Government Operations Committee on April 18th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Aspin.

For the Liberals, we have John McCallum.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to you all.

Mr. Laframboise, what year did the Office of Greening Government Operations begin?

[Robert Laframboise]

It was established in 2005.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Was it closed at one point and then reopened?

[Robert Laframboise]

Not that I'm aware of. It has moved from different parts of the organization.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay, thanks.

Ms. Buckley, I'd like to come back to the question of energy contracts that was raised earlier. If it's true that the cost of achieving efficiencies through those contracts is 20% to 40% higher than the cost if you have in-house operations, then it seems to me that it doesn't really make sense to do it that way, from the overall taxpayer's point of view.

From an individual department's point of view, if they don't have the capital, as you said, they don't really have any choice. But that's just one department. From a whole of government point of view, from the point of view of all Canadian taxpayers, would it not make sense to provide them with the capital and thereby achieve the 20% to 40% savings by doing it internally?

[Carol Buckley]

Thank you for the question. I'm not familiar with the number of 20% to 40%. It sounds a bit high, but certainly if you finance anything externally, it's going to cost more than if you finance it internally.

Our program doesn't have the authority, it doesn't have the mandate, it doesn't have access to any funds, which would be useful to lend to departments, but it's not how the program is designed, nor the authority that we have.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

This committee can go beyond the status quo, so one possible recommendation would be in that direction.

[Carol Buckley]

Certainly across the economy there are examples of different kinds of funds to finance energy efficiencies. Toronto has a very interesting one called the Toronto atmospheric fund, which funds building retrofits across the city.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My next point is a more general one. At the last meeting we had four witnesses in remarkable agreement with each other that Canada was no longer a leader, that Canada had lost its ranking in terms of energy efficiency compared with other countries, notably European countries.

Perhaps this is partly because energy costs have been higher in Europe, or that people have different attitudes, but they also said that the federal government could provide more leadership to help Canada get out of its rut, as it were.

I don't necessarily agree with all these points, but they said, for example, we should measure our inventory, understand where we are, set targets that we think are appropriate, invest to hit those targets, try to get the provinces to adopt a national building code, and create a revolving fund.

My question, perhaps to Mr. McBain and Mr. Munro, is twofold. One, do you agree that Canada has deteriorated in its ranking globally in terms of achieving energy efficiencies, and two, do you agree with any of those recommendations for a leadership role by the federal government?

[John McBain]

I won't comment on our ranking nationally. I'll leave that to Geoff and Carol. I am very proud of the achievements I cited earlier, which is the 19% reduction in our energy consumption from 2001 to 2010. In setting LEED gold as a standard for all new construction, I think PWGSC is very clear about what we hope or plan to achieve in terms of reductions.

The point about measurement, I couldn't agree more with. We perform energy audits on all our buildings with space of 1,000 square metres or more, every five years. The audit involves measuring and documenting how much energy you're consuming at that point, and identifying opportunities for improvements or upgrades. These are potentially FBI projects.

We do that cyclically through our inventory. We are establishing waypoints to measure ourselves. We wholeheartedly agree with that approach because we have practised it.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

But you don't agree in the sense that he's telling you to do this, whereas in fact you're saying that you're already doing it. You're measuring your inventory and you're setting targets. Is that right?

[John McBain]

Well, we've set a target in terms of an energy intensity—yes, we have, for our portfolio.

So I agree with it as an initiative. I have to, because that's what we're practising.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[Geoff Munro]

With regard to specific statistics in terms of where Canada ranks, Carol actually monitors that and has the specific numbers, so I'll let her speak to that first.

If you want me to respond to the other aspects of the question, I'd be happy to do that.

[Carol Buckley]

Thank you, Geoff.

The International Energy Agency does regular monitoring of the energy efficiency performance of countries in its purview, so 18 or 20 countries. The latest statistics show that Canada was the second most improved in energy efficiency over the past two decades, second only behind Germany. We were number five, out of 17 or 18 countries, in terms of implementing what the IEA considers is the gold standard of energy efficiency in a country. This is assessing Canada as a country and our energy efficiency performance, not just the federal government, just to make that clear.

My branch tracks the energy performance of the economy. Our latest statistics show us that we have improved energy efficiency in the economy by 25% over the past two decades. That was worth $32 billion in energy costs that we didn't have to spend due to energy efficiency in 2010.

I just want to make one factual point on the recommendations that were made. We have implemented a model national energy code for buildings. It was published in 2011. It was 25% more stringent than the previous model code.

This was work that we led, with our colleagues at the National Research Council and all the provinces and territories together, over a period of about four or five years. Now every province and territory but one are implementing that. The savings associated would fire up the Tim Hortons across Canada five times over.

So there are really significant energy savings associated with that.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

One certainly gets different information from different people.

Can I have one last question?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

No. You're way over, John.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You were over a long time ago.

Let's have Bernard Trottier pick it up.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

They were energetic and forceful questions, and we appreciate them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming in.

I want to talk about the departmental performance reports. They were tabled just recently.

You mentioned some success stories within DND and in Public Works itself. Are there other departments you can point to that have actually had some good success in reducing their energy footprint?

[Robert Laframboise]

Yes, there have been some good reports coming out from departments. We have some best practices that have been shared by departments. Transport Canada has some best practices out on their DPR, if you've read their DPR.

Overall we've been achieving some good progress. For instance, we were planning to achieve a 3% GHG reduction for this fiscal year, and we are currently at, I believe, 3.9%. We've surpassed what we had planned for.

So there is some good progress happening.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

In the DPRs, are there energy reduction targets for each of the departments?

[Robert Laframboise]

No, there aren't.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

To your knowledge, is that something the departments will be putting into their future departmental performance reports and, I suppose, their plans and priorities?