Environment committee  That is correct. It's also a fairly standard element of bills.

Environment committee  Thank you very much for the question. This particular provision, clause 23 of the bill, deals with a report related to government operations and financial risks and opportunities of government operations. In a way, it's a little distinct from the rest of the bill, which deals more broadly with the economy writ large.

Finance committee  That is the cumulative total of the payments from Canada to Newfoundland and Labrador, and then there are cumulative payments from the province to the federal government of approximately $800 million, which brings us to a net of $2.5 billion.

Finance committee  That's right. This is outlined in the agreement, which is publicly available. Schedule A outlines the payments from Canada to the province, and schedule B outlines the payments from the province to Canada.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  There's a schedule in the agreement, which is, by the way, a public document. Each year between 2019 and 2056 has a different amount. They vary from as high as $232 million or roughly $233 million to around $15 million in the out years. Then, of course, the agreement also prescribes that the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador make payment to the federal government.

Finance committee  We took careful note of the Auditor General's comment. It's for that reason the government included in the supplementary estimates and sought parliamentary authority to make the payments in 2020. Those payments were done with parliamentary authority. Of course, it factored into the decision to include it in the bill here, related to the budget implementation.

Finance committee  At the time the agreement was signed, the estimate was that dividends would continue to accrue until 2056. That was factored into the agreement itself.

Finance committee  I'm not sure I'm in a position to answer that question in a comprehensive manner. The underlying equity stake in the project is something the federal government has held for a number of decades. It's really something that continues and I think was taken into account when the government made those broad commitments to net zero by 2050.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. Happy birthday to Mr. Fraser. I am Sam Millar, from the Department of Finance. I am here to speak to clause 201. The proposed measures in this clause would provide clear statutory authority for the Minister of Finance to make payments to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as required by the 2019 Hibernia dividend backed annuity agreement with the province.

Finance committee  In brief, the proposed provisions here would provide statutory authority for the Minister of Finance to make requisitions from the consolidated revenue fund in order to make the payments that are prescribed in the agreement between the two governments. The agreement that is referenced here is an agreement from April of 2019, which the two governments reached in relation to the dividends that Canada receives from its ownership in the Hibernia offshore oil project.

Finance committee  Well, it would depend on the year. The dividends fluctuate based on the amount of oil produced by the project and the sales of the company that controls the equity stake, which is the Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation, and, of course, the price of oil that they can command when those resources are sold.

Finance committee  I don't have that figure in front of me, but the agreement, I think, is the important thing here, and the agreement prescribes certain payments that the Government of Canada needs to make to the Province of Newfoundland. Those payments were estimated at the time of the agreement, based on future projections of the dividends that would accrue to Canada from the ownership.

Finance committee  In the agreement, the early years would be the ones over which there would be probably the greatest correlation between dividends prior to the agreement and the dividends most recently. You can see in the agreement that in 2019 the payment from Canada to Newfoundland was just below $135 million.

Environment committee  The “risks and opportunities” phrase is used in many of the international standards around climate-related risks. The government would intend to develop a report that's suitable to the federal government and the federal public administration to match the best practices that are seen internationally.