Environment Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2022

[Stéphane Germain]

The measures we take are entirely independent, and clients therefore can't manipulate the data.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Your business focuses mainly on the markets that are hardest to decarbonize, such as cement plants, steel plants and so on.

Could you tell us about heavy industry's market share in Quebec and Canada?

[Stéphane Germain]

We mainly measure methane emissions in the oil sector. Approximately 50% of the emissions we've measured come from the global oil sector. Then there are landfill sites and coal mines.

In the case of Quebec, in particular, the only emissions we've measured to date come from landfill sites. That's unfortunately still a major challenge for us in Quebec.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

What recommendations would you make to the federal government regarding current funding for clean technologies?

[Stéphane Germain]

It should definitely encourage venture capital investment in clean technologies. As I mentioned in my introduction, it should support Canadian industries by buying data from other Canadian satellites, by which I mean not just ours, but also those of several other businesses that provide satellite data to measure environmental indicators.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You mentioned to another speaker earlier that the federal government isn't doing enough in the ecological transition area.

What would you recommend in that regard, in 30 seconds?

[Stéphane Germain]

It's very important to make investments to encourage venture capital investment in clean technologies. The funding available in this field internationally is much greater than that in Quebec. We also need to encourage our businesses to expand outside Canada. Lastly, we should encourage purchases of data from Canadian businesses to accelerate our growth.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I believe my time is up.

Thank you very much, Mr. Germain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Trudel.

Ms. Collins, you have the floor.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again to Mr. Haley, the government's approach to clean technology so far seems to be to offer incentives in various pots of money. You've talked a little bit about this, but is this approach enough, or should the government be taking a more proactive role in shaping a market transformation through clean technology?

[Dr. Brendan Haley]

If you look at the last federal budget, it seemed very focused on crowding in private sector capital. I think everybody would love to see more private sector investments in reaching net-zero emissions, but I don't think you get that by offering incremental incentives to co-fund with private individuals—which is what the greener homes program does—or financial organizations.

You see the Canada Infrastructure Bank doing that to some extent. Those are not bad, but if we really need to transform in the way that the net-zero objective requires, we need our public sector investments to really almost reshape the structure of markets so that it's just a no-brainer for the private sector to see energy retrofits as a productive area for investment and innovation.

This strategy that we've written about in connecting the demand and the supply side, reshaping demand to be at very high scale and then negotiating how we meet that demand with private sector partners, is the type of structural change we can do. You only get there when you really start investing at scale and retrofitting at scale.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

What do you consider that scale to be? The government recently promised $250 million over four years to help homeowners switching over. Is that going to be enough to make a difference? Do you think that this scale is big enough and that the scope is wide enough?

[Dr. Brendan Haley]

We ran a model in which we tried to add up what it would take to retrofit almost every building, and the cost would be $20 billion to $30 billion a year, so it's huge. The public sector has to lead that, and of course we need private sector investment to come in too.

You mentioned the $250 million for those with low income that was announced last week, and $2.6 billion was put on the table for what I would say is the ability to pay middle-class and upper-class homeowners—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're out of time. We can pursue this line of thinking in answer to other questions, of course.

We will go now to Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to continue with you, Dr. Haley. You mentioned some no-brainers, so I'm going to throw a few things out.

I had the opportunity to speak with the trades for insulation, and they mentioned that they could have great opportunities for job creation if they were supported. The federal government, I think, is the largest real estate owner in Canada and the biggest landlord in Canada. Are you aware of any large retrofits right now that the federal government is actually participating in?

[Dr. Brendan Haley]

I'm aware of the greening government strategy, which I would say is really a leader in defining the standards that they want to hit and trying to give forward guidance to industry about how they can do that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I'm aware of that, but here's the challenge: We can talk about it and we can put money aside, but one of the things you mentioned was leadership. You need these large projects in order to get the private sector on board. What was a no-brainer for me when I spoke to these insulator trades was that the federal government actually just started retrofitting its own buildings. You mentioned we need five to 10 times more retrofits and that 40% of our reductions could be met by retrofits. Doesn't it make sense that the federal government would actually take a leadership role?

We have seven and a half years until 2030, and if we don't start getting that infrastructure in place, we're going to be way behind. Doesn't it make sense that the federal government would take that leadership role?

[Dr. Brendan Haley]

It does, absolutely. I'm in complete agreement.

It could also be expanded to Crown corporations—not just exactly narrowly government, but kind of a larger expansion of government, including public buildings and high-value buildings that people go to.

The other thing I think is really useful to trigger larger transformations is clearly defining what standards need to be met and having those leak into the private sector, as well as trying to really encourage apprenticeship and training, because we really need more training in the trades and more people entering the trades as part of that government strategy.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I'm thinking a kick-start would really be appreciated.

You mentioned different innovative strategies that other countries are using, and you mentioned Denmark. I wonder if you would mind just taking a minute or so to let the committee know what Denmark is doing well that we could copy to get our own act in order so that we reach the 2030 targets.

[Dr. Brendan Haley]

Denmark—and this was a while ago—was named one of the most energy-efficient countries in the world.

The example that comes to mind about how they do user-producer interactions is actually from the wind industry. The textbook case of wind development was that technology developers worked very closely with agricultural co-ops and there was consistent feedback on how to improve the technology over time, so that's the key example I'm thinking of.

That's the type of thing I think can work well in the building retrofit energy-efficiency space, because there are a whole bunch of small problems, such as how to measure a building really accurately so that we can manufacture panels off-site. People have already come forward with “Well, we're going to use drones to do that.” Getting that type of consistent feedback between the users with the problems and the potential solution providers is, I think, a good innovation strategy.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

All right. Maybe it's something that we can look into a little more, but I just think that if our government would take a leadership role, it would not only create the market for these innovative companies—you mentioned the panels pre-engineering and the HVAC AI—but if they had a place to do their job, I think they would invest more money, ramp it up and make it cheaper for the private sector and individual low-income earners.

I have only 30 seconds left, and I wanted to ask Monsieur Durany about the rural communities.

I looked at your presentation. If farmers want to dry their hay in Quebec, for example, they need propane. Do you have any solutions for the rural communities? It seems that what you have is good, but what if I'm a farmer and I need to dry my hay? What am I going to use if there isn't another solution out there?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, we're out of time. Perhaps we can squeeze in an answer into another question.

[Gabriel Durany]

One word? Two words?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Two words.

[Gabriel Durany]

Biomass: We're looking for a biomass product for that particular usage.