RNNR Committee Report

SUPPLEMENTARY OPINION OF THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

The global energy market is changing rapidly as countries around the world transition to a low-carbon energy future. In order for Canada to play a role in this shift and to benefit from it, we need timely access to the best available information and science. This study was an important step in this process, and New Democrats have worked faithfully with our colleagues on the Natural Resources committee from the Liberal and Conservative parties in a constructive and collegial manner to ensure that we provide all Canadians, stakeholders and industry with those tools. As a result of that work, we believe this report is a strong reflection of our many shared concerns on this important issue.

However, we feel that some areas require a stronger response or more attention. This is particularly the case when it comes to the direction that the government chooses when it comes to how we collect energy data, how it is stored, analyzed, used and ultimately available in a user-friendly way to all potential users. Throughout the study, it was clear from the testimony given that the current Canadian energy data system is inadequate, leaving many users to go to foreign sources of data to try to plan for Canada’s energy needs. Probably the starkest example of the current state of our energy data regime was given by Professor Pierre-Olivier Pineau, who stated the following before the committee:

“If you go to Statistics Canada and you want to have access to the microdata, it's hell. Two years ago I actually went and asked for microdata to have my students work on real Canadian data, because I thought it was time to have students working on Canadian data and not always using the U.S. data because the U.S. data is available. I had to go through a lot of paperwork, sign a confidentiality agreement, and then they sent me a CD-ROM with the data, which was less interesting than the U.S. equivalent. In the end we did use the Canadian data in my class, but it's not user friendly. There are a lot of barriers. For the American data, you go on the website and you download the dataset. For Statistics Canada, you have to write them an email. They send you a letter. You have to read the contract, sign the contract, resend the contract, and then they send you the DVD or the CD-ROM with the data.”

We see this current state of affairs as disturbing and something that needs to be remedied much sooner than later. As we have seen over the past many years across the country, confidence in the system we have to assess and approve large projects in Canada has fallen to new lows. It is a common theme for people on either side of a project that confidence is lacking that proper decisions are being made with the best available and neutral information. We see a proper Energy Information Agency as a key part of bringing confidence back to this broken system, giving everyone important facts and details from a trusted, neutral source in a way that is accessible and usable to all users.

Professor Monica Gattinger of the University of Ottawa testimony before the committee drove home this point, when she stated the following:

“For example, take a regulatory agency, whether it's the NEB or another regulatory agency at the federal or provincial level. These are organizations that, from the public's perspective, are predominantly about either approving or rejecting projects. If those organizations are also then responsible for creating energy information, does that then at some level put them into some sort of a conflict of interest?

If we want to have an agency that can do things proactively, for example, put out information around pipeline safety or put out information around tanker safety, if you're also the organization that is responsible for evaluating a proposed project that deals with those issues, will that be perceived as credible and independent by the public? Those are the sorts of things, I think, that I would hope the committee would look at very carefully.

I think the same thing would go, for example, with having an energy department as the node or focus for these efforts to the extent that an energy department has, as part of its mandate, the development of a particular industry sector. Again, from the perspective of the public, this could be also looked at as in some way tainting the capacity for that organization to be providing neutral, non-partisan, independent, balanced energy information.

What I would just end on here is, again, I recognize from a resource perspective the challenge of additional expenditures, but I would also invite the committee to think very seriously about what the costs are of not putting in place a system that is viewed as credible and independent by all parties when it comes to energy.”

New Democrats have long called on the federal government to ensure that proper processes are in place when it comes to the assessment of large projects such as the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline.  Good information, openly available to all parties involved, is key to properly assessing these projects. It is extremely difficult to state that a project is in the national interest when you simply do not have the “neutral, non-partisan, independent, balanced energy information” needed to form that decision.

It is with that in mind that we believe the first recommendation of this report simply does not go far enough. We believe that the best course of action is for the government to create a completely independent energy information agency for Canada. We believe that the testimony reflects that, while currently existing agencies have expertise and ability to provide many of these functions, they simply do not possess the political independence, nor the level of public confidence required to have the best impact and outcome for the Canadian people. Allan Fogwill, President of the Canadian Energy Research Institute testified to the committee about the issues around the potential structure of this body and the importance of its independence. He stated that:

“A model like that might work, but the issue there is twofold. One is that because of the funding structure, they are always beholden to a third party. It doesn't really matter what organization you work for; you always know where your money is coming from and you make sure you don't piss those people off. If their money was solid and secure, then they'd have independence in that sense.

An example is the U.S. Energy Information Administration. They were created in the 1970s, and various parties have taken a run at them, both in terms of the legislation but also their budgets, and have been unsuccessful in attacking them. You can get at an organization through its funding, so that is one aspect.

The other aspect is the secretariat function, because the secretariat function can be staffed by someone else, and they'll staff it with the kind of people they want to have to make sure that whatever they're looking for from that organization is going to come out of that organization. I'm not saying that happens, but there's the opportunity for that to happen.

If there's an opportunity for that to happen, then other people would look at that and say they have a credibility issue. They have a credibility issue in terms of the budget as well as the staffing.”

We believe that while we are taking the time to create a national energy data centre body, we need to get it right the first time. In our view, that means creating a fully independent agency, not simply housing such work inside an existing federal department. We believe that a new, fully independent agency will not only allow for the best results in regards to the proper collection and analysis of energy data and the ease of access and use of that data, we strongly believe that this independence will help to rebuild public trust in the energy regulation process in Canada.

We understand that taking this approach could potentially come at greater upfront cost, but as Professor Gattinger pointed out, we need to think about “what the costs are of not putting in place a system that is viewed as credible and independent by all parties when it comes to energy”. We believe that in the current environment creating such a system will require more upfront investment than the alternative, but we believe that thanks to the mistakes made by previous governments, that is a cost that is not only justified but completely necessary to be able to achieve the best potential results from this endeavour.