Evidence of meeting #16 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was biodiesel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Boshcoff Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
We seem to have some other nods from other presenters.
Mr. Rudge, in the Yukon, wants to make the Yukon a GMO-free zone until the results are better known. Do you know of any other provinces or territories suggesting similar GMO-free zones?
5:50 p.m.
Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network
I do know, as you referred to, that in the Yukon there has been this petition presented to ask for a GE-free zone. We work with coalitions on the ground in British Columbia, quite a wide coalition, the Society for a G.E. Free B.C., which is working towards that goal of a GE-free province and certainly implementing, municipality by municipality, GE-free zones. It's a goal that had been taken up in Prince Edward Island as well. It's something that communities dotted across the country are choosing as a way to really look at how they could implement sustainable farming that could restrain the contamination risks from genetically engineered crops.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
5:50 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't say this every day, but I am particularly proud to have heard witnesses this evening talk about initiatives which were taken in my native town of Victoriaville. Mr. Barnabé talked about a study regarding waste water treatment plant sludge, which was done by the Institut national de la recherche scientifique. In fact, Mr. Barnabé works there too. It seems that our plant treats quality sludge! It's interesting that Mr. Lagacé was in attendance in Victoriaville when the town announced that its fleet of 35 trucks would run on biodiesel. It must be said that the Victoriaville fleet runs on ethanol. They also have hybrid vehicles, in addition to trucks which run on biofuel. We are leaders in that area.
Lastly, there is Mr. Couture, whom I know well and who comes from my region. I would like to congratulate him for being a worthy successor to Normand Maurice, and for doing such a good job helping our troubled young people. Mr. Couture, I would like to hear more about the project involving vehicles which run on French fry oil.
5:50 p.m.
Director, Centre de formation en entreprise et récupération de Victoriaville
Yes, that's right.
5:50 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Unless I'm mistaken, it's a drugstore delivery vehicle. There is a drugstore in Victoriaville which does deliveries and it runs on vegetable oil. I would like to know more about how that vehicle was adapted.
You also talked about temperatures. Winters are harsh in Quebec and Canada. Does that make a difference? At one time, when people used diesel, they sometimes let their motors run all night to be sure their vehicles would operate in winter. There have been some improvements in that area, but is it sometimes difficult to operate a vehicle running on vegetable oil in winter?
5:50 p.m.
Director, Centre de formation en entreprise et récupération de Victoriaville
The pharmacist did indeed have a problem with overheating. To solve the problem with vegetable oil, it must be heated to at least 90 degrees Celsius. The problem was that it overheated. We worked on the problem with the auto mechanics department, and with young refrigerationist students who also worked on the circuit. We fixed it. We came up with other sequences, other ways of working, and as a result we no longer have problems with overheating or filtration. We were able to solve the pharmacist's problems. We went farther, because it was a problem with supply.
The difficulty, when you want to use vegetable oil, is obtaining it and finding a place to pick it up. We worked with our distribution network, and we industrialized the process. We believed in this process, because we know that we are not sending 90% CO2 into the atmosphere, because it is a biomass system. That means it is very important to take this material and to burn it. We believed in it because we saw that the residue had become a resource. We wanted to use it and for the vehicle we adapted to use it. Having adapted the vehicle, we were able to conduct what we call zero tests. We go back from scratch, we start over, we work on our product and we have it verified by the chemists at Thetford Mines—it's called Oleotek—who have also helped us process our oils.
5:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
The vehicle is currently working well, even in winter. I know you are not an expert in mechanics, but I would like to know if, realistically, we could eventually foresee adapting other vehicles and whether the average person could adapt his own vehicle someday. I understand that you still do not have a supplier of french fry oil. I don't imagine you go to a restaurant and ask for the used oil to put in your car. That would be too good to be true, especially since it normally doesn't cost anything, as the oil is thrown away.
5:55 p.m.
Director, Centre de formation en entreprise et récupération de Victoriaville
Yes, it is waste oil. We work with waste oil. We are currently looking at how we can work with this product, and the approach in itself is promising. We feel we should take on the large transport trucks, trucks using 1.6 million litres of diesel per year. We must aim for a reduction of 35%, 40% or 45%. Biodiesel has its streams and does rather well with 5%. Ethanol is successful in the case of gas.
We wondered why not try and break through with this type of vehicle, with vehicles for public transportation. We think we could convert one tank out of two to vegetable oil in the school board's transportation fleet. The next experiment will be to convert a heavy vehicle.
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
February 25th, 2008 / 5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all the witnesses today.
Just to carry on, Mr. Couture, I have a facility very similar to yours in Owen Sound, Ontario. I should also mention that the local county there has two or three snowplows that they've been testing with this fuel source, or a mixture of them. They had some complications, but I think they're getting a lot of them ironed out. The one problem they seem to have is getting enough of the product locally, like the waste and what have you. It almost limits where you can go.
If you're going to stay local and not truck that stuff hundreds of miles, do you have any ideas on how you can overcome that with maybe another product? I know this gentleman here was also in the fish manufacturing business, so he was using some, I guess, waste out of the fish, or whatever, but somehow he was getting oil out of there.
So maybe you could comment on this side of it.
5:55 p.m.
Director, Centre de formation en entreprise et récupération de Victoriaville
We worked in a specific way, relying on awareness. Each student is responsible for meeting with other students and sharing information on recycling. The recycled paint is part of this approach. We go to the schools. In Quebec, there are currently 21 schools like ours, which is located in Victoriaville. For us, information is what helps feed the process. Thanks to information alone, in one day in Victoriaville, we recycle household hazardous wastes, paint, batteries, and so on. This mobilization is thanks to the commitment of young people in the community.
If the average citizen must get rid of used french fry oil, we must find out if there is a way of recycling it. It is a matter of looking at how much used vegetable oil can be collected in our 550 municipalities. That is the next test bed, and it is precisely the fragile link. You are absolutely right. We tested the product on one vehicle, and we are now on the threshold of a large-scale project. We are reluctant to place this order with the 550 municipalities for the time being.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you.
I'm going to move over to Mr. Lagacé and Mr. Barnabé. Both of you said something very similar, going back to using other products in the region. My question on that is, are you a combination on that? Do you have this belief that it shouldn't be solely from agricultural products? Is that the reason behind your thinking? Is it to help alleviate some of the obstacles in the forestry industry right now?
Maybe you could expand a little bit more on what your meaning is there.
6 p.m.
Scientific researcher, Added value production from waste materials, EcoNovo Consulting Experts
We have talked about combining waste matter and producing bioethanol using wastes that are difficult to convert into fuel. I was referring particularly to the mixture of green waste and municipal sewer sludge, for example. We have already investigated this option at the research institute where I used to work. We are also considering combining waste water from the starch industry, with waste matter such as municipal sewage sludge.
6 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Conseil québécois du biodiésel
We are talking about producing biofuels using agricultural biomass, but we can also do this using forest biomass and municipal biomass. Clearly, in the case of first generation technologies, we use mainly, if not solely, agricultural biomass. With the development of second- and third-generation technologies, we will start diversifying the sources of the biomass. The most valuable part of this process will be the carbon component of the biomass that we will manage to convert into a unit of energy or a biofuel. What will become increasingly interesting and important will be to do this, using the least expensive biomass. The common denominator that will mean that converting biomass will have a future will be a low cost for purchasing and converting it.
At the moment, making biodiesel from vegetable oil is too expensive in light of what the market will pay. Only biodiesel production using waste matter such as oil used for frying or animal fats is currently competitive compared to the prices of oil products in Canada. That fact must always be taken into consideration. Even if we want to use biomass to produce bioenergy and biofuels, what actually happens will be determined by the user and the intermediaries involved in this market.
Given this, it is true that regional conversion projects do offer some opportunities, such as the concept of biorefineries or eco-refineries. For each region, we need to consider all the sources of biomass available—agricultural, forest or municipal, and try to find the best processes for converting them into fuel.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you very much.
Your time has expired, Mr. Miller.
Mr. Atamanenko.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
I wish I had 15 minutes to spend with each one of you. There's so much interesting information here.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Couture. What you' re doing is very important, and I particularly want to congratulate the young people for their efforts.
I'm going to ask my questions and I'll try to get some answers.
Lucy, probably the first will be addressed to you.
The latest research shows that we have to be careful. Studies are coming out from the European Union and the United States that maybe we have to be careful about what we're doing, especially in regard to food versus fuel. If I understand correctly, your major concern is greenhouse gases. Some scientists, whom I quoted earlier on today, are saying that instead of reducing greenhouse gases—this is corn-based ethanol—by 20%, it will actually increase it by 93%. So I'd like a comment on that.
The southern hemisphere.... You mentioned human rights, labour rights, displacement of farmers, destruction of forests. These are grave concerns. My question would be, if we had a biofuel policy that clearly stated that we will not import any feedstock for the biofuel industry, would you see it as a viable industry, because then we wouldn't have any direct push for the industry in the southern hemisphere?
And the other one, of course, is genetically modified contamination. I've read about it and I understand the concerns of wheat and the very possible contamination of fuels. I really wasn't aware what's happening with trees, but I see it as a really frightening possibility that actually our forests could be contaminated.
Then I'm going to move on to Mr. Bender.
In regard to rural development, we mentioned and you mentioned that this is a way of stimulating rural development, and yet we had Dr. Klein here from Alberta a couple of weeks ago who had some concerns. He said, “ However, there has been some tendency...among proponents of the biofuel industry to overstate the economic activity linked to biofuels. Research shows that only a small number of permanent jobs are created...”. His point was that maybe there are more jobs lost in other agricultural sectors than those actually directly created with biofuels.
Also I'd like a comment from you on the whole idea of GM wheat contamination. As we know, our wheat is valued throughout the world. If there's a small possibility that this export of high-food-quality wheat is contaminated, folks like you could be in trouble.
Would you feel comfortable with a bill that says no to any GM kind of feedstock for the biofuel industry?
I'll stop and get some answers.
6:05 p.m.
Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network
Thank you.
The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network is concerned with greenhouse gas emissions and the life cycle of various feedstocks, but that's not our expertise and so perhaps we would refer you to other witnesses. I think tomorrow there's another group that has an expertise in that area.
What we've seen is these questions being raised. Our major concern, then, is actually the impact on global biodiversity, and then Canadian biodiversity, particularly when we see that an increased mandate for biofuels would mean increased industrial agriculture or monocropping, the use of genetically engineered crops. Even if Canada were not to be importing feedstocks for fuel, which still seems to be an open question, would we then instead be importing more feed for animals or more food? There still seems to be this question of a competition of land use for food or fuel or feed. Even given Canada's particular arable land and our particular conditions here, I think this is still a really important question for our position globally, and then for what it means for Canadian farmers and consumers.
Additionally, you asked about contamination. I think when we see Monsanto and other corporations like Syngenta promising to create new genetically engineered crops specifically for ethanol or for biofuel production, these are not necessarily crops that we want to see in the food system, and yet we know they will contaminate the food system. Even just two days ago the United States Department of Agriculture announced yet another contamination of corn that is not approved. So this is inevitable, and that's certainly a major concern as well.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Could you talk about contamination, Mr. Bender? I'm sure we're running out of time.
6:10 p.m.
Director, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
I can first address the issue of GM wheat. Currently we don't have genetically engineered wheat in Canada. The GM crop that we grow in western Canada is canola, and most canola right now is genetically engineered. I don't know the figure exactly; I'm guessing it's around 85%, because the economics have driven it there. The conventionals just did not provide that economic return. Pesticide use has dropped significantly with the genetically engineered canola.
With wheat, the door is open for that with the ethanol industry because breeding can take place for specific traits for ethanol, such as high-starch wheats, but we have those right now without genetic modification.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Can we keep it that way, because of this high risk of contaminating our really high-quality wheat?
6:10 p.m.
Director, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
One thing I look at now is the wheat market in the U.S. There are rumours that North America is going to run out of wheat before the new crop comes in, and if there's a way to grow more wheat on the acres that we have currently, perhaps that is the way to do it.
I'm not a scientist; I don't know the repercussions of that, but it is certainly something we need to consider. If the world gets hungry, we've got to find a way to feed it.