Evidence of meeting #28 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem
It deals with the capital cost allowance tax incentive.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
These are very practical recommendations for the federal government.
5:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem
Yes.
The first recommendation deals with the commercialization of innovations. We can't just stimulate innovation, we also have to commercialize it in order to create wealth and jobs.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Very well.
According to the table before me, 60% of waste is recovered and recycled. In Drummondville, our landfill site will soon be completely full and we will have to think about finding an alternative. Several stakeholders in our region are using Enerkem technology and have been in contact with you. I know there have been discussions in this area.
People try to recycle their kitchen waste for black soil and compost. It was pointed out earlier that this leaves 30% of unrecycled waste. Could you give us a few examples of objects that cannot be recycled or turned into compost and that might be appropriate for your technology?
5:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem
That is a good question.
Recycling and composting can cover up to 60% of waste economically, but municipalities have not found a solution for the remaining 40% of waste.
We can deal with 30% of the waste and thereby reach a percentage of 90%. This waste may be textiles, leftover lumber, plastic food packaging, old pairs of shoes, pizza boxes with leftover tomato sauce or old non-recyclable plastic toys. There is a large variety of material that can be turned into ethanol.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
We spoke earlier of the value on carbon or the price of carbon. We all agree on the notion, no matter the term used. We have to take carbon pollution into account. Your operations greatly reduce greenhouse gases and it's very positive.
Is the current regime sufficient enough to be competitive or must we set a price on carbon?
5:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem
If we want this industry to flourish, we have to make sure that the rules are fair. It is only through a price on carbon that businesses will contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the current environment, that is a very difficult thing to do.
5:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Renewable Fuels Association
One of the things I would point to—and again, it's one of those things where there are several different formulas that renewable fuels regulations around the world have taken—is that we have asked the federal government, as Ms. Leslie pointed out, to increase the renewable diesel mandate from 2% to 5%, but there are also the threshold approaches for GHG reductions, which is what the Province of Alberta has implemented for its renewable fuel standard. British Columbia has a low carbon fuel standard, which will differentiate within the actual fuel streams from a GHG perspective. Ontario very recently has put in a mechanism that will allow fuels that have a lower GHG profile to be worth more inside the compliance unit mechanisms than others, so various different mechanisms can be used.
We would support anything that would allow for the fair value of the GHGs to be measured and effectively translated into a contract.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
There is a lot of talk about reducing pollution at the source. In fact, I just tabled a motion in the House of Commons that deals with energy efficiency to help reduce pollution at the source.
If we were to implement your technology in Drummondville, would it not create a need that would require constant feeding? The people in my region are worried about that. What can you say to them to reassure them?
5:30 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem
Municipalities have very clear rules to follow. They must respect the hierarchy of the 3R-RD principle, a principle that they need to implement. Municipalities thus cannot decide to simply do as they please, which is a very good thing. For our part, we wholeheartedly agree with these principles.
When people in communities speak to me about their concerns in this regard, I tell them that we have a certain flexibility. It is possible that in 20 years, a number of new technologies will allow us to increase recycling even more and reduce the quantity of matter in our processing plants. We can help a good many sectors, such as the commercial and industrial sectors, along with those sectors that deal with construction lumber waste and plastics in cars, even waste from car shredding. Why not? There's also forestry or agricultural waste in that region. Obviously, in that last case, we have to consider what needs to stay on the soil to fertilize it.
So there's great flexibility and a huge variety of waste matter that we can use in our process. We can also use, as a complement, resources found in the region. When we make investments today and for the long term, we always take into account that people will eventually be recycling even more than today.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you very much. We are pretty well at the end; we went a little over.
I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. Thank you to Ms. McClenaghan and Ms. Fe de Leon for appearing by video. Thank you to Mr. Scott Thurlow and Ms. Marie-Hélène Labrie for your input today.
The meeting is adjourned.