Evidence of meeting #23 for Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was products.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

John Moffet  Acting Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Michel Arès  Counsel, Legal Services, Department of the Environment
Carol Buckley  Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources
Brenda MacKenzie  Legal Counsel, Department of Justice

1:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

I see no amendments to clause 42.

Mr. Godfrey.

1:25 p.m.

Liberal

John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON

This is simply to ask clarification of the new officials. Welcome.

My understanding of this is that it seems to be a refinement of classes of energy-using products. I just want to make sure I understand this, and I'd like to hear a little bit of the rationale. It seems like a good thing, but as I understand it, it says there are three classes. One is based on common energy-consuming characteristics, the way in which they use the energy. The second category is the use of the products. Then I guess the third category is—and maybe here you can explain a bit—the conditions under which the products are normally used. So those are characteristics, use, and conditions.

Could you just explain why we're doing this, and perhaps just amplify a little bit what that means?

1:30 p.m.

Carol Buckley Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Sure thing.

The way the act is currently drafted, we have the authority to regulate energy-using products per se, just as it is. This amendment broadens our capacity to regulate products that affect energy use but may not be energy-using products in and of themselves.

The example is electronic thermostats, which don't use energy, or an appreciable amount of energy, but they have a tremendous impact on calibrating an electrically heated house efficiently. You can save 10% or 12% if you have an electronic thermostat and you're calibrating your heat down at night. We'd like to regulate the most efficient electronic thermostats, because they can help homeowners save money in their electrically heated homes, but the current act, as written, will not allow us to regulate electronic thermostats because they're not defined in the current act.

Another example is a piece within commercial dishwashers that distributes the water, the spray valve. It doesn't use any energy, but if you use a particular technology, you can have tremendous savings within that area of technology. So this broadens the act to allow us to get at more products that affect energy use, not just energy-using products themselves.

I want to give you one more example, because it deals with another aspect of this amendment. We want the authority to regulate classes of related products. So if you think of the proliferation of consumer electronics in all our homes these days, we would like to be able to regulate their standby power as a class. It would be more efficient than regulating each and every product in maybe a class of 10 different products individually. We would be more efficient to put those into one regulatory process and do them as a class. This wording simply allows us to do that.

1:30 p.m.

Liberal

John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON

That makes perfect sense.

1:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

Mr. Cullen.

1:30 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

There have been many questions about the interface with government policy and the effect on the economy. Do we have any understanding of the economic impacts, or how many of these products...? We heard from some witnesses just how few....

We tried to get witnesses from the manufacturing sector to come forward to the committee. I recall as we were building that witness list how difficult it was to find any because so many of them had moved overseas or across the border.

Did the department go through any kind of assessment of these types of classes of products that you seek to regulate and change? What percentage are made in Canada, and if so, what is the impact? Is there increased pricing? Is it more difficult for them to operate their businesses under this type of policy? I'm trying to understand if an economic assessment was done.

1:30 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

We're proposing to regulate 20 new products and strengthen the regulations for 10 products we are already regulating. We're certainly open to regulating any other products that come up where it makes a lot of sense. So we have a strong intention to do a lot of regulation.

Through the regulatory process we consult with the manufacturers, distributors, users, and other jurisdictions, both domestically and outside of our borders, on any particular regulation. During the course of that consultation we do both technical and financial analyses as to what the financial impact will be on manufacturers and importers in Canada.

I don't have an answer about what percent of the manufacturers of the slate of 30 new regulations are Canadian. No doubt we could get that for you with some estimates. But during the course of a regulation we do a very good job at looking at the cost-benefit analysis from the manufacturer's perspective and the user's perspective. It's just part of the process.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Sometimes we hear about these things after the fact, when a manufacturer wakes up one morning, sees it in the paper, and has concerns. So just to be explicit, you talked about 20 new products and 10 existing ones. Are any of these made in Canada?

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

Certainly some are made here. I just can't match up which ones and what percent would be made here.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

That's fine. But in the consultations you had, you felt well-assured that there weren't concerns from them that this was going to add a measure of cost to business.

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

We're announcing the intent to regulate these things. We are not at the end of our regulatory process, so we'll be doing them in phases over a number of years. I believe I supplied to this committee the list of products I'm mentioning here.

We have a timetable to regulate these products, and we will post the products that will be regulated in a consultative phase. Then we will gazette them so that all manufacturers will get due notice and an opportunity to comment and discuss the impact.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

You said you presented this list to the committee?

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

When I was last at the committee to speak—the exact date escapes me—there was a question about what products we were planning to regulate. Within a day or two I supplied a list of the products we were planning to regulate.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

This is not to disparage the consultations you had, but we as members of Parliament often hear from manufacturers that they were never told; it never happened.

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

It's a very open process. We are very up-front well in advance within all the prescribed requirements of doing a regulation, because we want manufacturers to be aware of it and to let us know their views.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

My last question is on what's become known colloquially as “vulture electronics”, or the drawing off of energy by certain products in the standby mode. Does this part of the change to the Energy Efficiency Act affect that? Is that somewhere else, or are we affecting it at all? Education on this in the general public has grown recently.

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

The previous question on the changes to the definition of what the scope of the Energy Efficiency Act would cover will allow us to regulate standby or off-use electricity use more efficiently. In other words, we'll do a whole class of these standby products together in one fell swoop. So it's important to be able to do them as a bunch. That's why we were asking for the change in wording. We don't require that amendment in order to be able to regulate the standby power characteristics of products.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

I want to be clear that as this act sits right now...you said, “as it was amended”?

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

Without the amendments we can still regulate standby power; with the amendments we can do it more effectively, by bundling up like products—

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

And calling them a class?

1:35 p.m.

Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources

Carol Buckley

—consumer products, and working on them class by class.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Okay.

1:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

Is there any other debate on clause 42, or queries?

(Clause 42 agreed to)

(On clause 43)

1:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

I see no amendments on clause 43.

Mr. Cullen.

1:35 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

This is a question, not an amendment at this point.

We talked to one importer who spoke—this was not at the committee, but in a more private conversation--about changes we make to our regulations that could be deemed to limit the importation of products, particularly from the United States or Mexico. Always the spectre of NAFTA gets raised, in terms of whether Canada is putting up a false barrier. I think through the experience of trying to get Canadian manufacturers to the committee and realizing just how few there are and how many of our products are now being imported from south of the border or overseas....

What did the department—and I'm not sure whether this is to the parliamentary secretary or to you—do to verify what legal challenges could be brought?

The thing we don't want to do is put in a regulation that someone can challenge at a NAFTA court, or WTO, or wherever they would take it, while trying to do something good, which is to improve the efficiency of products. More importantly, do we have experience in doing that and know that we can get away with it?

I don't know who, of the parliamentary secretary or the officials—