Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 49 - Evidence - June 20, 2013
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 20, 2013
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day, at 8:02 a.m., to study the current state of the safety elements of the bulk transport of hydrocarbon products in Canada.
Senator Richard Neufeld (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. I am Richard Neufeld. I represent the province of British Columbia in the Senate, and I am the chair of this committee. I would like to welcome honourable senators and any members of the public with us in the room and viewers all across the country who are watching on television.
I would now ask senators around the table to introduce themselves. I will begin by introducing Deputy Chair Senator Grant Mitchell from Alberta.
Senator Lang: Dan Lang, Yukon.
Senator Unger: Betty Unger, Alberta.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Wallace: John Wallace from New Brunswick.
Senator Patterson: Dennis Patterson, Nunavut.
The Chair: I would also like to introduce our staff, beginning with the clerk, Lynn Gordon on my left, and our two Library of Parliament analysts, Sam Banks and Marc LeBlanc.
On November 28, 2012, our committee was authorized by the Senate to initiate a study on the safe transportation of hydrocarbons in Canada. The study will examine and compare domestic and international regulatory regimes, standards and best practices relating to the safe transport of hydrocarbons by transmission pipelines, marine tanker vessels and railcars.
Our committee has held 17 meetings on this study to date, and we have had a fact-finding meetings and site visits in Calgary, Sarnia, Hamilton, St. John, Halifax and Point Tupper.
I am pleased to welcome in the first segment of our meeting, from the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, Jim Tweedie, Chair, Board of Directors; and Michael Sullivan, Executive Director. From the Canadian Gas Association, we have Paula Dunlop, Director of Public Affairs and Strategy.
Thank you very much for being with us today. I appreciate you taking the time from your busy schedules to come and visit with us. I look forward to your presentations.
I think, Mr. Tweedie, you will make a presentation. From there we will go to questions and answers. The floor is yours, sir.
Jim Tweedie, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Common Ground Alliance: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to address the committee today. As you heard, I am the Chair of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, and Director of Operations at the Canadian Gas Association, the association that represents the natural gas distribution industry in Canada. With me today on my far right is Michael Sullivan, Executive Director of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, and he is also the President of Alberta One-Call Corporation. Alberta One-Call is the call centre in Alberta that manages requests from residents, businesses, builders, contractors and other excavators where buried infrastructure is located. Finally, we have Paula Dunlop, a member of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance task force, which is working on one of our key deliverables we will talk about later. Ms. Dunlop is also Director of Public and Government Affairs at the Canadian Gas Association.
I would like to get right into why we are here today. We are representing the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, the CCGA, an organization that works to reduce damages to underground infrastructure, ensuring public safety, environmental protection and the integrity of services by promoting effective damage prevention practices. A daily public safety issue and challenge to the integrity of Canada's critical underground infrastructure is what is referred to as third-party damage to underground utilities. Every year, key services such as electricity, gas, cable, water and telecommunications services are unnecessarily damaged by excavators who have not identified the location of these critical services before beginning their work.
The Canadian Common Ground Alliance itself is working to address this via three key objectives. First is the establishment of one Canada-wide point of contact, no matter the means — a phone number, website and potentially an app that excavators can use for pre-excavation utility locates. That means that, anywhere you are in Canada, it will be one phone number, an app or a website.
Second is the supporting One-Call centre access for each province, representing all underground facility owners, so the location of all buried infrastructure in the vicinity of a proposed excavation can be quickly and effectively provided upon request.
The third thing is supporting the establishment of mandatory call-before-you-dig legislation with enforcement; meaning that it is a requirement to call for locates before any excavation takes place. After the Common Ground Alliance in the United States achieved similar goals in 2004, damage to underground utilities dropped by 40 per cent over a four-year period.
Let me say that utilities, transmission pipeline companies, Canada's existing One-Call systems and other stakeholders have a long record of working hard to communicate the need to call before you dig, and this has resulted in successful public awareness, increased pre-excavation locate requests and increased membership registration of buried infrastructure with the One-Call centres across Canada.
Despite the success achieved to date, the CCGA is of the view that, even with implementing these simple fundamental and foundational damage prevention requirements in each province and territory, federally and provincially, there is still much more to be done to reduce third-party damages. In order to further protect these existing buried assets, reduce the risk caused by third-party damage, ensure the integrity of Canada's critical underground infrastructure over the long term, and meet the immediate and reasonable safety and security expectations of the Canadian public, common damage prevention elements and requirements are necessary across Canada.
The work of the CCGA has been divided up into four task forces, focused on the CCGA's goals. The first is to secure simplified access to One-Call centres and the damage prevention process itself, something I touched on a little earlier. We are working on a national, single toll-free telephone number, Web access to one-call centres through what is currently set up, and we will go forward with www.clickbeforeyoudig.com and a mobile application.
The one note I would like to make on all of these is that one of the CCGA task forces I mentioned has begun work on developing a national brand, call-to-action Web portal; a national phone number; and, to go with that, a promotional strategy and branding tool kit. Once we get these things developed, we have to get them out to people. We have to understand how to best put it in the minds of Canadians.
Second, we are working to harmonize damage prevention best practices across Canada, effectively bringing jurisdictional, regional and provincial gaps within existing damage prevention processes to meet the Canadian digging community's expectations, coast to coast.
Third, we are working to support One-Call system access, serving all of Canada, with mandatory membership by all underground infrastructure owners — no exceptions.
Finally, we are working to identify how to establish damage prevention legislation in each jurisdiction in Canada with meaningful enforcement of the same. The CCGA has developed a damage prevention white paper that includes the principles and elements for effective legislation. That, along with other key elements like improved communication and the development of safe excavation best practices, would result in safer digging practices, greater protection of underground infrastructure and community safety. This paper has been distributed to you, and it details 10 key components for effective and consistent damage prevention legislation and regulation across jurisdictions.
A very significant milestone in damage prevention has been the passing of Bill 8 in Ontario, the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012, an act respecting underground infrastructure notification system, One-Call system for Ontario. This act requires underground infrastructure owners and operators specified in the act become members of, i.e. register their facilities with, Ontario One Call.
When a request for information about a proposed excavation or dig is received, the member is required to locate and mark its underground infrastructure that may be affected by the excavation or dig, or indicate that its underground infrastructure will not be affected by the excavation or dig. The act also requires excavators to obtain information respecting underground infrastructure before beginning an excavation, act or dig. The act also creates offences for failure to comply with the act or the regulations made under it.
Work has also begun — this is quite significant — on a Canadian damage prevention standard through the Canadian Standards Association. It will be called CSA Z247, "Damage Prevention for the Protection of Underground Energy and Utility Networks." The technical committee, chaired by Mike Sullivan here with us today, consists of a wide cross-section of damage prevention stakeholders, pipeline, fibre optics, telecommunications, electricity, gas, distribution, water and sewer locators and regulators from across Canada who, for the first time, are working as a single team to develop a national damage prevention standard for all buried utilities.
On the task force's current status, the technical committee meetings are ongoing. They began earlier this year. Five task forces are under way on distinct parts of it: education and awareness, training and competency; contact and notification; planning and mapping; locating, clearing the requests, et cetera; and completion, confirming and reporting. The public review period is expected to be in May/June 2014, with a proposed publication in English in May 2015 and the French version in July or August 2015.
In reviewing all the things we have under way and thinking how important our appearance before this committee is to the work we are doing — and how important the work of this committee itself is — we have some thoughts on ways that you could assist us, assist our goal of damage prevention and the Canadian Common Ground Alliance's goals. I have three thoughts on that.
The first is an opportunity to have damage prevention issues and concerns addressed in the final report of committee's work. Doing so would lend tremendous support to the CCGA's damage prevention goals, and build more awareness of this important issue.
Second is the possibility of having the committee look more closely at this specific topic, damage prevention. There are a number of other stakeholders who would be very interested in explaining their involvement and interest in this topic.
Finally, we certainly understand that a lot of responsibility around damage prevention is under provincial jurisdiction. However, we believe this is one topic that could be discussed in federal-provincial dialogues.
I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the committee, and we would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Tweedie. We will go directly to questions and I will defer to my deputy chair, Senator Mitchell.
Senator Mitchell: This is a very interesting area and issue. I think many of us were quite surprised when we learned in our visit to Calgary first, and then reinforced quite independently in Sarnia, that there is no standard legislation for One Call and there have not been penalties, in fact. There is real potential there. I wonder if you could give us an idea of what percentage of ruptures in pipelines in Canada are caused by — you may have mentioned it — this kind of disruption?
Mr. Tweedie: In terms of pipelines, the number of third party damages with no locate is running about half right now of the damages to gas plant, in the 50 per cent range. It varies year to year.
Our industry and a number of other industries — not just the one that I also report to — have been making a number of strides. We have been working cooperatively, and one of the goals of the CCGA going forward is to produce better stats on this. Mr. Sullivan has brought some detailed stats for Alberta for all things that Alberta One- Callwould deal with, but a great gap is the data that we have for all of Canada. One of the goals of the CCGA is to build that information database so we understand damages.
Mr. Sullivan, would you want to talk about the situation in Alberta?
Michael Sullivan, Executive Director, Canadian Common Ground Alliance: Sure.
Reporting is voluntary right now. We would seek to have some type of mandatory reporting to allow us to have that kind of statistic and analyze it, to better educate ourselves down the road and make further prevention requirements based on that analysis.
To give you an idea, let us put the voluntary reporting for Alberta into context. There are roughly 350,000 locate requests in Alberta on an annual basis, creating roughly 1.5 million notifications, so there is a ratio of about 1 to 4. Out of that, only one of our members — and we have 727 members registered with Alberta One-Call — reports religiously, resulting in 322 hits last year, actual damages to facilities.
It is important to note that is an actual damage. However, any time any person, whether it is a contractor or homeowner, digs without a locate request, the potential to hit a buried utility is just as great, because quite simply they are digging blind.
Senator Mitchell: One of the areas where mandatory requirement could be helpful would be in reporting hits; that would be a very precise, specific thing.
Is there some sort of mandatory registration of the location of any underground infrastructure? If you are building a pipeline, do you have to register the 3-D GPS, or whatever it would be, of where that exists?
Mr. Sullivan: As Mr. Tweedie mentioned earlier, Ontario has legislation now that requires all buried utilities within a public right of way to register with Ontario One Call.
Beyond that, we have partial legislation in Alberta and British Columbia whereby the provincially regulated utilities or pipelines, under the ERCB in Alberta and the OGC in British Columbia, must register their utilities, facilities with Alberta One-Call or BC One Call respectively. In Alberta, that requirement has been in place since 2006, and in British Columbia it has been more recent than that, within the last couple of years.
That said, to put it into context, the ERCB regulates roughly 900 buried pipelines in Alberta. Our full membership right now, which is not just pipelines, municipalities and fibre optics, et cetera, is 727. There is a gap that exists. Regardless of the requirement to register, we do not have them all.
Mr. Tweedie: There is a requirement by the municipality or authority that information on the plant be provided to them "as-built," but not for "locates" purposes. That may vary according to the utility, but generally speaking, municipalities do require plans be submitted. However, not for locates specifically.
Senator Massicotte: I am trying to get a sense of this. Ontario and Quebec do have legislation, I understand, where they cannot dig without ascertaining underground location. Is that accurate?
Mr. Sullivan: Ontario, yes; Quebec, no. They have Info-Excavation, which is the one-call system in Quebec. However, they do not have legislation that requires contacting Info-Ex before they dig.
Senator Massicotte: It is all very nice to get a call, but you have to have the information on file. Which provinces require contractors who put pipe down to provide as-built drawings and register what is underground? Do any provinces do that? Is that the significant missing piece?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes, it is very much a missing significant piece. Ontario's Bill 8 addresses that and makes that a requirement.
Senator Massicotte: Ontario does?
Mr. Tweedie: It is in Bill 8, when the regulations are built.
Senator Massicotte: They are the only province that requires it?
Mr. Tweedie: For locates purposes, yes.
Senator Massicotte: I am speculating, but I am looking for your comments: The reason not everyone does it is because any form of regulation has cost or inconvenience to it. I suspect if I want to dig up a pipe in my backyard, there is a very low probability of a gas pipeline there, so contractors say, "Don't bother with this stuff because I will do it when I think it is important." However, you argue that when there are incidents, it is very expensive, which is borne by your shareholders or stakeholders.
Is it worth it? In other words, you do not have perfect numbers, but I understand that only 8 per cent of all ruptures on any pipelines at least are caused by third parties. If you look at the American experience, there has been a reduction of 40 per cent in the last four years, which is big. Is it 40 per cent of 8 per cent, which means you would only have 3 per cent reduction? How much money would you say versus the cost you impose upon all these other contractors?
Mr. Tweedie: That is an interesting distinction. I will come back to the first part of your question in a second, if you do not mind.
Pipelines, in the vast majority of cases, are on easements, not on public road allowances. The incidents that we are talking about include the NEB, but the vast majority of the infrastructure in Canada is, as you said, in people's backyards, side yards, front lawns, on public streets. That is where you get a much higher rate of people digging holes, people putting in fence posts. It is unlikely the gas line would be in your backyard, but in some cases it is. It depends on where you are in Canada.
In the area where I live, the gas is in the front, but everything else is on the easement in the back. Hydro, cable and Bell all come from kiosks running down the back. That is a key distinction. When talking about distribution, whether it is telcos, hydro, cable or gas, they tend to be on public road allowances where there is simply a tremendous amount more activity. The difference between the two is substantial.
Senator Massicotte: Talk about the cost side.
Mr. Tweedie: We do not have cost numbers on what that would be. That is why I mention that we want to begin to pull together the data to understand the impacts.
The need that we are focusing on, there is certainly a financial aspect to it. We are very focused on public and community safety. There is a very strong safety aspect to this.
There is an interruption of services aspect as well, particularly when dealing with larger, more significant facilities for whatever that utility happens to be.
For our industries and for the industries that are stakeholders with us, public safety is paramount, worker safety is paramount and community safety is paramount.
Senator Massicotte: You are talking about a one-call website. I assume your members will pay for the cost of setting up the numbers and personnel and so on?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Senator Massicotte: I note for the record that the Quebec safety code for construction requires employers or contractors to verify whether there is underground piping within the perimeter of the works to be carried out. It looks like it is quite acceptable for provinces to impose checking on pipe. The missing link is that people do not know whether there is pipe because as-built drawings are not being filed. I gather that is the major vacuum.
Mr. Tweedie: I will let Mr. Sullivan comment on it as well.
As I said, every jurisdiction I am aware of does require that if you install something within their boundaries, you are required to submit something back, but not for locates purposes.
There are 13 phone numbers you have to call to get locates in Ottawa, I believe. It is either 11 or 13 different numbers. If you go to Renfrew, it is a different number.
Senator Massicotte: They file plans with whom?
Mr. Tweedie: If you install a plant in the City of Ottawa, once you are done you must file the as-builts with the city. That is what I am referring to. If you install anything on a provincial highway, it is with the Ministry of Transport of Ontario. I should have been clear. I apologize.
Senator Lang: I just want to pursue a follow-up of Senator Massicotte's questions. It seems to me, reading what we have been provided here, that there is no legislative responsibility for the pipeline companies to identify exactly where those pipelines are and where they have been installed visually for people to see on a day-to-day basis, some sort of identification marker. Is that correct?
Second, I am concerned about a small contractor who goes in to do a job, has good intentions, and for whatever reasons hits a pipeline that he had no knowledge was there, but we say he is supposed to phone 13 numbers to find out if they are there.
Could you please tell me why it is not common practice to identify, block by block, with even a small indicator, where the pipeline easement comes through so that the public is aware of it and especially for people who have to do day-to-day work, maintenance work, in that particular area? It is prevention as opposed to calling after you have ruptured the pipe. Could you comment on that?
Mr. Tweedie: To clarify, I do not want to leave the impression that the utilities do not know where their plant is. The gas companies, all of them, do know where their plant is, and they are required to provide locates under basic safety legislation.
To your point about rights of ways, again I am distinguishing between distribution and transmission. Where there are transmission facilities that are not on public right-of-way, there are line markers that indicate that there is a plant there. They tend to run cross-country, not on public road allowances.
On every street outside this area, we make the locates available. When someone requests a locate, we mark them. There is a specific colour code indicated in the package that I provided. For instance, if you wish to dig a hole anywhere in North America and you call for locates, if you call 811in the United States, no matter where you are, you will get locates. That is the requirement in the United States. Someone will come and mark it for free for you, keeping in mind that all of the companies involved already have the facilities to mark the location of their plant. That is a requirement. That is a duty they fulfill. They know where their plant is. The colour codes were developed by something called the American Public Works Association. That is what I was referring to.
Senator Lang: If I could go back, you did not answer my question. What I do not understand is, with those lines, it is fine for the utility company to know where it is. However, let us say that I run Lang Construction and I have two employees. I am going in to fix a serious situation with a water line to some home. Time is not my friend. It is two o'clock in the morning and there are no identification markers to say that there is a gas pipeline or, as in Burnaby, a major oil pipeline that comes through there. You are saying it is my responsibility to phone and find out where this underground line is located.
I understand there would be some responsibility. Why is there not a requirement to clearly identify, in a very neat way, as they do with other infrastructure, along this main thoroughfare, every three blocks, with a small marker that says "pipeline"? Why is there no requirement for that?
Mr. Tweedie: There are several reasons. One of the primary reasons is that it would not help to locate the plant. One of the reasons we are very careful about what we show at the surface is that it sometimes leads to the assumption that the person digging would know where it is specifically. The fact is that even if we marked it, we still would want someone to go out and mark it separately at the time of the excavation, to be very clear.
We do white-lining. If line construction is going to dig a hole in a particular area, you indicate where you are, and the utilities attach a device to it that sends off a signal. We actually mark it based on where it is.
Senator Lang: I still do not understand why it is not required to visually give some identification of the general easement or the general right of way so that the primary contractor who will be doing work there is aware. If they do not know, that is where you get into this situation. It could even say something like, "pipeline right of way; call before any work."
Paula Dunlop, Director, Public Affairs and Strategy, Canadian Gas Association: There are 450,000 kilometres of just gas pipeline infrastructure across Canada, and in addition to that, there are telecommunications lines and other infrastructure buried throughout municipalities. As Mr. Tweedie said, from a gas distribution perspective, we know where those lines are, but to be as safe and as clear as we can, it is really important that people call and get the very specific line markings at the time of digging so that we can be as specific as we can. It is a public safety concern and an environmental concern, so for those purposes, we really want people to call at the time of digging and get the infrastructure marked clearly.
The Chair: Thank you. We will have to move on. I want to give everyone an opportunity.
Maybe I can help here a little. What I am familiar with is that all transmission lines have pipeline markers. Where they actually are on that right of way is debatable because they could be in different places, and that is why you call Spectra in B.C. — to find out where the transmission line is. They are marked with a big sign post, and it is the same process throughout communities.
When discussing communities where lines are servicing homes, you are talking about a pipeline that runs probably five pounds of pressure. If you had signs wherever those are, there would be many signs all over the place that people would tear down anyhow.
In terms of line contracting, when you dig for the water line, you look at the house and if you see a metre on the side of the house, you have a good idea there is a line running to it, so you need to call.
Senator Unger: Are we anywhere close to the American 811 call system?
Mr. Tweedie: The short answer is no. We applied for the use of 811. It is already in use in Canada. The medical side of the world is using it presently for non-emergency medical consultation. We applied to share the number in 2011, I believe, and it was declined by the CRTC. That is why we are now pursuing a 1-800 number, which would be the same in all jurisdictions across Canada.
Senator Unger: A simple number that just comes to mind like 811?
Mr. Tweedie: Very much so. I mentioned the branding consultant. We want to find a way to make it something that people will remember, a number that comes back to people, that we can then market every spring when construction starts up, every fall as construction booms up again and market continuously. That is why we have brought in the branding consultant to work with us.
Mr. Sullivan: To expand on that, from the one-call centre perspective — and this is the same for every one-call centre across Canada — we are seeing less and less use of actual phone locate requests and more on the web.
For example, in terms of the May statistics for Alberta One-Call, we had 57,000 locate requests, and 70 per cent of those were through the web. Roughly 30 per cent are now phone-in. The web is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whereas the phone is business hours, and you do not have to be put on hold or wait on the web.
There are multiple ways to request a locate, including by phone, the web and an app is coming. It is important to mention that as well.
Senator Unger: That ties in with my next question, which is public awareness. I have generally been aware of calling before digging, and I have used it when building a new house, but my perception certainly did not register, as it was for commercial-like pipelines and gas lines. I am more aware of gas lines. As our chair said, I have seen them on easements. I am knowledgeable about those, but it did not occur to me that infrastructure such as pipelines would be included.
How much is your advertising budget? How much advertising do you do?
Mr. Sullivan: From Alberta's perspective, for Alberta One-Call, our advertising budget is roughly half a million dollars per year.
Ms. Dunlop: At this point, the Canadian Common Ground Alliance really depends on the natural distribution companies, the telecommunication companies and the one-call centres to carry out education and awareness campaigns for their customers. For the gas distribution industry, we have over 6.3 million customers across the country, so we do outreach to our customers and also to the contractors working in the jurisdictions.
However, at this point in time, it really is the utilities and the one-call centres that are taking the lead on outreach. That is one of the reasons why the Canadian Common Ground Alliance task force is working on coming up with common branding and common tools that the industry can use as a way to get that message out.
Senator Unger: My last question concerns the pipeline companies. I would imagine they would be very enthusiastic about your service and being part of it because this represents a tremendous amount of money to them, never mind the damage. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Tweedie: Very much so, yes. It is all underground infrastructure. We happen to represent the Canadian Gas Association, but the Canadian Electricity Association is also becoming involved. We are talking to associations that represent excavation companies. We are trying to have this be a broad stakeholder base that is not about any one stakeholder group but all groups involved in ground disturbance and critical underground infrastructure. There is great enthusiasm for it.
That enthusiasm presently exists primarily at the regional level where it is building from there to where we are a national group of volunteers facilitating the national issues and bringing them forward. There is a great deal of support also at the regional levels, such as in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and right across Alberta and B.C. There is a great deal of support for those organizations within their provinces, and we are building support nationally as well.
Senator Wallace: When you speak of one-call centre access, does that include or do you wish it to include the reporting of incidents that occur on pipelines, or is it only access to determine where pipelines are located? I know it is more than pipelines, but we are dealing with just pipelines here. Would it also include incidents so that you would have a record of occurrences?
Mr. Tweedie: It is both. When we say access to one-call centres, to put it as plainly as I can, we do not want there to be any reason not to call, so we want to make access to acquiring pre-excavation locates as simple as possible, with no options.
Earlier I mentioned the collection of data. That is what we wish to do as the Canadian Common Ground Alliance. To overcome a problem, you have to understand the problem. To understand the problem, you need the data.
Mr. Sullivan mentioned mandatory reporting of the things that come out of this and that we wish to put together a national report. Reports do exist. I believe there is one in Ontario and I believe there is one in Alberta as well. However, we want something nationally for all 13 jurisdictions and the federal jurisdiction that would summarize all incidents on all critical infrastructure, not just pipelines, so we can then analyze and understand the issues. That is how you work towards aspirational goals to no incidents.
Senator Wallace: Would that information on incidents be able to you now through the NEB and each of the provincial regulators? They would have records of all of the incidents and I am sure it is easily accessible. Could you not access that information now?
Mr. Sullivan: The bottom line is it is voluntary, unless it is NEB regulated. NEB requirements under the pipeline crossing regulations are such that you have to report incidents of contact or any unauthorized excavation within 30 metres or 100 feet of the pipeline. By and large, everything else across the provinces is voluntary.
One of our members reports dutifully, but that cannot be said for every jurisdiction across the country when it comes to the one-call system.
Senator Wallace: In your presentation, Mr. Tweedie, you said that your board includes Atlantic Canada Common Ground Alliance members. Being from New Brunswick, I wonder whether all of the Atlantic provinces are members of your association. Are all of the provinces what you refer to as "regional partners"?
Mr. Tweedie: I will answer in two ways.
The intent is to have every jurisdiction in Canada involved. The Atlantic Common Ground Alliance is just now forming. It is primarily an individual from Heritage Gas in Nova Scotia, Enbridge Gas in New Brunswick and a gentleman from Bell Alliant in New Brunswick. At this point, the three of them are the Atlantic Common Ground Alliance. That is two provinces out of the four that we would obviously like to have involved in that. That is what we are trying to build too.
The regional Common Ground Alliances are at different stages of development. Some in Ontario and Alberta are very well developed and very well supported. Others are just beginning. Right now, Atlantic Canada would be the one at the initial points of evolution.
Senator Wallace: You referred to the Common Ground Alliance in the U.S. and its existence since 2004. Would that alliance include of all the U.S. states? In particular, we are concerned about petroleum pipeline distribution. Would all of the states in the United States be included in that alliance? Would that include all petroleum pipeline companies doing business in each of those states?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Sorry, I may have stated that incorrectly. I believe the U.S. Common Ground Alliance has been in existence a little longer. What changed in 2004 was the use of 811, which changed the dynamic there.
Yes, all 50 states participate in the United States Common Ground Alliance and we are closely aligned with them.
Senator Wallace: You are saying that the type of pipeline identification you are proposing in all jurisdictions in Canada exists in all states in the United States, whether pipelines fall under federal or state authority.
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Senator Patterson: Mr. Tweedie, would you describe the membership structure of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, your budget and whether you receive any financial support or any kind of assistance from the federal government?
Mr. Tweedie: As far as the structure, we are also evolving. We might be as early in the evolution stages as the Atlantic Common Ground Alliance, not quite, but we are getting there.
Currently we have representation from all of the regional Common Ground Alliances on the board of directors of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance.
I will go to the last part of your question. We receive no federal funding. It is an organization just starting up. I believe this is in the paperwork I gave you.
As I said, we have representation from all of the regional Common Ground Alliances. When this started a year or two ago, we had what we are calling two seeding sponsors and we will build from there. It is the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, who I believe have also spoken to you.
There are those two national stakeholders and now a third has been added, the Canadian One-Call Centres Committee, or COCCC, which, as its title suggests, represents all of the call centres across Canada. That goes to the heart of what I was talking about where we are trying to build a broad stakeholder base so that it is not about pipes or wires, but it is about everyone involved in critical underground infrastructure.
With regard to the budget, I will defer to Mr. Sullivan as our executive director. As I said, there are the two funding sponsors and there are sponsors who are also giving amounts as well, but the two funding sponsors at this point are the CGA and CEPA, on a three-year path to get it fully funded on its own.
Mr. Sullivan: A couple of years ago there was a core funding plan developed between the Canadian Gas Association, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Alberta One-Call, and our operating budget is roughly a little over $90,000 per year right now.
Mr. Tweedie: We have talked a lot about the other partners. I should also mention that government departments are involved in what we are doing. The NEB is very involved with the Canadian Common Ground Alliance. Natural Resources Canada is also involved under the overall, overarching heading of "Protection of Critical Infrastructure," as is Public Safety Canada, so we have done work. I believe NEB is very much the leader on that. NRCan is very involved, and Public Safety Canada as well.
Senator Patterson: Your goal of establishing mandatory "call before you dig" legislation with enforcement is very clear. I would like to question you further about that. I realize you are in your formative years. Have you presented proposals to appropriate ministers in provincial and territorial governments in that regard?
Mr. Tweedie: I do not believe we have done that in every jurisdiction. The passing of Bill 8 in Ontario was led by a number of organizations, but primarily the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance. The Common Ground Alliances themselves do talk to the provincial authorities about damage prevention.
Nationally, our intent is to take the Bill 8 template and build that, understanding that it is not going to be same in any two jurisdictions. They are very different region to region. However, our intent is to present that template of how this can go forward and to do that with the regional partners in each jurisdiction.
Senator Patterson: In that direction, are there federal-provincial-territorial energy ministers' meetings at which this subject could be discussed? Do you see the federal Minister of Energy and Minister of Natural Resources as possibly being a lead? If our committee wants to support this idea, what is the federal-provincial dialogue mechanism that you envision?
Ms. Dunlop: In terms of legislation, it is most certainly of provincial jurisdiction. From a federal perspective, the main role that can be taken up by the federal government is supporting efforts to provide information, to educate Canadians and to encourage the dialogue to continue in forums like this, the report, and potentially supporting the Canadian Common Ground Alliance. Certainly, the legislative action needs to happen at the provincial level.
Senator Seidman: I will continue along the line of questioning of Senator Patterson because I am interested in the structure, mandate and authority of the alliance. The alliance is made up of stakeholders; is that correct?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Senator Seidman: Are these stakeholders that you described all corporations involved in infrastructure?
Mr. Tweedie: No. We are in the process of revising our governance documents to expand the stakeholder base and have greater representation of different sides of the industry on the board. Currently the majority on the board are representatives of Regional Common Ground Alliances, most being provincial; B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and one in the Atlantic provinces. There are, in addition, three other stakeholder groups: the Canadian Gas Association, and we represent natural gas distribution; CEPA, and you have spoken to them before; and now the Canadian One-Call Centre Committee.
Our plan is to expand to include ground disturbers, people who install underground infrastructure, where we can. For instance, municipalities have to play a great part in this because the vast majority of the infrastructure is under way. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is an example. That is not normally thought of, but it is critical that they be involved.
We want the stakeholder base to be very broad. The way our governance document is structured, the Regional Common Ground Alliance would make up the majority of the board, but we want to have about 13 positions for various jurisdictions across Canada on the board, including organizations such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the electricity side and the telco side. We will talk to a number of associations around ground disturbance, such as the Canadian Construction Association. I believe you have already spoken to a number of the associations. We are trying to build a broad stakeholder base so that the CCGA will not be defined as one thing. We want to have all stakeholders represented.
Senator Seidman: Am I correct that you are self-driven in that your mandate and authority comes from within the group as opposed to externally granted or mandated?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Senator Seidman: Am I correct that your budget is created by the membership?
Mr. Tweedie: Yes.
Senator Seidman: Do they pay fees to belong?
Mr. Tweedie: There is a fee to be a member of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, not the seeding sponsor I spoke of earlier. As we build the organization, we are building a fee structure. Right now it is all voluntary. At some point we intend to have a full-time executive director and staff to pursue this on a full-time basis.
Senator Seidman: I am trying to understand what is in it for the membership who support and fund the alliance. In response to a question from Senator Massicotte, you said that your membership would be responsible for funding and maintaining the national one-call system, for example. What is the motivation for the members?
Mr. Sullivan: It goes back to how the Common Ground Alliance came into being in Canada, the regional partners coming in first and the CCGA coming in after. Regional partners had their mandates internally developed, and they realized they needed a national voice on damage prevention issues of national interest, and they identified four of them. That is what gives us our mandate and that is what is driving the CCGA. In a sense we are an association of associations. The parties we have identified — CEPA, the Canadian Gas Association and others we are approaching now — have damage prevention within their bigger mandate, whereas damage prevention is our mandate. Therefore, we can represent all of those members with our common damage prevention voice.
Senator Mitchell: I appreciate the response that it is a provincial legislative jurisdiction, but at the federal level the National Energy Board would have some jurisdiction on this. With 14 widely dispersed jurisdictions, is there some way that the federal government could play a role, understanding the sensitivity about the provincial jurisdiction, to make this better and move more quickly?
Ms. Dunlop: Our understanding is that legislation would have to come from the provincial governments. However, further to the question about why all these stakeholders are involved in a national organization, whether it is in the telecommunications industry, the gas distribution industry or the electricity industry, the rationale for coming together at a national level is to be able to communicate, with one voice, one message about one number and one website. That will create action.
Senator Mitchell: And who has the jurisdiction or the moral suasion to do that.
Ms. Dunlop: Exactly. At the federal level there is a supportive role in the effort to communicate the larger message that is of interest to the pipeline industry as well as to the other owners of buried infrastructure.
Senator Wallace: I asked you about the U.S. experience. It would seem that they have been down the road that you think would be appropriate here in Canada with this preventive one-call system. Could you provide us later with a summary of the U.S. experience and how the federal-state experience has been tied together? That could be a very useful template for us in considering whether something like this would be appropriate in Canada.
Mr. Tweedie: We will provide that. Mr. Sullivan, as the Executive Director of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, sits on the board of the U.S. common ground alliance, and we have a very close relationship with them.
Senator Massicotte: You spend half a million dollars a year advertising as a consequence of this stuff, but that is very minor compared to the cost to your stakeholders relative to ruptures. Why do you not spend more? What is the disconnect?
Mr. Sullivan: That is half a million dollars in Alberta alone from Alberta One-Call's budget. We are a non-profit.
Senator Massicotte: How about nationally?
Ms. Dunlop: We do not have that number because the telecommunications companies and gas distribution companies in Ontario, and the municipalities in some cases, are all doing their own outreach, awareness and advertising campaigns to their customers. In the gas distribution case, we have gas distribution companies delivering utility bills to 6.3 million customers, so they communicate directly to their customers to call before digging.
Senator Massicotte: The way you answered the question earlier sounded very complicated as to who is involved and who is doing what. Is that not one of the problems you have, that you have to get your act together?
Ms. Dunlop: That is the main objective of coming together; getting one number, getting one web portal, getting the one app that we can all promote and use across Canada.
Mr. Tweedie: We want to make it so easy that there will never be an excuse for this to happen. There are many facilities and many numbers out there. Everyone has a requirement to do it, but the best thing for public and community safety is to pull it all together and do our best to ensure that there is never a reason to not call.
The Chair: Thank you very much Mr. Tweedie, Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Dunlop. This has been very informative, and we appreciate you taking the time this morning to talk to us about this issue. Our report will come out this summer.
(The committee continued in camera.)