would never have got another contract. When an important study was done for the Hertel-Des Cantons line, engineers, the people responsible, did it. They said that the project should go ahead, and yet that was criticized.

In your case, when you are asked to do a study on the oil sands, you know that there are significant greenhouse gas emissions, and your definition of the word “acceptable” will inevitably come into play. The groups may very well all come to testify before you, but yours will be there, and it’s very variable. It can vary from none to all. You are obliged to set the bar at a certain height so that a given minister will accept it. It is a project that must be done. You cannot take the responsibility of stopping a project like the oil sands.

Power plants are another example. Nuclear power could replace natural gas, which is used to produce oil from the oil sands. What is your position on this? Nuclear does not produce GHG, but that is not where the problem lies. The issue is what to do with the nuclear waste. What will your position be?

[Jean-Claude Bouchard]

First of all, I would like to make a comment. The people that the minister appoints to sit on a review panel are chosen with care. Your colleague asked me if a minister had ever disregarded one of our recommendations. The agency recommends the members for that panel. We are very careful to ensure that these are people who, as far as we can know, have no conflict of interest whatsoever. Obviously, someone who works for an engineering firm would never be appointed to a panel. With the best will in the world, no one is impartial. We examine that with care, and the people appointed are generally people who have no links, however tenuous, to this industry. It is often people who are very well known within academia. They know the field well and they are going to ask the right questions. We do not decide where the bar should be set. They decide for themselves what is acceptable and what mitigation measures should be taken into account. In the case of nuclear plants, I imagine you are referring to Ontario.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

No, because Shell wants to do a project with the oil sands. You are going to have to look at it.

[Jean-Claude Bouchard]

When a project is presented to us, we will decide whether a comprehensive study or a review panel is required. We will then make a recommendation to the minister on the subject, but we are not the ones who will decide whether it is a good or a bad thing.

I imagine that, in the case of a nuclear plant, we will recommend the creation of a review panel. I don’t want to presume anything, but for projects of that scope, we generally recommend the creation of a review panel.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Just now, I had the impression that you would prefer the solution that is most reasonable from a financial point of view to the best solution technologically speaking. That is the impression I got when you responded to the other questions. You are more concerned about the fact that something must be doable. You thus favour the solution with the most realistic cost rather than the one with the best available technology.

[Jean-Claude Bouchard]

As a rule, we ask the members of a review panel, in our guidelines, to review the mitigation measures that are realistic. We are less interested in someone who thinks that they can invent a technology to clean the oil sands when no one has ever done that.

We defer to the review panel’s expertise. That’s all we say. We don’t ask if it’s feasible, if it’s expensive or not. We don’t impose any such criterion. We tell them to examine mitigation measures that are realistic, in the sense that we know that it has already been done and that it can be done again. We don’t want to do research for the next 20 years to figure out if it can be done. That’s what we say.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

In the case of Alberta’s oil sands, we know that the technology to bury the greenhouse gases exists, but that it is expensive.

Given that this is the best technology for eliminating greenhouse gases that we know of, could you say, during an assessment, could you propose that it be used and that if it is not, the project cannot go ahead?

[Jean-Claude Bouchard]

We would not say that, but if a review panel wrote in its report that the development of the oil sands has such an impact that other GHG emissions cannot be allowed if the project is to go ahead, we would submit that to Cabinet. I repeat that it is the government that would make the final decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Monsieur Ouellet.

We have time for Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions.

Ms. Smith, the first question I have is that I find this cumulative thing intriguing. With the area that is going to have to be developed in the north over a period of time, and potentially could be, the interaction between the cumulative group and the group that's actually exercising the assessments I find intriguing. In your group, how many people are actually on the ground, like employees, if you call them employees, doing the work that you talked about in these studies?

[Judy Smith]

We have the 47 organizations. Those organizations have at least one member, but when you look at our working groups, they actually have multiple members. Many of those individuals are on the ground working. In other words, when industry sends people there, they're experienced people, either on the effects or on the technologies. A number of the first nations representatives are elders who are on the land. Some of them actually work on various projects. The federal and provincial representatives have all been up to the sites, and many of them are sitting on the joint review panels for the various projects.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

So in effect they're seconded resources basically. You get them from the companies and the stakeholders—

[Judy Smith]

Absolutely. In fact, one of the issues we have is adequate resourcing, and one of the recommendations we are making is that we need high-level representatives, decision-makers, coming to CEMA and we need them to spend their time participating and developing these management systems, which we believe will help protect the environment in the region.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Which is always a challenge, seconded resources, right?

In your industry group, are all the major oil sand developers party to that, as part of your industry groups, or which ones are?

[Judy Smith]

Are they part of the industry group or part of CEMA?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Do they contribute to your organization--Syncrude and people like that?

[Judy Smith]

Yes, all the major oil sands players, as well as members of the government, and so on, sit there. But yes, the industry players do sit there, and in fact, some of the provincial legislation approvals require that they sit on the various regional committees.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

So then, in fact, some of the work we saw them doing in the northwest--land reclamation and things of that nature--probably is part of this review process that you folks are doing, as well.

[Judy Smith]

It is. In fact, when I was talking about reclamation guidelines, those are the best-practice manuals that industry is required to prepare. We started those manuals back probably 10 years ago, and now we're going through iterations of those best-practice manuals and we're improving them as research comes to the table. So those are critical manuals for industry, and they're critical for reclamation in the region. And CEMA oversees those manuals with the multi-stakeholders.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

This is my last question. Is the integration point between the two groups, then, just so I get this right, the expert panels that you have? How that information, that feedback loop gets into.... I see CEMA doing their work; then I see a project that goes through an assessment; it gets an approval with mitigation--as you said, it's hardly ever unapproved--then they implement the project, then they mitigate, and then they have to do a review process. So I look at CEMA as kind of laying over top of this, feeding in to all those sections.

Is that kind of how that works?

[Judy Smith]

Indeed, many of the members of CEMA sit on many of the panels and vice versa. So there is an integration of the same people. That's one of the difficulties. The people who work with industry, the people who work with the federal and provincial governments, and the people who work with the first nations are also the same people who attend the hearing and participate in the review of EIA, so people have multiple tasks on their agendas. It's the same people, which is good, because everyone understands the issues.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, could I ask if Mr. Allen could use his time to ask Ms. Smith why CEMA is not mandated to make recommendations regarding CO2 and with respect to climate change—