Natural Resources committee  We haven't had any interactions that would allow me to shed any useful light on them.

Natural Resources committee  It would be done with difficulty. A typical way is to contain an oil spill with booms, and then burn it in situ, but those methods simply don't work if there's ice in the water. The ice interferes with them. You can't boom the area. It really depends on ice conditions, which change from week to week and region to region.

Natural Resources committee  That's a good question. Clearly, if we required 100% safety for all activity, there would be no activity. There are risks inherent in everything. Those risks can be minimized but they can never be removed to zero. The fact that a risk might be both very small but very high creates particular challenges.

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely not. The big challenge is the lack of infrastructure. The Gulf spill had approximately 40,000 people working on it. It's physically not possible to get even a fraction of that number of people working on an oil spill in the Arctic, even given the operating limits in terms of the number of days you can operate.

Natural Resources committee  I think the NEB basically agreed with us that the CNSC relief valve requirement was a key component of safe offshore drilling. The really critical component in the Arctic is this. If you're drilling, the principle is that you need to stop drilling operations early enough in the season so that it will still be possible, in the event of a blowout at the tail end of your season, to drill a relief well before the season ends.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly not for ruptures that happen, for instance, just below the top of the well.... Imagine the pipe rupturing and then the oil comes out of the sides of the wellhead. That's not something that can be contained with a well cap.

Natural Resources committee  Well, in some ways it would come down to the need. What we've been advocating for is the upfront, large-scale planning, which looks at the entire area, both at areas where it's appropriate to carry out activity and areas where it's not appropriate; and looks at what the thresholds are for the region as a whole, or the overall capacity of the region to sustain industrial activity; and then manages activity within those limits.

Natural Resources committee  That's right. Cumulative impacts are the way in which a strategic assessment sets the thresholds, but then also there's the other component, which is really different but can happen at the same time. By that I mean doing the spatial planning to identify, in effect, the relative sensitivities of coastal areas and mapping out the trajectory of where a spill might happen and where there's an overlap between spill trajectory and particularly sensitive sites.

Natural Resources committee  Ultimately, we've been recommending that the NEB do it. I think, ultimately, an independent third party body should. The tools exist to do it. There are good trajectory models in different parts of the world, including the west coast. As I've said, there are additional complexities by modelling not just ocean currents but also ice movement, when you get oil and ice.

Natural Resources committee  No.

Natural Resources committee  As you know, a number of environmental groups have raised concerns around the measures. One of the concerns is the fact that they're embedded in a budget bill. I should qualify that and say we are a member of the green budget coalition. The green budget coalition did indeed consult on financial and budget issues during the development of the budget.

Natural Resources committee  I'm afraid I don't have those numbers at hand. I can look into them and get them to the committee.

Natural Resources committee  I would be on shaky ground, as Mr. Binder was.

Natural Resources committee  Will we get consensus? No, I think the issue will tend to be shaped according to people's interests. For example, we made an intervention and the entity agreed with us in general that the requirement to be able to drill a same-season relief well was important and should be retained.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. I'll perhaps respond to your second question first and just urge everyone to look at the ICC declaration on resource development, which, in 57 principles, gives more detail than I can and is really appropriate. It's really a valuable document for all resource development users—and done in a very thoughtful way.