Evidence of meeting #41 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sector.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
President, Canadian Petroleum Products Institute
For indirect jobs, that would certainly probably run up into the tens of thousands beyond that.
12:40 p.m.
President, Canadian Steel Producers Association
My estimate is that in normal times, so to speak, it would be in the range of 30,000 people. The indirect jobs would reach back to sectors like mining and even transportation. For example, we're the biggest user of the St. Lawrence Seaway system, so the indirect impacts would also be substantial. We're clearly well down right now because of the economic crisis, but in normal times those would be the numbers.
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Cement Association of Canada
In Canada we have 15 cement plants. We employ approximately 2,000 people directly. Indirectly, for concrete, there would be 15,000 people, but you must understand that cement equals concrete and concrete equals construction, economic development, so induced jobs are hundreds of thousands of dollars. No cement, no construction.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's right.
Would each of you say that is more or less relevant to, say, the Pembina Institute and how many people they hire, or the Suzuki Foundation and how many people they hire, or any of the other environmental non-governmental organizations and how many people they hire?
I'm asking this question, obviously, as a bit of a cynic. I don't expect you to know the answer, but I think I've made my point.
I'd like to get on, Mr. Lloyd, to the question that you had, and I'm actually quite excited about the points you brought up. I think where Canada stands to gain the most from this is through the development of technologies that deal with being cleaner, being more efficient, as we move forward. Most Canadians would agree with that. It makes more sense to me, as an Albertan, as a Canadian, that we invest in our own industries, invest through technologies to make our own industries stronger. Obviously, that will give us a technological advantage, which we can use. It will enhance our education facilities, research facilities. It will enhance our ability to export these technologies around the world. I would actually like to see a plan that goes forward investing more into that technology.
Could you just reiterate for the committee some of the problems you see with the technology as it was proposed before, and where you'd like to see that go in a new type of agreement?
12:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
The technology fund that was originally proposed in Turning the Corner was a very short-term measure, and it basically disappeared by 2018. It also very rapidly shrank in terms of the amount of compliance you could use for it. We were very disappointed, actually. We thought it was a very good idea that was turned into something that was not very useful.
Alberta, on the other hand, has a technology fund that's starting to get up and running now. They've appointed a board of directors. There's a representative, a retired vice-president of research from NOVA, who's on it. They have the kind of technology fund that we think can work, and we hope that's where the federal government moves to.
The Alberta fund is pegged right now at $15. I don't think that's realistic in the long term, and we'll probably see changes in that in Alberta. If the price of carbon goes up to what we expect, the carbon price in the technology fund should probably be informed by that. But that is a mechanism where, when you can't reduce your emissions to the targets you're assigned, you can put money into that fund and it will go to help develop the technology that's going to be necessary to improve our environmental performance in climate change.
We think that's an absolutely super approach. We hope that stays in the government plan, but we hope it's done much more along the Alberta lines, as we recommended. It probably shouldn't take the whole amount of your compliance. There are other aspects in this as well. There probably should be some limits on it, but we think a significant amount of your compliance should be able to be done through contributions to the technology fund. We think it's really a good idea that initially wasn't very well designed but can be improved greatly.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Sorry, your time has expired.
Moving right along, Mr. Trudeau, you have the floor.
December 1st, 2009 / 12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to talk about and look at the early adoption side of things. Might we just go across the different industries and hear approximately how much your various industries have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to today?
I think, Mr. Lloyd, you mentioned about 65% in your brief.
12:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
Yes. If you look at chart 1 in our submission, we did tremendously in the 1990s, and we did that because we were putting new plants in, we were investing in technology, and the economy was such that it supported doing that.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
President, Canadian Steel Producers Association
For us, it was 20% absolute; 25% intensity.
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Cement Association of Canada
There was a 6.4% reduction in intensity and an increase in greenhouse gases because of our volume of production.
12:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
I was just looking at our number. Our number was 65%.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Okay, 65%.
In three cases, we hit the Kyoto targets of 12% from 1990 levels by 2012, correct? In terms of the targets that were set and the line that was driven by Kyoto, whether it was industry, or economic circumstance, or capital upgrades, you were able to hit rather ambitious targets even though we weren't making tremendous efforts as a society to hit those targets. I think we can all agree on that. Is that fair enough?
12:45 p.m.
President, Canadian Petroleum Products Institute
I would say that, but I would want to qualify that this achievement, certainly in our sector, was met with a tremendous effort to do that. I wouldn't want to minimize the effort or the cost it took to get to that 12%.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you, Mr. Boag. I appreciate that.
Most likely that was the low-hanging fruit, things that you could upgrade. Further reductions, you might say, particularly in the order of Bill C-311, would be significant challenges, I'm sure.
I'd like to talk a little bit about the government's targets of 2006 as a baseline level and a further reduction of 20% from that. How easy is it going to be for you all to reach the 20% from 2006, without looking at any credit for early adoption of what you've done during the 1990s, for example?
12:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
That will be a challenging target. We probably won't be able to meet it by actual reductions. That's why being able to contribute to a technology fund is so important. The better capital cost allowance treatment we get, though, the better we'll be able to have new investments that will help us actually meet it through reductions.