Evidence of meeting #11 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was production.
A video is available from Parliament.
8:25 p.m.
Liberal
8:25 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you very much. It's been an interesting evening.
I'm so thankful, Dr. Exner-Pirot, that you talked about hydrocarbons. Everyone talks about fossil fuels as though they understand what that's all about. The reality is that what is coming out of the ground is something that is used in so many different areas. It is for the plastics and fertilizers that we have, and all of these types of things. Any products that we see around these tables are part of that.
I was speaking with the head of Dow Chemical in Red Deer not that long ago. I mentioned this before. He was pointing out that in a windmill there are 17 tonnes of material of which seven tonnes are plastic. To think that you can just shut off the main feedstock that we have, and that it's going to allow us to come up with these magical ideas, I really find it difficult to sort my way through that.
If we take a look at uranium, which of course is an energy source, and all of the rare earth minerals that are going to be required for batteries, and come up with some magical new product to replace the 40% of plastics that I said are in windmills...If that happens to be found on your land, or indigenous property, or the people around here in their own riding...I'm wondering if we could trust this government to give us the licence to develop corridors to transport and access markets.... Or will these new products be met with the same scorn as we see with oil and gas?
What do you think the future would be for any kind of development in Canada?
8:25 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
We absolutely need a low-carbon transition. That carbon transition will change from the exploitation of fossil fuels to the exploitation of minerals. That is so well known.
Critical minerals are required for transmission lines, EV batteries, generators, magnets and everything that goes into making the sun into actual electricity that we can dispatch to a consumer. With some of the minerals, like lithium, we need 10 or 12 times the mining that we're doing right now. For others, like copper, it's three or four times. Overall, our projection of minerals in the world...We can't have a transition until those mines get built. That takes 10 to 15 years. They're at an affordable rate, so we can start buying them.
We have to make mining more affordable. We have to get more product to market. We have to enhance our supply chains. Guess what? The fact we're in an energy crisis, and oil and gas costs more, means that everything in that mineral supply chain is also going to be more expensive. For the first time after a decade we're seeing solar panels costing more, and electric vehicle batteries costing more. The price of a Tesla is a third more than it was a year ago.
8:30 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Of course, when we talk about windmills, solar panels, or any of the other types of renewable projects that might come on stream, the question then becomes, are we going to demonize those people who are shareholders in a similar way as we are demonizing the oil and gas companies?
We'll eventually say, “Well, these guys are making way too much money, so we should be taxing them, as well.” You start doing that, and they're going to either go to other countries and leave us in a lurch, or they'll start bringing in products from other places in order to keep the costs down.
When can we ever expect some sanity to return to this discussion?
8:30 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I'm sorry to interrupt my colleague. It is 8:30 p.m., and I'm curious at what time we're planning on ending this.
8:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We have one more questioner, Ms. Taylor Roy, and then we're done.
Go ahead. Dr. Exner-Pirot.
8:30 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
In terms of energy security right now, China controls a quarter of our mining production. Russia controls another 9%. We absolutely need to ramp up a critical mineral supply chain with our allies. They're going to look to Canada to provide those minerals for this renewable energy transition.
We absolutely want to incentivize, make it easy, and make it quick to get mines up and running in Canada. It is imperative to have a slow carbon transition in a safe way that doesn't change Russia's geopolitical leverage over to China.
8:30 p.m.
Liberal
8:30 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you. I'd like to share my time with Elizabeth May.
8:30 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
She may have left.
Okay, then, I will proceed. I thought she was there.
Mr. Gooderham, I've been listening to the debate, and clearly there are two very different sides to this story.
With regard to what you've been telling us about nine years and the need for a quick transition, I look back to the story of CCUS that was under way 10 or 15 years ago in Alberta, and a lot of the other initiatives that have been taken. What do you think it's going to take to get us to move more quickly in the direction we need to go, because we've been talking about it for a long time?
I understand what Ms. Exner-Pirot was saying about the need to do this in a methodical way, and I don't disagree, but it seems to me that we're running out of time.
How would you respond to that, Mr. Gooderham?
8:30 p.m.
As an Individual
That's the great vexing question. It's the heart of our extraordinary dilemma that we're in.
I might say that nobody is saying to shut down all oil in the next year, but we're talking about 25% in terms of global production down by 2030.
I can only say that I think until people can, if you will, pause and move away from the debates of whether this is a subsidy or that a subsidy, and this industry and all that, and recognize the fundamental constraint facing us....
I am going to put it to you in this way: For the children who are now five years old and six years old—and we all know some of them—by the time they're in grade 8, it's going to be too late for them to reverse this path that we're on. That's how bad it is. I put it in that way, because I think that conveys the absolute desperation of where we are now. We're here in this situation because we didn't act 10 or 15 years ago.
I cannot think of a better way to answer your question.
8:35 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much.
Ms. Exner-Pirot, what is your response to that?
8:35 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
For many people in the developing world, that terrible future is today, because of inflation, high energy costs, high food prices. In fact, according to the FAO, the food price index is as high—
8:35 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
I'm sorry. I have only one minute, Ms. Exner-Pirot.
I understand cost-of-living considerations, but people in the developing—
8:35 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
It's the famine. There is famine now because of fertilizer prices, because of the energy crisis, so we need to consider the—
8:35 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Right. It's also because of the drought and because of extreme climate crisis. Some of the developing countries are actually the ones that are suffering most from climate change, although they haven't contributed to it.
I am asking about climate change in particular.
8:35 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
All of these issues are tied up together. I agree that climate is a very important issue and I agree that the energy crisis is a very important issue. I don't think we should ignore one at the expense of the other.
8:35 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Okay. Thank you very much.
Elizabeth, do you want to ask another question? I am offering to share my time with you.
8:35 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you so much. I foolishly took off my headset because I didn't think I'd get another chance.
If you're willing, I want to get back to the questions I was pursuing earlier with Mr. Gooderham about timelines and urgency.
If we had all the time in the world, we could look at lots of different options, but the unforgiving thing is the timeline to 2030. I'd like some final thoughts from Mr. Gooderham on that, if we we could.
8:35 p.m.
As an Individual
I did send you a submission that has a section in it about the rising atmospheric carbon concentration level. We can talk about this in terms of carbon budgets and other ways, but the most immediate way to look at it is what that atmospheric level is at, because that is what is driving the heating. That's well understood and well documented, yet never discussed in any of the Canadian government's reports.
As I said, it was 413 in 2020. It used to be going up at about 0.03 a year back in the 1990s. It's now going up at 2.5 a year. We know that by 2028, it's going to be above 430. At 430, the atmospheric carbon concentration level is the line at which, unless we have amazing technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere later, we will irrevocably have risen above the 1.5 line.
8:35 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Do you mind if I put in another reference point that for the last, roughly, million years it was never above 280 parts per million?