Evidence of meeting #3 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
We will get back to the committee with the specific number, so that we can confirm that information.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Obviously, the cost is a major deterrent to purchasing a vehicle. That said, there's also the convenience or ability to ensure that you'll make it from point A to point B, mostly referring to Canadians who live in rural areas.
You've addressed a little bit of this, but I'm hoping you can answer this specific question. If the goal is to have everyone driving a zero-emission vehicle, what is being done to ensure that rural Canadians can conveniently charge their vehicles?
Executive Director, Fuel Diversification Division, Clean Fuels Branch, Department of Natural Resources
I believe that question would be for Natural Resources Canada. That is administered in the infrastructure program.
We are working with all jurisdictions to ensure that we are supporting projects in not only urban centres, but in rural locations as well. Actually, a lot of our coast-to-coast network does cover some rural locations.
We are working with stakeholders and provinces to amplify the availability of the program every time we put out a request for proposals. It is important to note that the business case in the rural communities where the charging will be very infrequent makes the business case very difficult. We are dependent on the private sector approaching the government to help de-risk those purchases. We are seeing that it is difficult to get the private sector interested in deploying infrastructure in locations where there is just not going to be large volumes of charging.
We are looking at making changes to the program, making the program more attractive and working with industry to ensure that we are enabling rural deployment of infrastructure as much as possible.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thanks, Madam Chair.
Any time that I have left I'll share with Mr. Albas.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you to all of our witnesses. I appreciate the work you do.
Regarding the electric vehicles subsidy for consumers, of the 60,000 users, how many purchases were replacing a gas-powered vehicle and how many were adding another car to their household while keeping the existing emitting vehicle? Do you track that information?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
No, I'm afraid, Madam Chair, we do not track that specific information at this point in time.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Have you done any work to see how you might be able to track that kind of important information? It's kind of important to know, for an incentive such as this.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
We have certainly looked at conducting some surveys of consumers who have benefited from the program. It's still a fairly new program, so we're still in the early stages, but we certainly—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
Mr. Albas will ask you in the next round.
Mr. Baker, you have five minutes.
October 26th, 2020 / 5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today and for presenting to us.
My first question is around the impediments to zero-emission vehicle adoption. We've talked about a number of them here. I've read about a number of them. Impediments could be things like the range of vehicles, performance, reliability, the cost of purchasing the vehicle, the cost of the fuel or the electricity and the cost of maintenance or extra repair and parts. Maybe there are other obstacles.
I wonder if you could tell me what the most important obstacles are [Technical difficulty--Editor] to achieving the adoption levels that the government has laid out as targets. Which of those things that I've mentioned—or maybe there are others—would you identify as the most important obstacles to people adopting zero-emission vehicles?
I don't know if this question is is best placed for Ms. Ryan or for Ms. Nichols.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
I can begin if that is acceptable, Madam Chair.
There is general agreement amongst experts that there are about four key barriers that need to be overcome. The first is the affordability barrier, as you mentioned. Zero-emission vehicles presently have higher purchase prices compared to ICE vehicles. The second one, as we've touched on several times this afternoon, is related to sufficient supply to make these vehicles in large numbers and available to Canadians. The third is the importance of access to charging and refuelling infrastructure to support more zero-emission vehicles on the road in all parts of the country. The fourth is around consumer awareness of zero-emission vehicles.
Those are really the four key barriers that there is quite wide consensus on.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you for that answer. That's very informative.
As a result of that, is it fair to say that these are the areas where you're focusing your analysis or an evaluation of options to provide the necessary incentives? Not incentives necessarily.... Are these the areas where you're trying to identify incentives, where that's appropriate, and address some of the challenges that you've identified?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
I think it's safe to say that. In budget 2019, $700 million was allocated to addressing many of these areas, such as the purchase program to address affordability and new funding for infrastructure to address the infrastructure question. That is certainly where we see most of the analysis that needs to be done.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
I used to be a member of the provincial parliament in Ontario prior to being elected federally last year. One of the things that I know has changed is the Government of Ontario's policy with regard to incentives around zero-emissions vehicles.
Ms. Nichols, this is directed to you.
Could you quickly describe what the change in that policy has been and what the impact has been of that?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
I can't speak specifically to the change in Ontario's policy. I can say that we did see a decrease in the percentage of zero-emissions vehicle sales in Ontario following that change. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen those numbers increasing again over the last year, specifically coinciding with the federal incentive purchase program.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Mr. Baker, you have a minute, but I think we've lost your connection.
Mr. Baker.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Unfortunately, my connection must have broken off a little bit. I lost what was said in response.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay, I'll get the answer from the evidence.
My follow-up comment would be that the change in Ontario concerned a reduction or elimination of incentives for consumers to buy those vehicles.
It would helpful, Ms. Nichols, if you could help us understand the impact of the changes recently in Ontario in terms of the adoption of zero-emissions vehicles.
Can you quickly comment, in the remaining 40 seconds or so, on what the cost of reducing emissions is when we talk about zero-emissions vehicles relative to other emissions-reduction opportunities?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
That's one that will be difficult to be brief on.
We don't necessarily have a specific cost-per-tonne estimate yet for this particular program—again, being that it's fairly new. We do know that of the 60,000 vehicles that have been incentivized to date, they will bring reductions of about 207,000 tonnes per year. If you look over the vehicle's lifespan of about 12 years, it's about 2.5 million tonnes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
We're going into the third round of questioning.
Mr. Albas, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to pick up where I left off.
Does the department track the average household income of people accessing the subsidy?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Madam Chair, if you can bear with me, I have information on some of the trends on some of the consumers who have taken advantage of the incentive. About 61% of the purchasers were between the ages of 35 and 59. About 86% of claims were from Canadians living in centres with a population of 30,000 people or more.
We are continuing, as I mentioned earlier, to gather more information on who, for example, is taking advantage of this.