The newly adopted law which prohibits the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in Quebec territory will produce results within five years, according to the Minister of Energy, Jonatan Julien. As long as the industry collaborates.
“We certainly don’t want to put this off indefinitely,” argues the elected representative of the Coalition avenir Québec in an interview with The duty.
Bill 21 “primarily aimed at ending the exploration and production of hydrocarbons and the public financing of these activities” received royal assent on Wednesday at the office of the lieutenant-governor. The legislative text, adopted after all quickly by parliamentarians, ties the hands of the oil companies, which will have to abandon their claims in Quebec and restore the exploration wells they have dug there.
Concretely, the law requires companies that have active wells at risk of leaks to clean them, secure them and close them within twelve months. License holders whose well does not present a threat will have two more years.
“We have planned for deadlines, and, when you look at it from a bird’s eye view, we think that within five years, it should be settled. […] We want companies to collaborate, but it’s pretty clear that there won’t be much room for laxity, ”says Mr. Julien on the other end of the line. The CAQ minister is not overly concerned about the risk of prosecution against the government. The law is concrete and its application will take place in time, he assures.
“There are items [dans la loi] which have been considered, precisely, so that there is no possible recourse”, underlines Mr. Julien.
Protect yourself from lawsuits
This week, when the bill was passed in the House, the Quebec Energy Association (formerly known as the Quebec Oil and Gas Association) was already suggesting that all legal options were on Table. Its president, Éric Tétrault, estimates that the companies affected by the bill are missing out on tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars in potential gains.
However, certain amendments adopted at the end of the study of the bill could put a spoke in the wheels of the industry if it decides to venture before the courts. One of them provides in particular “to prevent appeals from being brought on the basis of the invalidity” of a decision aimed at prohibiting the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons.
Another article of the law ensures that protesters are deprived of the right to demand payment of damages. Only the compensation program devised by Quebec gives access to compensation.
Quebec is no stranger to lawsuits from oil and gas companies. Last November, the company Gaspé Énergies won its case in the Court of Quebec so that the government obtains a drilling permit for it in Gaspésie, despite the Hydrocarbons Act adopted in 2016. Tabled by the Liberal government of Philippe Couillard, that -ci technically prohibits the exploitation of shale within a thousand meters of watercourses.
By amending the Petroleum Resources Act with its Bill 21, the Government of Quebec responded to the Court’s judgment, which no longer applies, but it also protected itself against other decisions by kind, says Mr. Julien. ” When [la Loi sur les hydrocarbures] was adopted in 2016, there were small gaps. Which is really not the case in the law that we have just adopted, ”assures Jonatan Julien.
A defined envelope
After two months of work on Bill 21, the compensation promised to the oil companies has not moved an inch, maintains Minister Julien. The “Homeric” demands of the industry did not convince him. Neither do the “banana republic” demands launched by environmental groups. As a result, the minister still expects the state to pay out “a little less than $100 million” to companies that will use the compensation program.
“There’s not a lot of ambiguity. For us [100 millions]it is a maximum”, he notes.
A few days after the adoption of the legislative text, Mr. Julien maintains that his gesture goes beyond symbols, even if no exploration and exploitation activity has been recorded in Quebec for years. “There are people who had ambitions to exploit oil in Quebec,” he says. What we are saying, and we are the first to regulate, is that there won’t be any. »
“Indeed, if we look specifically at the production of greenhouse gases in Quebec, it doesn’t change much, but the signal we’re sending is very, very strong. »