Environment Committee on April 16th, 2026

[Mark Cauchi]

—in the evenings, so the—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

This is my time, please.

Even though charging is happening at night, the capacity in the panel in the house, the transformer in the neighbourhood and the substation at the edge of the city all have to be there to run it all at once.

Has that incremental cost been anticipated in all of this?

[Anna van der Kamp]

I will take that question, if that's okay.

The considerations about the peak demand and what that might mean for generation capacity, etc., in each province by each utility are being undertaken for sure.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Does that include generation, distribution, transmission and residential upgrades?

[Anna van der Kamp]

Yes, absolutely.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I appreciate my colleague from the Bloc discussing.... If he could give me the contact information of the $45 electrician to come and do a panel upgrade, I have all kinds of work for him to do if he's talking about work that costs me thousands of dollars right now at the farm, including parts, labour and transportation.

[Anna van der Kamp]

I will just say, though, that this idea of demand management is going to be critical for utilities for a bunch of different reasons, including rectification—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I agree.

[Anna van der Kamp]

In fact, vehicle-to-grid will eventually be a solution that might generate revenue for Canadians.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I'm familiar with the notion of smart metering and back-and-forth at-home batteries in the car. I get it, but we have not done the analysis of at-scale applications, and I fear that we're facing a fallacy that we're pursuing because we are looking at a ring-fenced, isolated cost case and just adding it all up and thinking it's going to be fantastic. We have no analysis of the interference with all of the other parts in the system in a true systems engineering approach.

Can anyone make some comments related to how provinces are going to adapt? Much of their current road maintenance funding comes from their excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. Where's that going to come from in an electrical vehicle market? Do you anticipate that provinces are going to have to apply some taxation on electrical vehicles to pay for road maintenance?

[Mark Cauchi]

I think some are doing that now.

In Alberta, for example, we see that the Alberta government has brought in a tax on EVs—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Has that been included in any of the analysis so far?

[Mark Cauchi]

All of that is being looked at.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Can you provide those reports and make sure that anything current and anything that emerges is provided to the committee?

[Mark Cauchi]

I think it's fair to say....

I'm being told to stop, so I will defer to the chair.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Please provide it to the committee.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Yes, that's perfect. Thank you, Mr. Bexte.

Go ahead, Mr. Fanjoy, for five minutes.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

If you'd like to finish your thought, please do so.

[Mark Cauchi]

Thank you for that.

I'll just say that we're obviously going to be publishing in the Canada Gazette a full assessment of the regulation's cost-benefit analysis. At that time, some of the issues that are being discussed here will definitely be displayed for public consultation and discussion.

That analysis is ongoing, so I think it would be premature for us to table things before they're fully completed.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. van der Kamp, I wanted to ask you to elaborate on the point you brought up earlier about multiresidential buildings and the difficulties around having access to personal chargers there.

What are some of the options for solutions to that particular challenge?

[Anna van der Kamp]

Maybe I'll just start with respect to new buildings going in. There are several provinces that have looked at requiring EV charging. When we get to new buildings, we hope those will be built so that they're ready. Really, we have a big set of existing buildings in Canada, and there are a few things there. When you can do a retrofit to scale, then you actually have a lot of cost savings for the owner of a condo, for example.

I would also say that there are several programs in the provinces with the highest EV adoption—Quebec and B.C.—to support condos and apartment buildings with the costs of renovating, including also our program and the zero emission vehicle infrastructure program for that.

Finally, there's a really interesting new business model because, as I mentioned, the clean fuel regulations allow for some revenue generation. There is a Canadian company manufacturing here in Canada that is paying their customers three cents per kilowatt for their charging use because they are actually generating credits and passing that on to the consumer as savings, and they offer those chargers for free. There are new models and opportunities that are available to make this problem a little less daunting, but it certainly will be a big lift.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

I think that, as we've seen here today amongst my Conservative colleagues, there's great focus on the upfront cost of an electric vehicle. I agree with them that it would be nice to see more lower-cost options, but not enough attention is put on the total cost of ownership.

Mr. Greaves talked about $2.15 per litre. Your assumptions were $1.50 per litre. With electricity, in many jurisdictions across Canada overnight charging can be done at ultra-low rates that are roughly one-tenth of peak electricity rates. How do we get that message across to more Canadians?

[Mark Cauchi]

That's a really good question and a good point.

Certainly, we're living through high gas prices right now in the country. The situation in Ukraine previously had created some volatility in oil and gas prices globally. Those oil and gas prices are set globally, so despite our abundance of oil and gas in Canada, we are oftentimes a price taker.

What we see happening, though, in the clean energy space, whether because of EVs or clean electricity, is that many leading countries, industrialized countries, are trying to promote energy security through clean electrification. That is, obviously, not just good for climate change but it is an economic imperative, and it's certainly helpful in reducing prices for households.

I think the Climate Change Institute recently published an energy wallet study, which shows that purchasing an EV and electrifying a household can save families considerable amounts of money, not just during times that we're living through now, when we see volatility in the markets for oil and gas, but on a consistent basis over the long term. Clean energy solutions like EVs can certainly play a key role in energy security in Canada.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

I'll open this up to all of you. I'm not sure who might be the best person to answer it.

On the horizon, there is the potential to tap into electric vehicle batteries to add capacity to the grid and to provide backup power to homes, and this really transforms an electric vehicle. We often make the mistake of thinking that an electric vehicle is just powered differently from an ICE vehicle, when that is not the case at all. I want to know what the government is doing to advance vehicle-to-grid technology and options in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Mr. Fanjoy, I'm sorry. You're out of time.

Perhaps you can give a 10-second reply.