Environment Committee on June 7th, 2022

[Drew Leyburne]

Maybe I will make a general point first, one that I think you alluded to a couple of times. The real importance of life-cycle analysis when you're doing climate or other environmental modelling is that you can't just look at the end use. You have to look at the full lifespan, cradle to grave, where it came from. That applies whether you're talking about a critical mineral, a renewable resource or a fossil fuel.

Specifically, on the critical minerals strategy, we are expecting, for example, a tenfold increase in the demand for rare earth elements by 2030 across the globe. An explicit part of the critical minerals strategy is to look at that full life cycle, including manufacturing and recycling applications, so that we can try to make this critical mineral economy more circular, as we say.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

Of course, I think people have to get a perspective on this. Most of us, as members of Parliament, would probably have a community with 3,500 people in it. If you were to squeeze them all into a big arena and put them on a giant teeter-totter, you would find that the amount of earth moved that would balance that out is equivalent to one electric vehicle battery. We talked about P.E.I. earlier. If you took all the people who live in P.E.I. and you wanted to have the same amount of earth that would be required, that gets you 44 electric vehicle batteries.

There's a lot that has to be done, but we have to think about everything that is taking place, and that, I'm afraid, never gets put into the context of what is taking place. Take a look at the oil sands, for example. The reclamation that is expected there—and expected by legislation—and any oil sands development has to go back into a form that is even better than it started with.

If anybody ever wants to go up to Fort McMurray and take a look to see what it has done, then I think you'll understand that people are going to expect that same thing from mining programs throughout the country. Is the government prepared to make sure that the commitment is there?

[Drew Leyburne]

I could jump in here. The mining sector is represented within the Department of Natural Resources. I focus more on the energy side, but what I can say is that things like water management and tailings management are a huge part of our energy RD and D and our mining RD and D in this department, but they also create the possibility of making things even more circular. You can extract rare earth minerals from mining tailings. It's a viable industry that we're starting to see crop up around Canada. Bringing that concept to circularity is a crucial part of what we consider to be truly sustainable development for natural resources.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

It's so important. All I want is to make sure that everybody pays attention to all sources of energy and everything that is associated with it. That's why I get a little frustrated, as one might imagine, when people attack one type of energy source in the country, because there are lots of reasons why people deal with it. First of all, it's in their backyard, and there are ways of transmitting it and ways of transportation that are different. Those are critical aspects of this.

What I'm hopeful for is that all four of the departments we have here today will commit to a full life-cycle analysis of all types of technology, both the new ones coming up and the old ones that we have, so that people are able to look at all aspects.

With that, I yield my few seconds that are left.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

Last but not least, we have Ms. Taylor Roy for six minutes.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's been a very interesting discussion. I actually wanted to go back and ask a couple of questions about something that Mr. Carrie mentioned earlier regarding electric vehicles. I was surprised by the number of one to 10 for the public charging stations.

I was wondering whether there are any estimates from ISED or other places in terms of what we require, whether charging stations at home are incorporated into that number, and also whether there is any new clean technology for providing stand-alone charging stations. For example, in my riding we have a proposal and a solar panel prototype for covered parking places that can charge electric vehicles.

I'm just wondering how we're going to deal with that number, if that's correct, if you have any other estimates, and also what other kinds of clean-tech solutions are being put forward to address the need for charging stations for electric vehicles.

[Andrew Noseworthy]

I'm sorry. We don't have any information specifically on that in front of us.

I don't know, Drew, if you do, from your side.

[Drew Leyburne]

I think we can get back to the member with the specifics about current charging infrastructure. I would heavily suspect that the larger number, the one in 10, would include home charging as opposed to more public-facing stations.

What I can tell you is that through the green infrastructure electric vehicle infrastructure demonstration program that I run, we looked at some very novel technologies, not only for charging but also for interfacing charging with the broader grid. We'd be happy to send you the examples of some of those projects that really are pushing the envelope for how and where you charge vehicles, including things like in colder climate situations.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

That's great. I'd appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Leyburne.

I know that SDTC is the largest funder of small and medium-sized clean-tech enterprises. We've heard questions about commercialization and our success rate. I'm actually concerned about the other side, which is that sometimes we put too much emphasis on investing only in technologies that we know will be successful or will reach commercialization, and we miss out on a lot of the opportunities to look into ideas because we want to make sure that we have high rates of success.

I was encouraged, Mr. Noseworthy, to hear you talk a bit about investing in early-stage investments. I'm just wondering, how do you balance that? I'm sure that many people look at these numbers and ask how well we have done and how many have been commercialized, as opposed to how many risks we have taken. Really, I feel that's part of the role of government, especially in this clean-tech field.

[Andrew Noseworthy]

Certainly, from our side.... When we look at a project, we obviously look to determine what material impact it will have on GHG reductions, what the potential efficacy of the technology is, and what the commercial business plan is, moving forward. Not all projects we see funded, either directly by us or through SDTC, are necessarily at that point. As you are probably aware, there's a scale called the “technology readiness level” scale, put forward by NASA to assess technology projects. Not everything we see is laid in that scale or will achieve results in the short term, so we have tried to create a practical balance across the technology and innovation spectrum to ensure we're funding, at all stages, with a lens that looks practically, at all times, at whether there's any probability of commercialization. Obviously, we would not want to fund projects that give false hope.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

No, but one can't always tell, at an early funding stage, what is false hope and what is a viable project, so I think taking some of those risks is important in enabling us to meet our goals.

[Andrew Noseworthy]

Generally speaking, our approach uses the best information possible to determine the potential future market and bankability of the project, as well as the efficacy of the technology. In doing that, we use the talents of all the folks around the virtual table with us today.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

That's great.

Do you—or somebody else from Industry—feel that the right balance is being reached? Are we funding ideas that may result in good, new clean technologies, or are we too conservative?

[Kendal Hembroff]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I can interject by giving some examples of specific success stories SDTC has funded.

There is a brand new SDTC list called “Canada's sustainability changemakers”, which was announced in May 2022. It highlights very specific SDTC portfolio companies that have shown outstanding growth over a few years and a track record of delivering on SDTC's mandate in terms of environmental and economic benefits. I think that's a really good cross-section of the types of companies SDTC has funded.

There are also rankings established internationally, which I think provide some good examples of Canada punching above its weight on the innovation side of things. There's a list called “Global Cleantech 100”, which includes a number of Canadian companies and shows that Canada ranks second in the world in innovation.

Our challenges are primarily in how we commercialize and eventually scale up that technology. That's something we're really trying to put a lot of focus on.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

That's great. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, how many minutes do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about 20 seconds.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay, I'll use the time to thank all the witnesses very much for coming today and sharing the work we're doing in the government. It really is impressive how many different funding sources we have and how much you're working together, through that Clean Growth Hub, to advance this industry. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Taylor Roy.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I know we've given you a lot of homework. We do expect you to follow up in writing with the details and data discussed. The information will be very useful to us and inform our report. Once again, thank you.

I imagine that we will see you all again, although not necessarily in a big group like this. In some form or another, we will see you again as we carry out our work in the months ahead.

Thank you to the committee members, as well.

I want to remind everyone that we are meeting Thursday at 6:30 in the evening. We will be discussing the supplementary estimates for the first hour, and we will be in camera for the second hour.

Thank you everyone. See you Thursday evening.

The meeting is adjourned.