Natural Resources committee  I am not that familiar with that organization. I understand that there will be—

Natural Resources committee  They will provide information to other agencies as well.

Natural Resources committee  That national level organization is the definitive organization for providing information back out. We're not suggesting that we would create an agency in Canada and that it would mean that we then don't have to report anything, anywhere, ever again. We realize that there are always going to be other requirements.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Absolutely. What we would have ideally, though, at least is consistency in terms of what the definitions are and consistency in terms of the data, because we don't even have that now. Frankly, we have inconsistencies in the national information provided to and then pumped back from Natural Resources Canada and Statistics Canada, for example.

Natural Resources committee  I would agree entirely. For this to work, it's going to have to be done in a co-operative and collaborative manner. We've suggested that there will be a need for formal agreements between the different levels of government, ultimately, whether the tool to move forward with is the EMMC, or some other method.

Natural Resources committee  That is a terrific question. It is central. The short answer is, no we don't have the capacity to be able to fix data quality—certainly not specifically in Canada. This is a universal problem. Every jurisdiction and economy has to deal with it, and is dealing with it. As for what you can do about it, we sponsored this paper and continue to sponsor other work in this area to try to improve data quality.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Agreed.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting CEA to appear before you this afternoon. I am Francis Bradley, the chief operating officer of CEA. I am joined this morning by my colleague Sarah Nolan, and I am also delighted to be appearing along with my colleagues from QUEST.

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely, and thank you for that. We tend to use shorthand to try to explain sometimes what some of these efficiencies translate to. Perhaps that's one of the ones we might want to suggest be used a little differently. As you point out, this is something that is clearly evolving.

Natural Resources committee  That's an excellent question. The ones that have the most bang for the buck—

Natural Resources committee  I would agree entirely. Both types of tools are going to be needed and for different things. Clearly, there's a very significant role that standards and regulations can play on the one hand, but we also know that in some circumstances incentives are also very effective. I don't want to keep harking back to our climate change commitments, but let me hark back to our climate change commitments just for a moment.

Natural Resources committee  The industrial programs for specific initiatives result in the greatest energy savings for individual actions that are taken, because you're talking about the largest loads around, on the one hand. On the other hand, if the second question is where are you going to get the most bang for your buck—

Natural Resources committee  I don't have numbers on it, but my guess, based on talking to our members, is that it's likely in the consumer space. It means reaching out to a greater number of people, but the ability to get people on board is also an additional benefit.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, and not just considering—there are a number of pilot projects across the country precisely in this space. If we are considering what our climate change goals are and what the impacts will be on the economy writ large, I've mentioned to this committee before about some work done by the Trottier Energy Futures.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Francis Bradley, and I am the chief operating officer of the Canadian Electricity Association, or CEA. CEA is the national voice of electricity. Our members include generation, transmission and distribution companies, as well as technology and service providers from across the country.