Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 1 - Evidence - October 7, 2004
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 7, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 8:45 a.m., pursuant to rule 88 of the Rules of the Senate, to organize the activities of the committee.
[English]
Ms. Keli Hogan, Clerk of the Committee: Honourable senators, as clerk of your committee, it is my duty to preside over the election of the chair. I am ready to receive a motion to that effect.
Senator Angus: I would be happy to move that Senator Banks be elected chair of this committee.
Ms. Hogan: Are there other nominations?
It was moved by the Honourable Senator Angus that the Honourable Senator Banks do take the chair of this committee.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Ms. Hogan: I declare the motion carried. I would invite the Honourable Senator Banks to take the chair.
Senator Tommy Banks (Chairman) in the chair.
The Chairman: Thank you, senators.
The next order of business should be the election of a deputy chair of the committee. Are there nominations for a deputy chair?
Senator Angus: I would be happy to put the name of the Honourable Senator Cochrane forward as deputy chair of this committee.
The Chairman: Are there any other nominations?
It was moved by Senator Angus that Senator Cochrane be elected deputy chair of the committee. Is that the wish of the committee?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Senator Cochrane is so elected.
I will get through this as quickly as possible in the order in which we need to do it. I believe that you have before you the proposed agenda of the organizational meeting of this committee, which begins with the names of the members on the committee. I want to welcome Senator Angus and Senator Gill to the committee, and Senator Adams back to the committee.
It is home again, Senator Adams. We are delighted to have you back.
Senator Adams: Thank you.
The Chairman: We can save a considerable amount of time, if that it is your wish, by dealing with these 12 motions en bloc.
Senator Angus: Motion number 3 deals with the steering committee. Who would that person be?
The Chairman: It would ordinarily be me, the deputy chair and someone who the deputy chair and I, at the next meeting, would determine to ask to be on the steering committee.
Senator Adams: Is it a maximum of three?
The Chairman: No, it can be as many as we want. It should not be fewer than three.
Ms. Hogan: It should not be fewer than three and not more than half the membership of the committee, so not more than six.
The Chairman: So it can be more.
The motions that we could do en bloc, if we chose to, are motions 1 to 12, and we could include motion number 13, if that is agreeable. Since I have been here, these have been the normal meeting times for this committee and they are scheduled and blocked in.
Senator Angus: Motions 1 and 2 have already been dealt with.
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Angus: I agree that the others can be dealt with en bloc.
The Chairman: Senator Buchanan, are you agreeable to that?
Senator Buchanan: That is fine.
The Chairman: Senator Adams, are you agreeable to that?
Senator Adams: Yes.
The Chairman: Senator Gill?
Senator Gill: Yes.
The Chairman: I would entertain a motion that we put on the floor the motions numbered 3 to 13, inclusive.
Senator Buchanan: I so move.
The Chairman: That is moved by the Honourable Senator Buchanan, seconded by the Honourable Senator Gill.
We will vote on motions numbered 3 to 13 on the paper before us. There is a motion on the floor that they be adopted.
Is it the wish of the committee to adopt those motions?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Opposed?
Motions 3 to 13 on the paper before us are adopted.
Senator Adams: Does that include the times for the meeting?
The Chairman: Yes, it does.
Senator Adams: I am also on the Fisheries Committee.
The Chairman: If I am not mistaken, the Fisheries Committee meets later on Thursdays.
Senator Adams: I want to make sure because sometimes the timing is very difficult.
The Chairman: The reason that the times for the committees to meet are written in stone is because the committee assignments made to senators were made based partly on the consideration that there should be no conflict. Therefore, we can assume, having been named to this committee, that these times do not conflict with anything else to which we have been named.
Under "Other Business", I would invite you to examine the first report which, if we can deal with today, I would make to the house this afternoon.
Is this already dealt with?
Ms. Hogan: It is.
The Chairman: Good. Then this afternoon I will make this report, which has to do with expenditures.
I believe, excepting any questions and discussions about future business, that we have concluded the necessary business of the day.
Senator Angus: Would you please circulate the "One-Tonne Challenge" report?
The Chairman: Yes, that will be distributed to everyone right away.
Before we get to that, would members entertain voting today upon the order of reference of the committee? Does everyone have a copy of it?
Hon. Senators: Yes.
The Chairman: By way of explanation, let me say that when we devised the order of reference upon which this is based and submitted it at the beginning of the second-last session of Parliament, what we asked for was deemed to be too broad and all-encompassing and insufficiently clear in circumscribing the purview of the committee. Therefore, we redrafted it in a way that I believe makes the purview considerably broader than our first proposal, and that is the order of reference before you. It deals, as you can see, with looking at everything except operating a railroad and a bank, and allows us to do the things that are correctly and clearly described by the name of our committee, that is to say, matters having to do with energy, natural resources and the environment — not necessarily in that order, the precedent to be determined by us. It is a broad and very useful order of reference. I commend it to your attention and suggest that, unless we have any reservations about it, we should make a motion to present it as the proposed order of reference of our committee today.
Senator Angus: I think it is great and I move that we do.
Senator Gill: I just want to have an explanation. Do you mean that all the subjects related to those three should be included in our study, if it happens?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Gill: In French — I do not understand this here — maybe the translation is not correct.
The Chairman: I would appreciate it if you would check to see that it does conform because it should say the same thing. The object of it is, the purpose of it is, so that all of things that are referred to in that order of reference, all the things that are named, are areas that this committee may, when and if it determines, study: Pipelines, hydro, oil, coal, gas, effluent, particulates, wind, the lot, and the environment, in all respects, and those things that affect the environment, including all the things we have talked about. It is our menu. It is like a big menu from a Chinese restaurant. We can take one from column A and one from column B.
I have a motion from Senator Angus that we adopt and propose the order of reference that is before us. Senator Adams has seconded that motion. Is it the wish of the committee that we proceed on that basis?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Thank you.
The only thing that remains is for Senator Buchanan and I to talk about where we are and where we have been going and the kinds of things we have in the past talked about doing so that we can think about those things.
I would request of our clerk to make sure that the report is sent — I know that Senator Buchanan has it and members of the previous committee all have it, I think, but if you could just send it to everyone.
Ms. Hogan: Yes, I will send it to everyone.
The Chairman: Please include a note saying that — if this turns out to be the case after this meeting — the committee intends to proceed with the tabling of this report forthwith, and that we should be prepared at the next meeting to discuss it and ask any questions about it that we have, and deal with it.
I wonder if Lynn found any changes.
Ms. Lynn Myers, Researcher, Library of Parliament: I did not find any major changes that need to be made, no. Nothing much has happened over the summer — the one-ton challenge, which comes as a shock I am sure.
The Chairman: Therefore, it is okay the way it is, as far as our previous committee was concerned.
Thank you. When you get this report, which you will from the clerk forthwith, read it, because we will be discussing it and wanting to release it right away.
Senator Lavigne, we have got past the necessary housekeeping organizational motions. Thank you for coming on such short notice, but I thought it would be best for us to get up and running as quickly as we possibly can.
Senator Gill has had to leave to go to his other organizational meeting. This committee has a report, which is holding over from the last session of Parliament, having to do with GHG emissions, which Keli Hogan, our clerk, will send to you today. Please look at it and come to the next meeting, which would be on Tuesday, October 19, I think. What I would like to do, absent any serious reservations about it and subject to whatever changes we now want to make in it because it is three months old, although not a lot has happened in the three months, to release it forthwith. This would be, in order for it to have any kind of impact, a very good time to release a report. The thrust of it, as you will see, is to say to the government, if we are going to do this we have to get on with it and that the cajoling and the right thing to do arguments are not sufficient. If we are going to do it, we have to provide the incentives, which everyone on earth except us seems to know are required in order to achieve something. If we are not going to do that, we should get out of the game. Hence, I would ask you to have a peak at that.
Senator Angus: Was the report all reviewed by the previous committee and unanimous?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Angus: Were there no dissenting voices?
The Chairman: None that I ever heard. This committee, I should tell you, has been —
Senator Angus: One of the greatest committees of all time, I suppose.
The Chairman: — ecumenical. Because the subject matters with which we deal are not susceptible of politics — except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. There are views about things. There are views, for example, with respect to GHG emissions. There are differing views about the extent to which GHG emissions are a bad thing, but there is no doubt they are a bad thing and that we ought to try to reduce them or stop them if we could.
Senator Angus: The adoption of Kyoto is a political issue.
The Chairman: It is, and was. However, it is now a fait accompli and we have to deal with it, it is there, provided Russia ratifies, which we understand is about to happen — I think within a month.
Senator Angus: Will you be travelling over to make sure?
The Chairman: Not a chance. I do not like the mystery meat they serve over there.
I will ask Senator Buchanan to fill in the blanks that I will leave. The last committee adopted an idea that we would release a succession of reports having to do with various things and that they would be relatively small, not in their substance and not in their subject matter but not great, big, long, investigative reports, in order that they are more easily digestible and will have greater impact with respect to influencing public policy and government policy.
This report is fairly substantive and is the result of many months of hearing witnesses and visiting other parts of the world to learn from others' mistakes. Among the things that we have considered doing next is looking at water, which is an interesting geopolitical question. Most of us do not have a really good comprehension of the enormous difficulties that are approaching us with respect to water. You can literally draw a line almost at the Manitoba border. The difficulties are very different in the eastern half of the country from the western half of the country, hugely different, because in the eastern half of the country measurable precipitation exceeds consumption and always has, and there is much natural water that occurs. There are problems with it and things that can be done with it to improve its use, efficacy and efficiency, and internalizing the real costs of it so that we start paying what things really cost.
In the West, the measurable precipitation is far less than the consumption. The consumption is skyrocketing because of growth of everything, industry and folks, and the source, which is glaciers only, makes up the difference and always has made up the difference. They are diminishing exponentially.
So there is a rocket coming at us at 90 miles an hour. All projections are based upon whether present trends continue, which they might not, but if they do, then the West would become desertified in fairly short order and everything will look like Idaho.
We talked about looking at water in a general sense, including the present laws that have to do with the removal of bulk water from, for example, border waters, lakes and rivers that cross borders, of which there are very many, and doing it again in bits and pieces so that they are easily digestible and will have impact.
There are a number of things in the present report, as you will see, each of which could be examined in more minute detail and exploded to a more pointed report. There are so many of them that I will not even start to name them. You will see them for yourselves. We should consider whether we want to proceed with that idea, a series of relatively small, carefully prepared, well-researched reports dealing with microcosmic rather than macrocosmic subjects, and decide what your favourite ones are so that we can look at them. It is very important that we be and that we be seen to be very even-handed as regards all of the questions, such as the rapacious labour baron versus the tree hugger. We have to be and have been very careful about those things.
I commend your attention to the report and to the idea that the previous committee had about that succession of reports dealing with those questions.
I earnestly solicit your suggestions as to what subjects we should put on our menu, from which we will then as a committee choose what the next one should be.
We understand, of course, that when there is government legislation it takes precedence over everything. I expect there might be much of it in fairly short order. I heard the other day that 40 or so government bills might be introduced within the next few weeks. Someone has been doing some homework, I hope.
Senator Buchanan: They have had a long time to do it.
The Chairman: Some of those will come here. I do not know which ones; we shall see. However, whatever legislation comes before us will, of course, take precedence over everything else we do, including our studies.
Senator Buchanan: You may recall when we concluded last session that we did talk about the coming year and about, as you said, some very succinct reports of various aspects of energy, the environment and natural resources. I have been giving some thought to this. There are many things that we could be looking at. I just made a few notes here about what a few of us talked about last year.
For instance, starting with the Atlantic coast, with regard to energy, we have the pipeline situations. I do not know if you are aware of the new liquefied natural gas — LNG — terminals about which they are talking. There are many them in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the State of Maine. The idea, of course, is to bring all kinds of LNG over and put it in the existing pipelines from Nova Scotia right into New England. The long term is to bring our natural gas offshore and the LNG natural gas right through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, connecting with the Quebec system, which is something we talked about in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. I really do think it will happen.
We should be keeping pace with what they are doing or talking about doing with these new LNG terminals. They are big employers. As far as giving us access to new natural gas, it could be very good not just for the Atlantic provinces but all of Eastern Canada, not including Ontario but including Quebec and the New England states.
You talked about water. With the abundance of water we have in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, over 20 years ago we had the thought of shipping water over to the Middle East and getting back their oil. That will not happen, but it is one of those things that have been discussed over the years, because, as you said, we do have a lot of water. You in the West do not have as much as we do. We do have some problems, though, with possible pollution of some of that water, with things that have happened in the industrial scene over the last number of years. That is another thing we should look at with respect to water.
I suggest that sometime between now and next spring we take a trip that we have talked about — I have been on this committee for 10 years — but have never done, although we came close a few years ago, of going offshore to look at some of the big rigs working out there, and to go to Sable Island. We almost did it about five or six years ago but did not. Senator Carney decided that she did not want to fly in a helicopter all the way out there. She really did not, but some of us wanted to go. That is one thing we should take a look at.
In addition, I mentioned to you a conference coming up in Boston that I have been attending since it started in 1983. The theme this year is North American energy, a changing landscape. It is sponsored by the Canada energy, trade and technology group through the Canadian consul and the New England-Canada Business Council. The first lines are: What is the outlook for new energy supply development in North America? Will the challenges for oil and natural gas markets lead to a renewed appreciation for such supply options as LNG, nuclear and renewables?
That conference will be zeroing in on those topics. Those are things that we should take a look at over the next while.
By the way, this conference culminates, as it does every year, with what they call a Maple Leaf banquet. I should tell you that they are honouring a certain individual this year.
The Chairman: That would be Senator Buchanan.
Senator Buchanan: The board of directors of the New England-Canada Business Council and the New England governors and Atlantic premiers who support this have agreed that, because I have been involved since the very beginning of the New England-Canada Business Council, being their very first speaker in 1981, they will honour me. I just thought I would toss that out.
Senator Angus: Hear, hear!
Senator Buchanan: There are many things we could be doing over the next number of months with respect not only to energy but with to environmental matters affected by new energy developments.
The Chairman: Absolutely. There are some other things to which I commend the attention of members, having to do with the kind of thing you are talking about. First, there has been a federally imposed moratorium on offshore drilling off the West Coast — not off the East Coast.
Senator Buchanan: Let me correct you on one thing. It is not off the Atlantic coast.
The Chairman: Right.
Senator Buchanan: I want to be careful about that because Newfoundland particularly does not like to be linked in with Eastern Canada. They do not like to be linked in with the Maritime provinces. They do like to be linked as an Atlantic province.
The Chairman: I was careful not to say "Maritimes."
Senator Buchanan: I know.
Senator Angus: At our summer caucus, we had a seminar on this western moratorium. The big oil people were there, as well as the environmental people and the native people. It was quite an interesting day.
The Chairman: It is a very interesting question. We may want to look at it.
In that same connection, I commend your attention to a big question that, although I am not sure that any part of it will come to us, will certainly go to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and probably the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, and that is the boundary dispute in respect of the Beaufort Sea and the question of what happens to the Alaska-Yukon border as soon as it hits water, what direction it goes, who owns the very considerable resources that are underneath it and what will happen to the environment if the United States actually drills on the north slope of Alaska.
These are questions that we may wish to look at.
Senator Buchanan: With regard to this moratorium, there is no moratorium as far as the Atlantic coast is concerned, but there is a moratorium in effect. During my 13 years as premier, we passed two bills in our legislature for a moratorium on drilling and pipelines from southern Nova Scotia into the Gulf of Mexico. Those bills were passed in our legislature and they were mirrored by federal legislation. Both the federal and provincial governments passed legislation creating a moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico out as far as the international limit in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Mexico. Those were followed by bills passed in the U.S. Congress mirroring our bills. There has been for going on 15 years a complete moratorium on drilling and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico between Canada and the U.S.
Every five years, those acts are up for reconsideration federally and provincially. They were both considered in Ottawa by a joint Nova Scotia-federal committee about two years ago and in another three years they will come up again for either renewal of the moratorium or breaking the moratorium. That is something we could look at as well.
The Chairman: Could you find us a map of that? We should know that. I did not know that. I thought there were wells being drilled off that coast.
Senator Buchanan: No, none. On the American side, Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Snow from Maine were the leading advocates.
The Chairman: We know why Mr. Kennedy would do that.
Senator Buchanan: That is right. Lynn should be able to get that. The federal government passed a bill and we passed it in the Nova Scotia legislature, too.
The Chairman: That is very interesting and informative. We will get a map so that we can all look at it. However, there is drilling off the eastern shore of Canada in the Atlantic.
Senator Buchanan: Yes, we have big rigs out there.
The Chairman: They have run without incident. The question is what will happen in B.C., and the Alaska border issue will be very important. We may get something to do with it or not, but we should perhaps be prepared to comment upon it.
In previous reports, this committee has made certain recommendations with respect to public policy. We have worked in the past along the same lines as the Commissioner of the Environment that is attached to the department of the Auditor General. We have some of the same interests. In respect of our reports having to do with the safety of nuclear energy and the disposition of spent nuclear fuel, a petition process was put into place by means of which individuals, corporations or anyone can ask to have certain questions answered by the government. We took notice of some of those questions following one of our nuclear-related reports.
We thought that on some things like that and on some recommendations that we have made in other respects to the government, we should review and find out whether there has been any movement in those regards. If not, we should say so and inquire as to why there has not. The idea is to do a sort of report card on those recommendations that we have made.
We will have the lovely choice of too much to do and not enough time to do it and we will have to make very careful choices.
[Translation]
Senator Lavigne: Mr. Chairman, the first item that you mentioned is the study of water in Canada.
We are mindful of the fact that some Quebec farmers own land along the US border. Some of these farmers, one of whom I am acquainted with, get their water from the United States, not from Quebec.
Is there a policy in place prohibiting the importing of water within a certain distance from the US border? When you suggest that the committee examine the water question in Canada, I think this would be one area of particular interest to consider.
Water is an extremely important source of life. If we compare Canada to other world countries experiencing water problems, we realize that we are privileged indeed.
In fact, automobiles will soon be running on water instead of gasoline. Our water is poised to become an amazing source of energy, on par with Hydro-Québec's resources.
This issue is therefore very important in terms of safeguarding not only this resource, but the environment as well. A number of companies continue to discharge waste into our waterways, polluting them in the process. Consequently, the first point that you raised is extremely important.
[English]
The Chairman: That is right. The answer to your question is that there are both laws and treaties in place that govern the removal of bulk water — and I do not know how bulk water is defined exactly, but substantial amounts of water — from border waters, including lakes that are in both countries and including rivers that cross over the borders between the countries, of which there are a considerable number. If we get into the water question, which I hope we will, those kinds of questions will be very cogent to what we might look at.
You are right that water will be the oil of the next few decades. It already costs as much as a bottle of Coke.
We used to think water was free because we never internalized its real long-term costs or the cost to us of putting untreated effluent into our rivers. There is a cost to that. We did not used to think there was such a cost and that we could just do it. Everyone knows now that we cannot.
Many Canadians say, "Let us just pass laws banning the export of water. That would solve the problem." The trouble is that we cannot. If we were to pass a law banning the export of water, it would be recognizing that water is a tradable commodity. Therefore, it would be subject to NAFTA, the WTO and the whole issue of trade. As such, it could be removed. Those things trump many other international treaties.
Canada's laws with respect to the removal of public water are environmentally based laws, not trade-based laws. Thus, we can argue internationally that the laws that preclude the removal of large amounts of water from our glaciers, for example, and putting it in bottles and selling them in bars in Chicago do not have to do with a ban on an exportable commodity. They have to do with an internal question of the environment.
If we decide to look at water, we will have to decide at which aspects we want to look. There are many, including the ones that you have talked about. You mentioned five questions. There are laws against the diversion of waters from any major drainage basin into another major drainage basin. People have talked about doing that from time to time. When that has been tried throughout the world, it has always resulted in unmitigated disaster.
[Translation]
Senator Lavigne: Among other things, will we be examining the impact of Hydro-Québec's operations and of the utility's dams on water levels? Could we find out more about Hydro-Québec's use of water? Lake water levels in Canada and Quebec seem to be falling at an alarming rate. Consequently, we need to find a means of maintaining acceptable water levels.
Would it be possible to obtain more information about this from Hydro-Québec? I would be grateful if a government researcher could forward this information to me so that I can have a better understanding of how these systems work on the Ottawa and Gatineau rivers and in Quebec.
[English]
The Chairman: Yes, but our resources with respect to research are here. What I must insist upon, I think, is that once the committee decides on the subject it will examine, then we will get research for all members.
I think we will have to rely on our own resources and our own devices to bring to the table those things that all of us as members of the committee think we ought to look at and propose them. As to the question of whether we are going to look at this, that or the other thing, the committee will determine what it will look at. We will have, in effect, a menu, and we will choose from that menu. We will choose the order in which we will deal with those things. We can always change it. We are our own masters.
Senator Angus: Has this committee ever looked at reforestation and other such issues?
The Chairman: I think the committee did a long time ago.
Senator Angus: Is it excluded from our mandate?
Ms. Meyers: It is the one natural resource that is excluded.
The Chairman: The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry does it.
Senator Angus: Our office did some work on it. There was some work done in the past, but it is languishing. I think it needs attention. However, it is not for us to consider.
The Chairman: The report on the boreal forest was done by the Agriculture Committee.
Ms. Meyers: Yes. Senator Taylor was the chairman of that committee while he was deputy chairman of this committee.
The Chairman: I knew there was some cross-collateralization because there were all kinds of ecological considerations in it. We have to be careful about those jurisdictional things, not only with respect to committees but also otherwise. The only real control the feds have in the field of energy has to do with nuclear energy. If we get into all of those other questions, we have to be careful about treading on toes. We can make recommendations, but we must never tell provinces what to do. We can suggest things nicely, I suppose, but we have to be careful of those.
On other committees on which I have been a member, and I am sure this is true of other members, too, we have had some success in the past of inviting provincial and territorial governments to come and tell us where they are on these things. Sometimes, that very well informs our discussion because we need to know what those intentions are.
That is what we will be doing, senator. We will be looking at the menu that all of us together will bring and say, "I would like to look at this."
Senator Lavigne: We can make suggestions.
The Chairman: Precisely.
The next time we meet we will consider a budget, which I will ask the clerk to prepare.
Senator Lavigne: Do we have a budget of $3 million to travel?
The Chairman: Would that not be nice? The Senate does not have a budget of $3 million.
Honourable senators, if there is nothing else that anyone would like to bring to our attention, I suggest we adjourn.
The committee adjourned.