Kevin O'Reilly

I think I've got a pretty good memory, but I don't think I've raised this issue on petroleum rights before. I'm always happy to talk to the Minister. I don't like how there's at least three separate sets of information about petroleum rights on the ITI webpages. Can the Minister tell us whether it's her intention to set up a coherent public registry, and when that might happen?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 3 on the agenda, Members' statements, to allow our colleague from Kam Lake to make her statement. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Merci, Monsieur le President. I am very pleased to table two documents. The first one, "2010-2011 Call for Nominations - Central Mackenzie Valley" dated December 21, 2010. The second document, "2010-2011 Call for Bids - Central Mackenzie Valley" dated February 19, 2011. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Minister for clarifying that. There are no rental fees required in this new significant discovery licence. She referenced how she couldn't do it back on March 9th, and I want to quote from Hansard: "There is not a fair opportunity at this stage to be imposing items that weren't there previously." Saying that, gee, we didn't ask for it or it wasn't asked for during the call for bids, so we couldn't' include it now, well, Mr. Speaker, I actually went and did some digging. I found the call for bids, and I want to quote from this. I'm going to table the document, and I did...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have some questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on significant discovery licence for Husky Oil. There was supposed to be a notice issued under Section 18 of the Petroleum Resources Act when the Minister issues a new significant discovery licence. I can't see such a notice for this licence that might have replaced exploration licence EL494. It is also supposed to be published in the Gazette. I looked at the most recent for March; it's not there either, but there seems to be kind of a placeholder document on the ITI website that indicates...

I want to thank the Minister for that. As part of the first-round changes to our petroleum legislation, we thought we plugged holes like the significant discovery licence giveaways and flipped the secrecy onus to make information public. Further changes were promised including an examination of royalties and perhaps even a legislative requirement for a public registry. Can the Minister tell us when the second round of legislative changes will actually take place and whether a requirement for a public registry for petroleum rights will be part of that work?

Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I described in my statement the lack of a coherent public registry when it comes to our management of petroleum exploration and development rights. Seven years after devolution and 19 months after changes to the legislation passed, I think the public and operators deserve a lot better. Can the Minister tell us whether she agrees that we can and should be doing a lot better with regard to public access to petroleum rights information? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. While attempting to drill down into the Husky Oil significant discovery licence, pun intended, I was astounded at how difficult it is to find any useful and accessible information about how our government actually administers oil and gas rights.

ITI does not seem to have implemented its new responsibilities with the changes to the Petroleum Resources Act. While much of the secrecy surrounding rights management was supposed to be fixed, it is virtually impossible to get any coherent information on specific oil and gas rights holdings. There are three separate...

Mr. Chair, just very briefly, the committee heard from two expert witnesses. Dr. Essex is from Western University and Dr. Nicole Goodman is at Brock University. They've been watching online voting in Ontario for the most part, and it's been used at the municipal level there for several years. They've also been watching how online voting has been used in other parts of the world, and they actually worked together on a paper, although they don't always agree on everything. It was a very helpful paper, and they've suggested a number of principles that should be adopted in terms of online voting...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The Chief Electoral Officer and I think even our staff found a few inconsistencies in the legislation itself, some cross-referencing and things like this that should be cleared up. Those are detailed in the report, and I'm not going to drag people through those. That's what this recommendation is about, is some housekeeping clarifications that are required in the act. Thanks, Madam Chair.