Clauses 71 to 80.
---Clauses 71 through 80 inclusive approved
Clauses 81 to 90.
---Clauses 81 through 90 inclusive approved
Clauses 91 to 100.
---Clauses 91 through 100 inclusive approved
Clauses 101 to 105.
---Clauses 101 through 105 inclusive approved
Thank you. The bill as a whole.
Agreed.
Does the committee agree that Bill 14 is ready for third reading?
---Bill 14 as a whole approved for third reading
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Thank you, witnesses. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
Premier McLeod, are you ready to proceed with your opening comments on Bill 15, the Oil and Gas Operations Act? Premier McLeod.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 15, Oil and Gas Operations Act. The passage of this legislation will be another step towards implementing the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement.
The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment will administer the Government of the Northwest Territories’ new authorities under the Oil and Gas Operations Act.
Under the Devolution Agreement, the GNWT is obligated to substantially mirror Canada’s statutes and regulations that are being repealed or made inapplicable to lands transferring to the GNWT through devolution.
The mirroring exercise means that the new GNWT laws will address the same matters in substantially the same way as federal laws do now.
Mirroring principles limited changes to addressing issues such as outdated language and applying GNWT drafting standards.
Mirrored legislation is a practical first step to ensure a continued delivery of services on April 1, 2014. Mirrored legislation also ensures that there are no gaps or overlaps between GNWT and federal legislation.
The parties to the Devolution Agreement entered into a Protocol for Review of Devolution Legislation. Under this protocol, all parties have had the opportunity to review and comment on this legislation before it was introduced in the Legislative Assembly. We have considered these comments carefully in the preparation of the bill before you. The Oil and Gas Operations Act governs the exploration, production, processing and transportation of oil and gas in the onshore of the Northwest Territories. It does not apply to operations on lands that will be retained by Canada, such as waste sites and the Norman Wells Proven Area. Further, it does not apply to the Enbridge pipeline, which is a transboundary pipeline that will continue to be regulated by the National Energy Board under the National Energy Board Act.
The purpose of the Oil and Gas Operations Act is to promote safety, protection of the environment, the conservation of oil and gas resources, and joint production agreements.
The Oil and Gas Operations Act also empowers the Minister to approve a benefits plan or waive the requirement for such approval.
I would be pleased to answer any questions Members may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Do you have witnesses to bring into the House?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, Premier. Could you please re-introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have Thomas Druyan, legislative council with the Department of Justice. To my left I have Jamie Fulford, legal counsel with the Department of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. We’ll open general comments to Bill 15. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question has to do with the Premier’s opening remarks. In the very last paragraph he says, “The Oil and Gas Operations Act also empowers the Minister to approve a benefits plan or waive the requirement for such approval.” I have no idea what a benefits plan is. Can I get an explanation please?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Fulford.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can draw the attention of the Member to Section 17 of the Oil and Gas Operations Act, and a benefits plan is a plan for the employment of Canadians and for providing Canadian manufacturers, consultants, contractors and service companies with a full and fair opportunity to participate on a competitive basis in the supply of goods and services used in any proposed work or activity referred to in the benefits plan.
There is a requirement before the issuance of any authorization for a benefits plan to be approved by the Minister and the act also provides the ability of the Minister to establish guidelines as to the content of a benefits plan.
Maybe I could ask Mr. Fulford to give me that in plain English. I kind of got half of it, but I don’t really understand what he said. Thank you.
I’d be happy to try and give you a plain language version. It’s basically contracting opportunities and job opportunities associated with work in an area. For example, in the Sahtu with the current activity going on there, the companies there need to have these benefits plans approved to ensure that they’re employing local people in their operations.
Thanks to Mr. Fulford. That was much easier. I’m just looking at Section 17 here and it seems to me that under Section 17(2), the Minister can waive the requirement for the approval in respect of work or activity. I think that’s the one. Under what circumstances would the Minister waive authorization of work, I guess?
I can speculate that in one instance where maybe the requirement would be waived is if there was an overarching benefits plan that applied to a full scope of operations and then there wouldn’t be a need on an individual authorization basis for a separate benefits plan in each case.
Thanks, Mr. Fulford. I’m still struggling to understand this benefits plan. If you say it applies to everybody, so there’s no need for an authorization. Is this benefits plan specific to the NWT or it’s bigger than that? I’m not really understanding what we’re talking about here. Thank you.
The provision, Section 17 speaks to the employment of Canadians and providing opportunities for Canadians, but what this really means and even the current guidelines of the federal Minister Valcourt really focus on the local benefit, in particular the benefit to local Aboriginal businesses so the way it’s been interpreted is the closer that you are to the operation, the more the benefits plan should focus on giving you opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to Mr. Fulford. I think I kind of get it.
The other thing I wanted to ask about is again related to security and deposits and funds that are required. I believe it’s in Section 10. Section 10 allows for deposits for liability related to loss and damage, but deposits are not mandatory. I suspect I know the answer, but I’m going to ask the Premier or Mr. Fulford anyway. Why are we not making these deposits mandatory? It goes to the whole issue again of financial security and the need to have closure and regulation plans and just the whole protection of our environment issue. Thank you.
Of course, we are mirroring the existing federal legislation. But as I pointed out before in the discussions on the Petroleum Resources Act, the other section that’s related to Section 10 is Section 64, which talks about that requirement, provides proof of financial responsibility. I can’t think of a situation where you’d want to waive that completely, but that’s merely speculation on my part. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, it’s just one more thing that I think we need to add to the list of potential amendments to the act. I think, as legislators, we need to make sure that NWT residents are protected against potential financial liabilities, and we have to make sure that any legislation that we put in place around developments and so on ensures our people are going to be protected, that this government is going to be protected in having to pick up liabilities, whether it be through closure or whether it be through spills or whether it be through just bad practices as an industry.
I wanted to ask a question with regards to a spill. I think it’s in Section 65. Section 65(5) seems to require an inquiry for a bigger spill or event, but it sounds as though the Minister has some discretion in making the inquiry publicly available. Is this again mirroring or is this something where the Minister will have discretion and if he or she doesn’t really think this big spill needs to be released to the public or the report on this spill doesn’t need to be released, that he or she doesn’t have to release it. It kind of, again, goes to why is it not mandatory, that reporting on a major spill is not mandatory? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Druyan.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, 65(5), if I may correct the Member, is actually mandatory. The Minister has no discretion not to report. The discretion is in the manner of reporting so whether it’s newspapers or on the website or things like that, but it has to be made publicly available. Hopefully that answers the question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Yes, that’s clear. I’m laughing because the manner in which it’s released could be one page as opposed to 20 pages, and I understand that’s not what you said, so my question then goes to what is going to identify the manner in which it’s released; refers to electronic versus paper versus something else as opposed to you can release it in a manner of, you know, a one-page summary or a 300-page detailed document? Thanks.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It would be in an appropriate manner. Thank you.
I didn’t quite hear the answer, but if it was “in the appropriate manner” what does that mean?
In this Chamber we hear many times that if we advertise for jobs and some people don’t have computers, they have to do it in print. On that basis, I’m saying it would be done in an appropriate manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the Premier for the explanation, but it doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy feeling that the public is going to get the report. I understand the intent of this clause is that the public will get the full report, but it can be interpreted a number of different ways, so is it going to be covered in regulations or is it simply going to be left to the Minister of the day who will decide, yeah, no, today I’m going to do one page and maybe next week I’ll do 300? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Druyan.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think one has to read the words in the context of the overall statute and in the spirit of the statute. It says that the Minister shall make it publicly available. That is to say the report, not a summary of the report, not an excerpt of the report, the report has to be made publicly available. Then the discretion is in what format that is done. Hopefully that does answer your question.
Hopefully the Minister, if he is doing something that you may suspect him of doing, will speak to his legal advisors who will advise him of how to the meaning of this provision and the breadth of his discretion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Ms. Bisaro, your time is up. General comments.
Detail.
Is committee ready to go to detail? Oh, Mr. Bromley. Sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe Ms. Bisaro does have more, but I’ll ask a few here, if I may. The first comment, Section 9 allows contracting to assist with the administration of the act, but obviously there should be some requirement for disclosure of that information. I’m wondering if there is any provision for that in regulations. Obviously, many of these will have to go for discussion after April 1st, but is that provided for in regulations, that there will be some transparency here? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Fulford.
Mr. Chair, there’s no express requirement that the contract be made public, but it would be subject to the Access to Information Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I suppose most stuff is, but we’re looking for transparency here, so again, I hope we work towards that.
Section 10(4) allows for deposits for liability related to loss damage, et cetera. Again, in reference to Mr. Fulford’s earlier comment, deposits are not mandatory. This is, again, unfortunate. I would just like to give the Premier an opportunity to say I’m wrong here and, in fact, somewhere in the act it is made mandatory. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I guess I will again draw the attention of the Member to Section 64. While Section 10 refers to any deposits that may be required, I don’t think that that is speaking permissibly. Section 64 seems, to me at least, to be stating a requirement to provide proof of financial responsibility. I haven’t yet been called on to interpret this act in practice, but I think that’s the way that I would interpret it and advise my client. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I’ll go with Mr. Fulford’s word and interpretation there. However, unfortunately, Section 64 allows the regulator to accept any form of security. Obviously, I think with the Deh Cho Bridge and so on, we should be wiser and smarter now and know that that’s not good enough to protect the public. The security, obviously, needs to be totally liquid and guaranteed by the bank for insurance. I’m hoping that that will be dealt with in regulations. I’m open to any comments on that, or assurances there.
Section 19 does not require the regulator to hold public hearings on any matter. There should be a requirement, obviously, especially on the closure and reclamation of any larger facility like a pipeline, production field and so on. Again, maybe I can get a comment on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Fulford. Sorry, Mr. Druyan.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Bromley. Actually, Section 17 is not setting out the regulator’s responsibilities but rather their powers. So it’s permissive and intended to be very permissive and very broad powers. There are other provisions in this act which actually set out duties, but you just have to, again, read the act in its full context where certain provisions deal with powers and certain other ones set out the duties, so it would not be appropriate to put any direction regarding what they have to inquire into. If they want to, they can inquire into a very, very broad range of issues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
