Environment Committee on Feb. 8th, 2024

[Maja Vodanovic]

Exactly. It's different when it's abundant.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's right.

I think, Mr. Chair, that that's something I want to capture.

Is there any other piece on conservation that any of you want to put out?

[Soula Chronopoulos]

I think that a lot of the innovation that you're seeing develop right now, especially in Quebec in Canada, is about how we use less water and how we regulate it. For example, Quebec just released a report recently about industrial water usage. That's an important transparency measure for us to look at who the water-wasters are and how we reduce that with smart metering.

There are ways we can adopt this, but we need to bring in more of that innovation and tech that we've been talking about.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

We all have smart meters in Guelph. That was a big part of it. Then—

[Soula Chronopoulos]

We don't.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

—we got competitive.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Ms. Pauzé, the floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Ms. Crochetiere, your organization receives federal funding. I think that when you receive federal funding, you have to demonstrate a degree of transparency, but I did not see the annual report on your website. Maybe I was not searching properly.

You produce reports, at a cost of $1,000, and the services you offer seem to be very similar to what the federal government calls its "Net Zero Accelerator Initiative," which we heard a lot about when we did the study on clean technology.

Is there a difference between the two organizations? I have the impression that there is duplication with organizations that already exist.

[Heather Crochetiere]

I would not agree with that.

We do get funding, very generously, from the federal government and from provincial governments, as well as from industry sources. We have demonstrated, time and time again, that we're able to punch above our weight. I shared some of those stats that we've been able to achieve over our 10 years in existence.

We've been able to—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Forgive me for interrupting you. What I wanted to know is whether you think there is a kind of duplication. My second question is more or less the same.

I read that the Canadian Water Network had existed since 2001. It was created in response to the Walkerton contaminated water scandal, if I recall correctly. You say that you bring together stakeholders from across the ecosystem to improve things, but, again, I think your objectives resemble what we would expect from the Canada Water Agency.

Is there not a kind of duplication of functions?

[Heather Crochetiere]

The Canadian Water Network is quite focused on municipalities and research, and that's an important area.

We at Foresight also focus on working directly with industry and with innovators and investors, trying to take that whole-of-ecosystem approach to really make sure that we are creating the conditions for clean tech and water tech in Canada to thrive.

We also support the Cleantech Accelerator, as well as connecting with those end-users.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Would you mind, maybe in writing, just giving us an idea of what programs you access federally? That would be very useful.

[Heather Crochetiere]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'll follow up with some questions for Foresight Canada.

I want to hear a little bit more about waterNEXT.

Could you talk a little bit about how investments in water innovation can advance Canada's broader economic development and our climate priorities?

[Heather Crochetiere]

Absolutely.

We've heard from different folks across the sector that there does need to be investment both in the innovators themselves, providing them with the opportunity to develop their tech, and in support of the adoption of technology. Maybe I'll spend a bit of time there.

We've heard from end-users that they don't have the capacity to actually adopt any innovative solutions. There may be risk aversion, or they may not have the time in their day or the people-power to actually assess innovative technologies, understand the risks, and understand how they may fit into their infrastructure.

Investing in initiatives to help overcome those capacity shortfalls will actually support the adoption of technology, which has a good economic benefit for the water-tech ventures and potentially lowers costs for those end-users.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

We had a witness come to us for our study who was talking a little bit about the importance of incubators. It was Caleb Behn, an indigenous leader and a water expert who works for the AFN.

I'm just curious as to how your organization interacts with incubators. I am curious about your thoughts.

[Heather Crochetiere]

Yes, absolutely.

Ventures that would be in an incubator may be at an earlier stage. We do have some programs that support earlier stage ventures, but I would see it almost as the incubator moving the innovator along to a certain stage, and then Foresight would be able to support them on their continued journey.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for coming this afternoon.

I was on the science and research committee, where we studied commercialization in Canada. For clean-tech companies, one of their biggest concerns was the difficulty in getting to commercialization. They referred to the gap between research and commercialization as the “valley of death”.

I think that's one of the reasons why they are leaving, but we are also told that other countries do commercialization much better than we do. How can Canada accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies?

[Soula Chronopoulos]

That's a great question. This is where my recommendation about funding water-tech accelerators like Foresight and AquaAction and some of the other agencies we talked about is, because we de-risk it. There is a lot of risk aversion right now in Canada, whereas if you look at Israel, Israel will adopt 90% of start-ups. They'll take that risk because the ones that hit are the ones that are actually making a big difference. They recycle 90% of their water, whereas Canada recycles less than 10%.

What we're asking for is an investment from the federal government to support accelerators like us regionally. We de-risk. We can make sure that we place them in the right place in the market, and we make sure they have an impact. Those are the hands and the eyes and ears of the federal government on the ground floor, so that we can accelerate that.

In Canada, because everything is federal, it's very difficult to manage what happens on the ground. Sometimes what happens on the ground is chaos for these entrepreneurs. They have all the barriers that hit them. That's why we can't get far. We really need to create more of a process from funding all the way down to the ground, where we hit them with what they need to make sure they are successful on the commercial market.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

We did talk quite a bit about intellectual property in that study. I wonder.... What it is, I think, is that we set them up basically for failure—

[Soula Chronopoulos]

We do.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

—or being ripe for someone else to invest in them and away they go.

Are you familiar with any intellectual property laws or anything like that so we can protect this and build wealth here in Canada instead of in Israel or in the U.S.? Would you have any recommendations for our study?

[Soula Chronopoulos]

I do. It's a great question.

I do. I think what we have to do is that if we fund accelerators and entrepreneurs, we should be signing agreements with them and saying, “Hey, if you're receiving federal funding, you should be staying in Canada for five years—otherwise, you pay that back.” What we're doing right now is that we're giving them money, they're getting greater job offers and incentives from everywhere else and they're leaving. That's why we're losing them.

I think there are ways that we can strengthen this. It doesn't take a lot of effort.