Evidence of meeting #38 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cepa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You made a comment about the bulk of chemicals being imports. Can you quantify that?
November 24th, 2016 / 4:40 p.m.
Senior Director, Retail Council of Canada
I cannot, and just for greater clarity, it would be imported and manufactured, as opposed to appearing in the microphones and the suits and the ties. But no, I don't have that.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Okay.
Do you know if there is a synchronization between the rules on imports versus manufacturing? Are they synchronized, so that with what we're manufacturing, the rules are the same for what we're importing?
4:40 p.m.
Senior Director, Retail Council of Canada
As far as section 71 is concerned, I believe, yes, it doesn't discriminate.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Senior Director, Retail Council of Canada
No, and it would then be up to the regulators, Environment Canada and officials at Health Canada, as they design the survey.
4:40 p.m.
Senior Director, Retail Council of Canada
Depending on what they're interested in, what they were looking for, they would target importers or manufacturers.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Okay.
Madam Chair, my next question is for our representative from the first nations.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Sure, then I'll have two and a half minutes left.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
You have three minutes left, so I'll come back to you and we'll go on to Mr. Eglinski.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Madam Chair, I will move over to probably the second question I was going to ask.
I'm going to ask an electrical question. You did mention the 30% drop in what electricity corporations have done. I know recently we met casually with the European sector, and they talked about the reductions they had. They were bragging about 30% or 40%, but the greatest amount of that came from the reduction in coal-fired generation.
I wonder if you can tell me any figures you may have of what you have done, leaving the coal-fired generation out of the picture. We all know that it is a large percentage. I wonder what your industry has done besides that.
4:45 p.m.
Director, Generation and Environment, Canadian Electricity Association
Maybe I'll start off and then let Ahmed respond as well.
You have to remember that this sector is almost 80% clean. In Canada, 60% of electricity is based on hydro power and another 15% is nuclear. The renewable capacity is growing significantly.
In terms of the coal capacity, it is based on capital stock turnover. We're going to see 93% reduction in coal by 2030 based on current regulations, which were introduced by the previous government. We are on a path to major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, so with the recently announced regulations, we can expect to even accelerate some of the reductions going forward.
What I also want to mention is that we need to think about the regional impacts since not all the provinces are created equal. Some provinces will have big financial impacts because of the phase-out of coal and other forms of generation compared with other provinces that are predominantly hydro.
There are just three final points I want to make. We need to think about and minimize the impact to Canadians on their electricity bills. As well, we have to make sure that the system we have is safe and reliable and also gives investor confidence to undertake that transition from coal to other forms of generation. Those are three important pillars that I would emphasize.
4:45 p.m.
Senior Advisor, Environmental Policy, Capital Power Corporation, Canadian Electricity Association
For example, there is a greenhouse gas cap in Nova Scotia. That actually has nothing to do with the coal phase-out. That was before. Alberta introduced the specified gas emitter regulation, which has been increased in 2017 to $30, with a 20% emission cut. Ontario introduced a cap-and-trade system. This is recent, but Alberta's and Nova Scotia's regulations are older and have longer histories than the cap-and-trade system in Ontario.
The other thing is that there has been improvement in the system generally, related to transmission, for example. That is one thing that improved the efficiency of the system because you have less losses in the transmission.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Okay. You had gone a little bit further earlier and you mentioned carbon capture at Saskatchewan Power. You're aware that recently Germany, after trying a number of new innovations, has decided to go back and reconsider their coal-fired generation.
I wonder if you could comment on that. Does your industry think they could reduce coal-fired emissions to zero, considering the Saskatchewan example?
4:45 p.m.
Director, Generation and Environment, Canadian Electricity Association
I can speak to that at a very high level and Ahmed, if you may, after that.
Innovation is also about risk. Every time these companies invest there is that potential of failure, but as a country, we need to continue to invest in innovative technologies and we can't be followers. We need to be leaders and Canada is in a unique position, as I said, with over 80% non-emitting generation, so I don't think we'll be in the same position as Germany. I think the way the existing capital is turning over with a lot of the coal-fired generation being transitioned to other forms of generation, we are going to be in a much better place. We need to start focusing on other sectors, such as transportation, that make up the bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
With the innovations we have, we can start electrifying other sectors of the economy, such as transportation and buildings.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
You have 30 seconds. You might not have time for another question, but you could try.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We'll add it onto his time.
We're going back to Mr. Gerretsen for three minutes.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for coming back.
My question was about how our indigenous communities currently deal with exposure to toxic substances. Is there a way to mitigate the risk currently? More broadly, would you agree that the risk levels are different among different segments of the Canadian population, whether the socio-economic backgrounds are different or the geographical locations where they are located are different?