Finance Committee on Oct. 16th, 2006

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I guess that would in turn set up some other perverse consequences with respect to cross-border competition. But let me leave it there; I appreciate your answer.

To the grape grower folks, I appreciate that you have to replace your base stock. According to your notes here, it's $12,000 an acre. It sounds like a lot of money to me, and I think it is, actually, over a number of years. So I buy your arguments in some respect.

I wonder, though, what would stop the apple grower representatives from sitting in your seat tomorrow and saying, “We can't compete any longer, with the people like the grape growers, or with the product we have, so why is it you won't fund us for a similar kind of replanting program?”

[Debbie Zimmerman]

First of all--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Je suis désolé, madame. The time is done for Mr. McKay. You'll have to work your answer into your next question.

Mr. St-Cyr, you have five minutes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to welcome the spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers. Because I am an engineer myself, I obviously have a number of questions for Ms. Lemay.

I'm very pleased to hear you talk about a long-term approach and scientific realities. The view of professional engineers can only be helpful. I appreciated the fact that you talked about global warming. Certain members of the government, and even the Prime Minister, have sometimes suggested that global warming may be nothing more than a myth or a fact of uncertain credibility. However, many Canadians and Quebeckers believe that meeting our Kyoto targets is the absolute minimum we should achieve as a society.

What is your view on this as spokesperson for professional engineers? Do you see meeting our Kyoto targets as a minimum, or as simply a myth that has been completely blown out of proportion?

[Marie Lemay]

In fact, Mr. St-Cyr, what is very clear -- and the scientific community, including professional engineers, has said this very clearly -- is that even if we are able to mitigate the impacts of global warming, changes will occur. Where we, as professional engineers, can have an impact, is with respect to the plan of adjustment. Whatever we do, even if we succeed in putting a stop to this phenomenon, changes will continue to happen. So, this is not a myth. We have to find a way to adapt.

Professional engineers believe that we have to work very hard to find ways to adjust to climate change. In terms of design parameters and structures, people used to say that a catastrophe happened once every one hundred years. But now there is one practically every five years.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

For many people, there is an economic risk associated with reducing greenhouse gases. Even today, a minister told us that protecting the environment leads to job losses.

Are there many members of your council who believe that developing systems that emit fewer greenhouse gases could in fact be a business opportunity? In the long term, could it not end up being much more costly to do nothing but try and reduce to a minimum any consequences associated with global warming?

[Marie Lemay]

There is no doubt that any change brings with it opportunities to be innovative. And professional engineers are well positioned to develop new solutions, particularly as regards adaptation. We will have to find new ways of doing things. All kinds of new techniques and technologies will be available to help us accomplish that.

But in order to be successful at that -- and this leads me back to the round table concept, we need to be able to share. It is also important that the necessary money be invested, whether it be for climate change or infrastructure. It is essential that this not be done in an isolated way. We're going to have to bring all the players to the table -- in other words, all the key stakeholders and the different levels of government -- to address the real issues.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

We can pass laws and set all kinds of great objectives, but the important thing is whether we have the ability to attain them. Do you think professional engineers in Canada and Quebec and elsewhere are capable of developing solutions to address this challenge, so that our society has an attractive standard of living while at the same time significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

[Marie Lemay]

I'm absolutely convinced of it.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Professional engineers certainly have a role to play in the public arena. Indeed, the reason I wanted to get elected was to make that voice heard.

We have addressed a number of different topics in this Committee, especially the government's environmental policy. We are seeing a whole mix of things in this area. They talk about preventing smog, on the one hand, and climate change, on the other. And yet, these are two separate things.

Witnesses have come before this Committee to say that by reducing smog, we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, I think it's actually the reverse, and I would like to hear the opinion of engineers on this. It is possible to use fossil fuels, to filter the particles before release and, in so doing, resolve the smog problem, since no pollutant is actually released into the atmosphere. However, CO₂ does pass through these filters and ends up in the atmosphere.

So, we have resolved only one of the two problems. However, if we proceed in the reverse manner -- in other words, reduce the consumption of fossil fuels to a minimum -- CO₂ will never be released and it won't need to be recovered. The same applies to pollutants.

Do you think that is a realistic analysis from a scientific perspective, or is this just one opinion among many, as some say?

[Marie Lemay]

As professional engineers, we have avoided getting involved in the policy aspect of the decision. That's the reason why we are now spending a lot of time, resources and efforts on the adaptation side of things. We have stayed away from the political debate, and left those matters up to politicians, but there is no doubt we will also have to get involved at the front end. But we began by focussing on the adaptation piece.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Do you think the public expects people with scientific knowledge to get involved in the debate by presenting the scientific realities?

[Marie Lemay]

Certainly.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I hope to see you doing that in the coming months.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Merci, monsieur.

The next questioner is Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I appreciated the presentations from everyone. I'd like to begin with Mr. Sadik, who made a couple of very interesting proposals.

The one that struck a chord with me deals with water. I agree with you that for a long time we haven't placed any value on water. I've often wondered why our country doesn't have a policy or an act pertaining to the protection of water and how to deal with it.

Do you have any recommendations in this area?

[Pierre Sadik]

Actually, we have some national water quality guidelines, but they are only guidelines. They're not enforceable. So we have a patchwork quilt of provincial and municipal water standards. In far too many instances, we have no water standards at all.

One solution would be to look to the countries that finished ahead of Canada, both in the economic ranking that the World Economic Forum recently released and in the OECD environmental ranking. Many of these countries have a national environmental plan or strategy, something that creates a comprehensive and consistent level of standards for air, water, land, and maintenance of biodiversity. This would be something that the feds and the provinces get together on and the provinces buy into. The buy-in is essential.

This would level the playing field. It would also do away with some of the concerns that arise in various jurisdictions. They are concerned that if they introduce meaningful standards in one area, then economic actors will go next door to another area, where they can operate less expensively or in a less responsible manner.

So the answer is to put in place enforceable national standards.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Is the second part of what you're speaking about education? I understand attaching a fee to it, as in business. I have a water meter; we pay for our water usage. It does encourage more responsible use of water. I would absolutely agree with you on that, but is the second part of it education? I don't know if the average person knows that a garden hose runs 600 gallons of water an hour. Is that part of it?

[Pierre Sadik]

Education, or the fancy term we use for it sometimes, social marketing, is creating a positive buzz around acting responsibly in connection with the environment. In the same way that four decades ago drinking and driving was a wink-wink, nudge-nudge thing, or smoking inside was acceptable, through social marketing, or education as you call it, and leadership by the federal government, people in society came around to seeing that the responsible way for the greater good of all of society was to not drink and drive and not subject others to the danger of smoking.

I think we're moving that way. For example, we're beginning to see that with something like compact fluorescent lights. There's a porch light program in Ontario, and perhaps in some other provinces as well. It's a good way to save money and a neighbourly thing to do, as you have a fluorescent light on your porch instead of burning a 100-watt bulb all night long when everyone is asleep anyway. That kind of thing creates a positive buzz around sustainability.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Is the foundation happier with the advent of the low sulphur diesel requirements and its effectiveness?

[Pierre Sadik]

That's a fantastic step in the right direction that's been coming along in harmony with the U.S. It's a fantastic step, yes.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

This is for the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada. You mentioned a couple of things about infrastructure. You indicated you feel there's about a $60 billion deficit, and that is growing by about $2 billion a year. You had to be somewhat satisfied with the direction of Budget 2006, with the significant infrastructure investments that were outlined in Budget 2006.

[Claude Paul Boivin]

Yes, we've been extremely pleased with the last budget and also the contribution of the previous government to infrastructure. The last budget was music to our ears. I think the investments are in the right direction and in the right order of contribution.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I wrote down a quote you said about lowest-cost bidding and that we shouldn't be chasing the lowest-cost bid. I agree with you that the lowest-cost bid isn't always the best-cost alternative. Could you expand on that a little? This morning we heard from a group that wanted to talk to our departments about purchasing and how to be a better purchaser, a better manager of the resources. Can you expand a little on how you think we should go about that?

[Claude Paul Boivin]

The engineering design cost of a building, for example, is about 1% to 2% of the life cycle cost of the building. If you invest wisely in that 1% to 2%, you can have life cost savings that will save taxpayer dollars. There's a tendency in some governments to want to “low bid” the engineering work.

Engineering is not a commodity; it's professional services. If you had to have your daughter's eyes examined or operated upon, you wouldn't go to the first person who came out of medical school; you would choose the person who's done it before, and you would be prepared to pay the price of the professional services that are relevant.

We're saying they should be chosen on qualifications, competence, experience, and then for that 1% and 2%, you negotiate the fee, after you've selected the most appropriate engineering firm.