Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As oil and gas regulator, I am fully committed to ensuring that NWT petroleum resources are developed responsibly in a way that creates benefits for our people and communities and protects our environment. I am guided in my decisions by a well-developed framework of legislation, regulations and policies that includes the Oil and Gas Operations Act, or OGOA, and Petroleum Resources Act. I am responsible through OGOA for ensuring human health and safety and environmental protection for all oil and gas development activities such as seismic operations, drilling of wells, construction and operations of pipelines.
I am able under OGOA to approve authorizations like geophysical authorizations, operation authorizations, geological investigation authorizations and can refer applications to environmental assessment.
Our government’s commitment to environmental protection is ensured through provisions in OGOA and its regulations, particularly the spill and debris regulations which provide for the regulator to set additional security requirements for oil and gas operations which must be in place for the duration of those operations. It is important to remember that authorizations cannot be issued without appropriate security in place. This helps to ensure that projects will be well managed and the people of the Northwest Territories will not be responsible for potential liabilities.
Our government is confident that the system we have and our framework for legislation and policies will let us manage the kind of development we expect to see in the Northwest Territories and ensure it is responsible and our environment is protected.
We need to be clear about what we are talking about when we talk about hydraulic fracturing. We are looking at shale oil in the Sahtu. That is not the same as shale gas that was the subject of the Council of Canadian Academics report. Unlike some other developments that we hear about, the shale oil in the Sahtu is deep below the surface, well away from groundwater.
We also need to be clear about the scale of development we are talking about. The Northwest Territories is not the Bakken. We do not expect to see thousands of wells go into production. So far we have had applications for a small number of exploration wells. We can manage that scale of development with the tools and information we
have available. We have already committed to develop regulations that will set out information requirements for hydraulic fracturing. We will continue to refine and improve our approach to managing development to ensure that it is responsible in the health of our people and our environment is protected.
The Northwest Territories geoscience office is already collecting information to assist us in decision-making and responding to the activity. The geoscience office has installed stations to monitor seismic activity in the area, and we have the necessary tools and authorities we need to ensure the development of our territory is managed fairly and responsibly for everyone.