Translation of "excavation des sables bitumineux " (French → English) :

Question No. 140 Ms. Kirsty Duncan: With respect to development of the oil sands, its impacts on the environment and surrounding communities, and the economic effects of these impacts: (a) what, if any, steps has the government taken to establish air emission limits or air quality standards to achieve the World Health Organization’s Air Quality Guidelines to protect air quality and human health; (b) what, if any, steps has the government’s sector-by-sector approach taken to regulate carbon emissions in the oil sands to ensure the oil sands industry makes appropriate reductions in its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to contribute to Canad ...[+++]a’s GHG emission reduction goal of 17% below the 2005 level; (c) what, if any, studies has the government undertaken to examine the effect of the oil sands expansion on (i) GHG emissions, (ii) Canada’s ability to meet its GHG emission reduction goals, (iii) Canada’s contribution to the goal of staying below a 2°C increase in global average surface temperature, relative to the pre-industrial level, as articulated at the G8 meeting in L’Aquila, Italy and at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations through the Copenhagen Accord in December 2009 and the Cancun Agreements in December 2010, (iv) the full suite of sustainability criteria, including environmental, economic and social sustainability, and (v) what were the results of any studies identified in (c)(i), (c)(ii), (c)(iii), and (c)(iv); (d) what, if any, studies has the government undertaken to examine (i) the scope of oil sands expansion if the oil sands sector is not required to deliver its proportional share of GHG reductions, (ii) the impacts such a decision would have on other sectors’ allowable GHG emissions, (iii) whether other sectors of the Canadian economy would have to do more than their proportional share to reduce emissions, (iv) what were the results of any studies identified in (d)(i), (d)(ii), and (d)(iii); (e) what, if any, studies ...

As concerns the default values for oil sands and oil shale, I am pleased to report that the Commission has recently published reports indicating an average default value for oil sands and a range of indicative default values for oil shales.

Question No. 835 Mr. Peter Julian: With regard to government monitoring of the working and labour conditions in oil sands areas: (a) what is the total amount of injuries reported or registered by the responsible government departments from 2006 to date; (b) what departments, agencies and commissions are responsible for monitoring working safety conditions in the oil sands; (c) how many inspections of the work safety conditions in oil sand production sites were conducted by each department, agency or commission from 2006 to date; (d) what are the major issues associated with working conditions at the oil sands production sites; (e) wh ...[+++]at types of injuries are common at the oil sands working sites; (f) from 2006 to date, what is the average crime rate in communities where oil sands production is going on; and (g) how much money did the government spend on monitoring and regulating safety conditions in the oil sands production sites, for each department, agency and commission?

Oil shale and tar sands used as inputs for other transformation processes should also be reported in this category.

Oil shale and tar sands produced and combusted directly should be reported in this category.

Synthetic crude oil from tar sands, shale oil, etc., liquids from coal liquefaction (see Chapter 1), output of liquids from natural gas conversion into gasoline (see Chapter 2), hydrogen and emulsified oils (e.g. orimulsion).