Environment Committee on Sept. 26th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, colleagues. I would remind everyone that we are not in camera.

We left off on Thursday in the middle of debating Mr. Deltell's motion on tidal energy. When we broke, we had on the list Mr. Kram, Mr. van Koeverden and Mr. Bachrach. We'll start with Mr. Kram.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to begin by moving an amendment to my colleague's motion. The amendment is as follows:

That the committee express its disappointment with the regulatory environment created by this government that has led—

Here I would like to add:

—Sustainable Marine Energy to withdraw a tidal energy project that would have generated clean electricity from the Bay of Fundy

I would like to cross out the words “tidal power projects pulling out of Canada”, and then the remainder of the motion stays as is.

The reason for this—and I believe my colleague Mr. Perkins spoke about this at length at a previous meeting—is that Sustainable Marine Energy was the particular project that was in the news and had the most potential for generating clean electricity, and it was the subject of, I believe, three years of back-and-forth between this company and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. That one incident really highlighted the trouble with the regulatory environment at DFO and in other government departments.

I believe the amendment is being circulated right now in both official languages. I think focusing on this one particular project, which highlights these problems, would be beneficial to improving the regulatory process. That's my amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Kram. Thank you for the clarity of presentation. It helps us all.

I believe the motion with the amendment that Mr. Kram is putting forward is being circulated at the moment. Now we will go to debating the amendment. That means I will have to divert from the speakers list, which I will come back to.

We have Mr. Mazier and Mr. Perkins. Would anyone else like to speak to the amendment? I don't see anyone else, but who knows?

We'll start with Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

To continue on with my colleague's amendment here, Sustainable Marine Energy was the project in question. I'm going to read from a CBC news article, entitled “Tidal power developer slams DFO for years of delays, stops application for N.S. project”, from March 21, 2023:

The CEO of Sustainable Marine Energy, a company based in Scotland with an office in Dartmouth, says his company is stepping back from its application for a site with the non-profit Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE) near Parrsboro, N.S.

“We have notified [the Department of Fisheries and Oceans] that we are withdrawing, what is now our third application, for an authorization,” said Jason Hayman. “We have been working for about three years to get an authorization from DFO to deliver our project, but we are basically coming up against a brick wall.”

So the expansion plans are halted. The article continues:

“Right now we are trying to work with our project partners and stakeholders and look at our options,” said Hayman. “We would like to remain in Nova Scotia if we can find projects to deliver, but that's proving to be quite difficult at the moment.”

The article goes on to say, and of course this is what the amendment and the motion are all about, that when it comes to the atmosphere that this government has created, this is another blow to the tidal power industry:

Hayman says his company has sunk about $30 million into their work to use tidal power to generate electricity from the Bay of Fundy and have also been granted millions of dollars in federal government funding.

Sustainable Marine's decision is a blow to the tidal power industry, said FORCE executive director Lindsay Bennett.

“We are very aware of the need to build a clear regulatory path for marine renewables,” said Bennett.

“Every project has unique challenges, but right now Canada is missing a clear regulatory process. If we're going to fight climate change with marine renewables, we need one.”

This just goes on. We've been saying on our side for a very long time that this is the problem when governments get too big, get too authoritative and get too much of that top-down type of approach. The industry is basically begging for a clear path and some clear vision on how we are going to continue on with renewable power in our country. They need a clear framework.

I really do think this is why the motion is so important and this committee must send a clear signal back to the government that it had better get its act together.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Mazier.

Yes, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'm wondering if, for the benefit of those of us on Zoom, we could have an email version of the amendment being debated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I believe it's on the cusp of being distributed. It's in the mail, as they say. It's in the email. It's coming. It's in the pipeline, as they say.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you. I'm glad it's in the mail and not in the wind.

Thank you, Mr. Kram, for the refinement to the motion on the specific project.

With regard to why it's important, over the last few decades numerous companies have been involved. That includes a large one where Nova Scotia Power had a partnership for various technologies to try to find a way to harness the power of the Bay of Fundy. In particular, I think Nova Scotia Power had invested over $100 million in trying to get theirs.... Generally, as I said at the last meeting, these are large turbines. Just to give you some scale, some of them are almost five storeys high and sunk into the bottom of the Bay of Fundy.

The bay, of course, has the highest tides in the world: 160 billion tonnes of seawater go in and out of that bay every day. That's why it's such a powerful force. The difference with this company is that they did not place their turbines on the bottom. It was a different ship with turbines attached that was at the surface of the water. It was able to produce a significant amount of power and actually survive the power of the Bay of Fundy, which the other projects were not. Some of them got destroyed in as little as 48 hours, whereas this one continued to operate. It continued to generate electricity that was connected by a cable into Nova Scotia Power. Because it was energy generated by the private sector, Nova Scotia Power was paying the company for the power it had generated, for its capital investment.

Now, it had had four approvals so far, up to that date, from DFO to continue this project and make it happen. An enormous amount of research had been provided to DFO over the three years of this, on the plan and the precautions and the impact on the fishery, which of course we all care about. The Bay of Fundy is an important fishery area, primarily at the sea floor, for crustaceans. Lobster, as we know, is the most profitable element of what is fished in the Bay of Fundy. There are some open-net pen farms on the Bay of Fundy as well, but the primary seafood that is harvested commercially in the Bay of Fundy is lobster on both the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia sides.

Obviously, something floating on the top isn't impacting the primary food source and the primary commercial fishery on the bottom. That was a problem for those other ones that were being sunk, but this one was not. It was confusing for the company that had managed to have such success. After the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had issued four permits, it decided not to issue a fifth permit to take it to the next level of operation. The company has said that a large amount of data and a large amount of information had been provided to DFO, and when DFO refused to issue the next permit, they were unwilling to explain why. They were unwilling to share what it was they were looking for in the impact on the ocean and the fishery that hadn't been provided in many scientific studies in the three years before and the one leading up to the permit that allowed this to happen.

In fact, it was so upsetting and baffling that the Premier of Nova Scotia, who generally doesn't intervene on fisheries issues since fisheries issues are a federal responsibility, said in an interview with CTV that he wanted to highlight what he saw as the hypocrisy. That's why I think this motion has to express the failure of the government to move forward on this project specifically, in contrast to the previous, broader motion, which talked about all tidal projects. There are other tidal projects with turbines being sunk at the bottom that are still being tried. The only successful one dealt with this project, which is why there is this refinement to the motion.

The premier was quoted as follows:

“We just need the federal government to wake up on this, it's really ridiculous what's happened here,” he says.

“If their ultimate objective is really and sincerely to protect the planet and green the grid, then it's not through a carbon tax, it's actually through generating green energy through tidal, through wind, through solar, all these mechanisms,” Houston adds.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, who's a Liberal, also criticized the decision to not proceed with this green project.

While, on the one hand, we have a bill that's actually being debated in Parliament tomorrow, called Bill C-49, which gives some existing federal agencies the ability to determine where wind power and offshore energy power go, it's amending the Atlantic accord, which sets out the terms of the Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board's mandate in that, and Newfoundland and Labrador's as well, and gives them not only a revised new process but also the additional responsibility to now approve ocean energy projects.

After the blowback from the company and from Nova Scotians and from the premier, the response of this government and the then fisheries minister, Minister Murray, was that we should convene a committee. That seems to be a habit of the Liberals. When faced with a problem, they say, “Let's convene a committee. Let's not actually look at understanding why DFO and the minister herself refused the permit. Let's have a committee look at this and find out what happened.”

Well, it's pretty obvious what happened. DFO was inconsistent in issuing its fifth permit to make sure that clean energy goes through. Why do we need a committee of DFO officials to figure out why DFO officials said no? Why don't the DFO officials just tell everybody why they said no rather than convening another committee to have an internal discussion to figure out how they messed this up?

Maybe it's one department that's not talking to the other. Maybe the fisheries minister wasn't talking to the environment minister. They wanted to see green projects and the DFO didn't. It doesn't seem like the government can get its act straight. That's why we need to express the disappointment of this committee about this specific project by Sustainable Marine Energy.

In that same article from CTV, just to make sure we're citing the sources, besides the premier saying, “Shame on the federal government,” the company itself said, “We have given them so much information about our system's lack of effects on marine life...as well as (pointing) them in the direction of other experts who could maybe help.” However, DFO didn't turn to any of those other experts before saying no.

What was the effect of all this? The effect of all this was that the only functioning tidal power private sector finance technology—not taxes—solution to generating green energy in Nova Scotia was shut down by DFO. The company itself had to remove the equipment from the ocean. It had to disassemble it all. It's proprietary technology that is ultimately owned by the Scottish company that did it. It then took the Canadian subsidiary, and guess what happened? I know you're anxious to know what happened to that company. That company declared bankruptcy as a result of the intervention of DFO. We lost an amazing technology that was not financed by taxpayers but financed by private sector capital to generate new technology and new ways to produce green energy from our oceans.

Remember, DFO is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, yet they decided that, apparently, generating green energy out of the ocean was not something they wanted to see happen. I'm not sure what else besides the commercial fishery they want to see happen. It's just incredible—it's still mind-boggling to this day—that on the one hand the government would be saying in Bill C-49 that we need to utilize green energy projects in the ocean, and then provocative statements are being made by Atlantic Liberal colleagues, who I guess forgot that they were part of turning down a green energy project that was functioning—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Perkins, I would just remind you that we're speaking to the amendment.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's right, and I'm speaking to the part that's dealing with the Sustainable Marine Energy project itself, which was turned down by the Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, it sounds like you're speaking to the larger motion.

Anyway, continue if you must. Otherwise, Mr. Deltell is also on the list.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.

The issue, I think, is that as a responsible environment committee, this committee would be concerned with the fact that a functioning project, a working project, the first ever by Sustainable Marine Energy in the tidal power space in the Bay of Fundy, was stopped by the Government of Canada, and would express specifically about that project, not just general projects, which is another issue but an important one, its disappointment in the government's not approving the first technology breakthrough in this space in tidal power.

With that, Mr. Chair, I will conclude my remarks for now. I hope our colleagues around the table will recognize the error of the government's ways on this particular project and support our motion and the amendment to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Mr. Deltell, you have the floor.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I support the amendment proposed by my colleague Mr. Kram, as he has succinctly expressed the problem we’re all facing. As my colleague Mr. Perkins, who lives where the stakes are highest, so aptly explained, it demonstrates quite clearly that the government has regrettably halted an extraordinarily positive drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Worse still, it’s a Canadian project that has unfortunately been nipped in the bud by the government’s attitude.

I’d like to reiterate that we’re all united in the desire to reduce pollution and face up to the real dangers and problems generated by climate change, which we all recognize. That’s why we need to adopt approaches that are far more pragmatic than ideological, and solutions that deliver real results, rather than ideological debates and radical rhetoric. Instead, we need concrete measures that deliver real results.

That is precisely what the leader of the official opposition expressed in his landmark speech in Quebec City on September 8. Indeed, he made it clear that we need to make real, strong changes and adopt a much more positive approach to countering the effects of climate change. These measures must be based on three flagship elements, which guide us in our actions, as articulated in the Quebec City speech on September 8.

First, we need to invest in new technologies. That’s exactly what this project is about: tidal energy. Let me explain. About ten years ago, in Quebec, we wanted to set up a project to create energy from the tides. But the project didn’t work, because Quebec’s tides aren’t powerful enough. We tried, but it didn’t work. It did, however, advance science and technology. It led to the results we’ve seen in Nova Scotia. So we need to invest in new technologies. That’s exactly what we’re talking about here.

The second pillar of action mentioned in the Quebec City speech is that we need to give green energy the green light. That’s essential. We need more and more energy sources based on a clean environment. We all agree on that. Last week, I had the opportunity to explain at length the history of the Quebec advantage in hydroelectricity. In the 1950s, well-informed people and governments enabled the extraordinary deployment of Quebec’s hydroelectric potential. I won’t go back over what I’ve already said about the Bersimis, Rivière aux Outardes and Manicouagan power plants. In any case, the historical reality is that Quebec today has exceptional hydroelectric power and should be a source of inspiration to us all. As Mr. Perkins so eloquently explained earlier, Sustainable Marine Energy’s technology would enable us to produce green energy that would benefit everyone. So we need to give green energy the green light, not the red light as the government has sadly done.

The third pillar expressed by the leader of the official opposition during his notable speech in Quebec City on September 8 is that we should be proud of Canadian know-how. We need to export it, but first we need to apply it to our natural resources, among other things. Natural resources are obviously part of the concept, and have a direct bearing on tidal power. As I said earlier, Quebec tried these technologies ten or fifteen years ago, but they didn’t work, because we don’t have the necessary potential. Perhaps we’ll find places where we can really exploit the full potential of tidal energy. The Bay of Fundy, as Mr. Perkins, a local citizen, so eloquently explained, has the most powerful tides in Canada. They attract worldwide attention. Technologies that were tried but didn’t work were refined. It got to the point where the new technology applied in this project made it profitable. The project was profitable in its own right, without the need for a tax. That’s the unfortunate thing about this situation. This project was always going in circles, stymied and red-taped, instead of being acted upon in a concrete, realistic and responsible way, with a view to taking action, completing the project and achieving tangible results. Regrettably, we failed.

I’d like to reiterate that, in our view, climate change is real, and we need to implement concrete measures to tackle the real problems it creates. This includes innovation and new technologies. We also need to give green energy the green light. What’s more, Canada has all the resources it needs to fully exploit its energy potential. If we don’t, other countries will, and they won’t all have the same ethical and environmental standards as we Canadians do.

It’s a shame that such a wonderful project has been shelved due to the government’s unwillingness to make it happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

No one else seems to wish to speak to the amendment, so we’ll move to the vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4.)

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I have a new motion I'd like to read.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is it an amendment to this motion?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

No. It's a new motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have to finish this motion, and then we'll go back to the other motion.

The amendment was rejected, so we will now come back to the original version of the motion.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I guess we'll go back to the speakers list. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes.

Do you still want me to read the motion?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

You might as well, so that we're all on the same page.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Very well. I’ll read it out:

That the committee express its disappointment with the regulatory environment created by this government that has led to tidal power projects pulling out of Canada and acknowledges that one of the primary factors contributing to the departure of these capital investments has been recent changes that have created an intricate regulatory landscape.

I just learned a new word: “marémotrice”.

Resuming debate on the motion.

Mr. van Koeverden, you have the floor.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I withdraw.