Evidence of meeting #96 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 north.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I'm going to have to stop you there. Thank you very much.
We'll carry on with Mr. Rogers.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
I would just say, prior to asking a question, that I have visited the north a couple of times and have had the good fortune of visiting the Northwest Territories and places like Inuvik and Fort McPherson and others. I was always struck by the challenges that people face there in building residential homes, and these kinds of things. I visited some friends who live in a very nice home in Inuvik who talked about the challenges of constructing, including permafrost challenges, of course, in the foundation, and the cost of doing that. I think that was a very straightforward home of maybe 2,000 square feet or less, which cost them somewhere in the area of three-quarters of a million dollars to build in the north.
When I listened to Mr. Wong talk about the dependence on diesel and old technology and that kind of thing, that's obviously a way to improve the efficiency. But to improve efficiency in residential homes in the north, I'm not sure what the answer would be. That's why I just raise that.
Mr. Fournier, you referred to some of the challenges. I'd like you to just comment on what might be most practical and affordable.
12:10 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
As for what's most practical, I think it's the same thing because that principle actually applies in the south. It's what I would call passive and very few, or no, bells and whistles, such as solar and this and that. It's really the basics, with an energy-efficient building envelope, which is airtight and highly efficient, with high-level or good quality windows and doors. All of those are basic. Orientation towards the sun is also practical, as the sun is very cheap. It's inexpensive, so having windows facing the sun is important.
What does that mean? It means that the town and community planning has to allow from that. We've developed a house that could literally flip, so depending on where your sun comes from, you can actually flip the plan and it will be built to face the sun, because, as we all know, the sun is actually very effective. It's a good source of energy. We're not talking about solar panels; we're just talking about sun pouring into your house.
Those are actually short-term measures, yet for a long time have been the most cost-effective ways of ensuring an energy-efficient home, whether it's here or in the Arctic. In the Arctic it will require a little more. When we're talking about air tightness, in the south, there's a little bit of elbow room. If it's not perfectly air tight, you might not know. However, in the Arctic, if it's not perfectly air tight, ice will start building up in the walls and you'll start having issues, whereas here it's not so critical. Out there, it is critical.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Yes. Mr. Wong, you mentioned the idea that, at the federal level, we maybe need some work being done in R and D labs instead of pilot projects. As a group, have you pursued that matter with the people here, at the federal level?
12:10 p.m.
Director of Infrastructure, Nunavut Housing Corporation
Yes. There's actually a workshop being planned in Yellowknife that's going to be tri-territorial. We're going to be meeting with people from CHARS, Polar Knowledge, and the CMHC, as well as the other jurisdictions, specifically to talk about research gaps and the state of building in each of the three territories. I'm quite looking forward to that.
I just want to pick up on one thing that Mr. Fournier pointed out. I also concur with his approach of using a more passive approach to energy efficiency and doing the basics of good energy-efficient building, which is really important. The other side of that is health. Energy-efficient construction means that, if we create tighter and tighter buildings, but if we don't have good ventilation, we start affecting health. Once again, with all these communities and so many units, one of our big issues in the north is excessive mould buildup in all our units. This is happening, and not just in old units that need upgrading. It's happening in our newer units. Much of it is traced to the ventilation requirement.
We start talking about more efficient HRVs and mechanical ventilation. We've had to put preheat coils onto our units, so they don't freeze up excessively. Also, the air is tempered, so that the comfort level is maintained because some people have been blocking them or turning them off, since they don't like the temperature of the air coming through them. We're actually introducing energy into the HRVs, which is meant to reduce the energy needed for that.
That's what I mean when I talk about a balance in terms of energy efficiency. You can make something based on current materials and technology and keep pushing the envelope to make those numbers go higher and higher, which makes fuel usage go down, technically. However, the livability of the place and the actual operation and maintenance of that place will drastically affect those outcomes, because they're not paper outcomes, but real outcomes. Some of our units have actually seen their energy use not all that different from an older place's, just because of the way it's been used, so we're trying to work on that one as well.
In terms of the usual, most cost-effective, and functional build, the element of health is really important. Just because we put these elements into the build, we also have to sometimes do other things that are counterintuitive to the whole energy aspect. I just wanted to bring that up to understand that we're trying to strike a balance here.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much. I know the six minutes goes really fast. We might get another round in.
Mr. Sopuck.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thanks.
Mr. Wong, on a bit of a personal note, I was on a Canada 150 ship this summer and did the leg from Maine to Iqaluit. I spent some time in Iqaluit this summer and with a gentleman whom you would know, Natan Obed. It was a pretty wonderful trip.
In a previous life as a fisheries biologist, I did some early work on the Sylvia Grinnell. I've had the pleasure of being in Iqaluit from time to time.
Mr. Fournier, I would assume that in the work you've done in the north, you've worked below the treeline as well as above it. I'd like to focus in on wood both as a building material and a fuel source. In terms of log homes, I happen to live in a log house.
What is holding back local people from being trained and employed in building log homes in their communities below the treeline and then, subsequently, heating those homes with wood? We do have a surplus of wood in this country since the paper industry has shrunk dramatically.
Could you talk a bit about the potential role that wood from a local source could play, both as a building material and a fuel?
12:15 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
Are you talking about wood specifically for log homes or wood in general?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
For log homes and as a source of heating fuel in general.
12:15 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
There's nothing preventing homeowners from building log homes. I think it's a choice. It's strictly a personal choice. If we're talking about social housing, then of course that's another issue.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
It comes down to cost, essentially. That's what it boils down to. It depends. In certain jurisdictions if we're talking about Nunavut and Nunavik, it is social housing and it is built by the government. If we're talking about first nations, in some communities individuals may actually build their own homes.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'm specifically zeroing in on those communities below the treeline that have access to forests. Obviously Nunavut doesn't, but the Mackenzie Valley certainly does and much of the middle latitude in Quebec does, and there are lots of first nations and Inuvialuit communities in those regions.
In terms of harvesting trees from the adjacent forest and using that to build log homes, why is that not done as much as it could be?
12:15 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
It does remain a personal choice for the individuals. All I can say is that log homes had their day. If you look at photographic archives, you'll clearly see there were a lot of log homes for a while, but now people have moved on to something else. Thanks to the Internet, if you want, all of the information and model homes, they're all out there, and people make choices, sometimes strange choices. I've seen a sort of brick house built in the Arctic. It looks very isolated.
The fact is for log homes, it's really a matter of choice. I could say that wood is making a comeback in architecture as far as being used considerably, but not in the form of log homes. As you know, there are companies that do supply that. Wood has made a big comeback in terms of renewable materials. That's out there. I think that's where it's more successful in terms of expanding and being used out there.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Again, I'm talking about communities below the treeline. What's the possibility of replacing diesel generators in those remote communities that don't have hydro lines to them? What's the potential for wood to replace diesel fuel as a source of electricity?
12:20 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
I know of one Cree community, Oujé-Bougoumou. They have a central heating plant and it's actually wood scraps that they use. It's the only community I know that has been doing that, and they're below the treeline. Most communities that are below the tree line also happen to have access to electricity. It's really the very remote communities that are generally north of the treeline that have to use diesel power plants.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
You also made a fleeting reference, I gather, to dams. By that you probably mean small-scale hydro dams. Is that what you're thinking of?
12:20 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
Yes, I meant small-scale hydro dams, but big enough to power an entire community, and not just for lighting—which is what the diesel plants do—but also for their heating, which would be less expensive for them.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Yes, but of course there's a real dilemma there, given that a hydro dam that's large enough for that is also large enough to block fish runs, and many of these communities are dependent on fisheries. In the eastern Arctic—I used to do work on Arctic char there—every single coastal stream has an Arctic char run. Unless you are able to put some kind of wheel in the current itself without blocking the stream, you have some major fisheries implications there.
12:20 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
Indeed, but the project I'm thinking of is community driven, so I guess they've thought of that.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Fair enough. Yes, I appreciate that. Thanks so much.
February 15th, 2018 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Chair. Thank you all very much for being here today.
Throughout all the testimony we've had, there's one overwhelming question that keeps going through my brain. Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Fournier, you really fed into it today.
We're looking at windows, doors, and everything coming from Europe. It's this whole chicken-and-egg scenario. Did the Europeans develop all this innovation and technology because the regulatory regime in place drove that, or did they develop the technology and the regulations came afterwards, because they had the technology to actually implement it?
Is it the case that we're never going to get to where we need to go with a steep reduction in energy use, or increase in energy efficiency, unless we have regs in place that are going to drive it?
12:20 p.m.
Architect, Founding Partner, EVOQ Architecture
I would say offhand that in Europe, power is extremely expensive; hence, they need to develop high-performance doors and windows. I mean, there's that incentive. In our country, power is not as expensive.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Even in Germany, though, if I understand correctly, a third of your power now has to come from renewable sources, right in your home.