Environment Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2022

[Daniel Breton]

It will be by helping put together programs from high school to colleges to universities. Two of our members are the FTQ—La Fédération de travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec—and Unifor, and these unions are worried about what's going to happen to their workers in those fields that are really in decline.

When I was young, I was brought up about two blocks away from eight refineries in Montreal East. There's one left, so I know how it is when you see an industry in decline. We are seeing that right now with many industries. Next week, I'm meeting with people from the FTQ and people from Unifor because we want to put together programs to help those workers make that transition, but we need to support colleges and we need to support high schools.

We have to make sure these people see that there's an opportunity, and not just an economic one. When you're talking to the younger generation, they want meaningful jobs. What we at EMC and people in the EV industry are offering them are meaningful and well-paid jobs, so that they feel that they're part of something bigger and something positive for the future of the planet and the future of Canada.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

When you've been talking about electric mobility, you've shown that there are lots of different pieces that are important: batteries, manufacturing, supply and cost issues, charging infrastructure and grid capacity. In your opinion, does Canada have a comprehensive industrial strategy for electric mobility?

[Daniel Breton]

Well, I'll be honest with you. I've been talking about the electric mobility industry to the people in the federal government for almost 20 years, and things have really accelerated, I would say, in the past two years, with the great work that has been done with Minister Champagne, Minister Wilkinson, Minister Guilbeault and Minister Alghabra. We are seeing that something is really happening.

That's why we are seeing more and more companies from around the world wanting to come to Canada. Is it perfect? No. We need to have the critical minerals strategy go faster than this, because the opportunities are now. In terms of what's happening south of the border, when we were having those discussions a year ago, if you remember, we were worried that Canada would not be part of a North American battery strategy plan. Now that this is going in the right direction, we have to advance right now.

I am not a patient man. Elon Musk is not a patient man either. Right now, we are seeing problems in Germany. I don't know if you've heard about that. The Gigafactory in Germany is having problems because of regulation. If a company like Tesla wants to come to Canada, we want to make sure that we can welcome them any way we can. If it were not for Tesla, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Let's be honest about the future of electric mobility: Yes, we have other partners and manufacturers who are doing their share, but the leadership of a company like that is too important for us to ignore. That's why we have to find ways to move both environmentally and economically at a pace that's fast enough.

Things are so quick these days. It's surprising. Sometimes it's twice a day—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

[Daniel Breton]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

It's just that I only have 30 seconds left.

In terms of ensuring that we accelerate that pace but also make sure that we have this comprehensive industrial strategy, what are the key pieces?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 10 seconds, please, Mr. Breton.

[Daniel Breton]

It's 10 seconds. Okay.

Well, sit everybody at the same table and get them out of the room only once the thing is done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That sounds like a good strategy.

We're going into the second round. So that we don't go over time too much, I'm going to have to shave the time allocation by 25%. I've done the calculations.

We'll start with Mr. Carrie for a little over three and a half minutes, please.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Okay. I'll try to be as fast as I can.

I do want to investigate the hydrogen side of things a little more. We talk about charging stations, and that's all good, but I believe we have around 2,000 charging stations in Canada and, in the estimate of the Canadian manufacturers, we'll need four million by 2050. These are going to be huge costs.

What I wanted to ask my friends on their clean hydrogen.... The last panel had the information that 40% of our reductions could be done just by looking at our retrofits and real estate. Could government actually drive demand? You hear of these federal government programs encouraging individuals to retrofit, but what if the federal government actually got involved? Instead of just private homeowners retrofitting, could the federal government drive demand by retrofitting their own buildings, for example, with an upgraded, more efficient hydrogen-type furnace?

This would be for Mr. Soliman, I think.

[Sam Soliman]

Thank you for the question.

When the government tries to implement this technology, it will drive the whole country to look at it very seriously. For example, if we look at the solar power system , we see how the government started driving people by putting solar panels in some of their facilities. At the time, in 2008, they came up with the FIT and microFIT programs. Those created a huge demand and drove many industries and workers to work in that field.

Similarly, we expect the government to adopt the technology and try to set an example so the public is aware of it. It drives many others to be partners, to be part of it as well.

For more elaboration, I will leave the rest of it to Mr. MacDonald.

[Doug MacDonald]

Absolutely, Sam. That's really what drove the PV industry. It was part of the Ontario FIT program when I was the vice-president of ATS Automation and we worked in the PV sector.

There's no question, Mr. Carrie, that if we saw any kind of support from the government to drive these programs.... Take a look at the real estate holdings of the federal government when it comes to the postal service. We think that all of these buildings are leased, but no, they're not. A lot of these facilities are owned, and if there were an incentive, the government could lead the charge by demonstrating huge cost savings with that infrastructure.

We can't get into the details today, but the greatest thing about this system is that it's disruptive because it is a retrofit. As a metaphor, if you could take your gasoline engine out and turn it into a fuel cell that ran on five gallons of water, that's what we're talking about, simplistically.

From an infrastructure point of view, we would not need the reserves and we wouldn't have to buy the storage facilities for the oil or have natural gas lines. You could basically shut them off.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Yes, it is disruptive—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have time for just a quick comment, Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

We don't want to see it commercialized in the United States. Have you guys ever received a federal government grant?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Answer yes or no, please. We have to move on to—

[Doug MacDonald]

No, we haven't. I've never had a grant from the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. Thank you.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

There's no cost to taxpayers. I like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Duguid.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses.

I'm very interested in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, so I think this question is directed to the Canadian Fuels Association.

I come from a trading province. About 87% of our goods go south of the border. There are a lot of trucks on the road, and our witnesses will know that a big part of our emissions profile is transportation, and that is increasing year over year.

I'm wondering if the Fuels Association might comment on our emissions reduction plan and some of the measures in it, such as the clean fuel standard and, of course, our price on carbon, the clean electricity regulation and other measures that I'm sure they have pored over. How important are those measures to drive innovation in the transportation sector?

Perhaps you could comment on your tax credit again and amplify what the challenges are from U.S. investment. We've heard that as a theme in some of the comments.

My major question is, what happens if these measures go away? As you know, when governments change, things can change, and one political party, as you know, does not believe in pollution pricing and would probably eliminate all of these measures. How important are continuity and certainty to the fuel sector in driving innovation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about a minute and a half, Ms. Stilborn.

[Lisa Stilborn]

Thank you very much, Mr. Duguid.

I'll start, but I'll hand the second part of the question over to my colleague Dave Schick.

Regulatory certainty is absolutely primordial for us. Investment decisions are not made on one- or two-year cycles; they're made on 10-, 20- or 25-year cycles. I'll give you an example. On the strength of the CFR, there are many investments, and planned investments, already en train to deal with that.

To your second question with respect to doing a deeper dive on incentives, I'd start that off for Dave by saying that the CFR dramatically increases the domestic demand for biofuels, as I said in my remarks, which we don't have right now. In fact, we're importing, and the trend toward importing is growing, even without the CFR. The two really go hand in hand—the opportunity with the incentives—to grow the domestic market, so that we're in a position where we're making and not buying.

I'll turn it over to Dave.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Be very brief. You have 20 seconds. I'm sorry, Mr. Schick.

[David Schick, Vice-President, Western Canada, Innovation and Regulatory Affairs, Canadian Fuels Association]

The hard-to-decarbonize sectors are going to require a lot of different methodologies in order to make sure that aviation, long-haul transportation and rail are able to decarbonize. Liquid fuels are going to be fundamental to that. That requires the utilization of existing infrastructure to decarbonize, acknowledging that electrification is going to be very important over the longer term.