Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of ITI. I would like to follow up on his statement from earlier today. We have just recently learned that ITI will be taking over as oil and gas regulator as of April 1st. The previous regulator was the National Energy Board, a public board – a public board – with a mandate to ensure that all oil and gas development was in the national interest. As this is just a few weeks away, I wonder if the Minister can tell me what the mandate of the oil and gas regulator will be. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in the House yesterday, our hope is to get in front of standing committee with our plans moving forward on regulating oil and gas activity here in the Northwest Territories. Our plan is to have as seamless a transition as possible. We’ve got service agreements set up. We want to ensure that we are protecting the environment and, at the same time, growing the economy here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
I didn’t hear a mandate there. I hope we get it figured out in the next 32 days. Mr. Speaker, ITI obviously doesn’t have the internal capacity to suddenly become the oil and gas regulator, so we have to contract out services, as the Minister mentioned, for example, from the NEB or another province. We could have stuck with the NEB who already knows the NWT very well or gone with the British Columbia commission, as the Yukon has chosen to do, but we chose to use the services of the Alberta Oil and Gas Regulator.
Given their record of treating the NWT as a convenient dumping ground for everything they are allowing to dump into the Athabasca River, why would we choose Alberta to provide these services? Mahsi.
Our goal and objective is to grow the capacity to regulate the oil and gas industry here in the Northwest Territories by residents of the Northwest Territories. We do not have the capacity. That’s why we’re reaching out to both the National Energy Board and the Alberta Energy Regulator and we’re also looking at the possibility of some work with the BC Oil and Gas Commission as well. We need to bring that expertise to bear come April 1st and we are setting the wheels in motion to allow us to do that.
I take some issue with the Member’s concerns about the regulator in Alberta. They do have 75 years of experience regulating the industry in Alberta. We have confidence that they have the technical and professional expertise available to us to allow us to continue to regulate the oil and gas industry here in the Northwest Territories.
For the activity that is currently underway, we have a transitional agreement with the National Energy Board to allow us, again, to see a seamless transition as possible into the new regime, which will see the oil and gas regulatory system be taken care of by the Government of the Northwest Territories on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I’d like to respond to that. Tar sands ponds that leak six million litres of contaminated tailings per day into the Athabasca River, steamed crude oil bubbling up through northern Alberta wetlands in multiple sites, coal mine tailings ponds collapsing. That is the record of the Alberta Energy Regulator in just the last six months.
Do we really grow responsible capacity, as the Minister says, by bringing so-called experts with such a poor record and pro-industry bias into our regulatory system? Why did we not simply continue with the National Energy Board? Mahsi.
Thank you. It’s important that the Government of the Northwest Territories has the ability to direct where we want to go with the industry here in the Northwest Territories. On the policy side of things, it’s going to be our government that directs the policy direction. It’s going to be in the best interests of the Northwest Territories when our government is in control of the regulation on oil and gas activity here in the Northwest Territories.
The last time I checked, we do not have oil sands located in the Northwest Territories. I’m not sure what the Member is trying to get at, but let me be clear, Alberta has the most experience and I listen to Members talk about hydraulic fracturing and the fact that we’re going to have hydraulic fracturing here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve got a couple of wells being drilled today in the Sahtu. Alberta has the most experience, the most technical experience and professional staff available to allow us to look at hydraulic fracturing here in the Northwest Territories. That’s where we’re going to get the expertise and help. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. The experience has no correlation with doing it right; of course, we know that.
The National Energy Board recently announced that it would require worst case financial security deposits on all oil and gas exploration. Some junior exploration companies were complaining that they could not afford to explore on the same scale as big companies if they had to pay clean-up costs in advance and I heard the Minister complain about this progressive attempt towards responsible management, presumably from lobbying by these companies. Is this shift away from the NEB a signal that our NWT oil and gas regulator does not agree with the NEB’s responsible approach proposed? Mahsi.
We are going to have a made-in-the-North solution to this as we move forward. Again, it’s important that we put our best effort into getting a situation here where it’s going to see us have as seamless a transition as possible. We are continuing to work with the National Energy Board. Come April 1st we’re going to inherit the regulations and policies of the National Energy Board. We’re going to inherit the federal acts that regulate the industry here in the Northwest Territories. After April 1st, if it’s deemed necessary, we can amend some of that legislation, we can enact policies. The world certainly will be our oyster after April 1st. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
