Thanks, Madam Chair. And I do urge anyone who's listening to actually read the rationale for this recommendation. But we have something adopted. This government has adopted the use of what's called the reclaim model. And it's basically a set of spreadsheets that are quite sophisticated, and unit costs are calculated based on experience from consultants working in the private sector on other government-led remediation efforts, and those are used as a basis to calculate what it would cost for a third party to come in and remediate a site according to an approved closure and reclamation plan, and that's why having these plans approved is very important, so you can get an actual accurate estimate. The problem is that this set of spreadsheets is on the ENR website but it dates from 2017. It's now four and a half/five years out of date. And we know what has happened with construction-contractor costs, fuel costs since over the last period of time. We've seen the effects of that in our capital budget alone. So this is why this recommendation is being made. That model on the ENR website has been prepared by consultants. And I'm glad that ENR posts it there and uses it and maybe so the unit costs have been updated, but it's not publicly available. And that's what proponents are asked to do, is to use that model to calculate the reclamation liabilities so the land and water board can hear from different parties using the same spreadsheet, maybe some different numbers, to actually try to set a value for the reclamation liability, to make sure that the public is protected from assuming those costs, because if we don't have the right financial security and something happens, it's going to come back to us just like it did with Cameron Hills, which didn't have an approved plan. So this is really to try to get the department to update that reclaim model, make it publicly available, and do it on a regular basis. And I'm sure the staff would like to get that updated. But when what's publicly available is five years old, we got a problem. So I know that the Minister wants to probably get this work done but maybe this recommendation will help move that along and make sure that the public doesn't get stuck with a bill at the end of the day. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Kevin O'Reilly on Committee Motion 349-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2), Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Closure and Reclamation Tools, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on February 9th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 349-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2), Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Closure and Reclamation Tools, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 9th, 2023
Page 5163
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