Evidence of meeting #48 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was building.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
We will begin again.
Witnesses, we're going to address this motion that Mr. Bonin put on the floor, but we're hoping to return to you before our time is up. If you could just stand by, please, we would appreciate it.
Mr. Bonin, do you want to read this into the record?
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
The motion reads as follows:
That the committee undertake a study of four meetings on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in Canada, including their role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, their potential to support the decarbonization of industrial sectors that are difficult to electrify, and their contribution to the global energy transition; that the study examine public and private investments made to date and planned, as well as those required for the deployment of these technologies, their environmental effectiveness, their economic viability, and their international competitiveness; that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
Thank you very much, Mr. Bonin.
Do we have debate on the motion?
I have Mr. St-Pierre.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Madam Chair, I would like to propose two minor amendments.
First, after the words “carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in Canada”, I propose adding the words “and other carbon dioxide elimination technologies”, because there is a fairly important distinction to be made between the acronyms CCUS and
CDR, or carbon dioxide removal.
Also, in the English version, after the words
“including the role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions”, I would add, “while developing a competitive economy”.
I propose that we adopt these two small amendments, after which we will be ready to vote on the motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
Can we as a committee consider these friendly amendments and unanimously adopt those changes?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
That's excellent. Those will be made.
(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
Witnesses, we are back on track.
Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Purcell, can you tell us how much annual funding is tied to grants for greening the real estate inventory? How does that compare to the funding of fossil fuels in the country?
Vice-President, Policy and Programs, The Atmospheric Fund
There are a number of programs at the federal government level that support making housing more green. I believe that the Canada greener homes grant program was $2.2 billion over about five years, so something like $300 million to $400 million per year. The deep retrofit accelerator initiative that I mentioned was about $200 million over four years, so about $50 million per year. Other retrofit programs at the federal level have been in a similar range, so typically well under $1 billion per year.
It's not on the scale of some of the investments in fossil fuel infrastructure that we hear about, certainly, such as pipeline projects where there's a $20-billion to $40-billion public investment. Those are major infrastructure projects with a different level of investment and support. Of course, the big difference is that those fossil fuel infrastructure investments play a fundamentally different role. They grow fossil fuel production, grow carbon emissions and they potentially generate important benefits for the economy in doing so, whereas energy efficiency programming reduces reliance on energy to begin with, reduces carbon emissions and brings us closer to our long-term net-zero ambitions.
Our main concern, when we see fossil fuel investment, is just carbon lock-in, as we call it. That's the idea that we're investing in projects that may take 10 years just to build out and that make sense only if we're going to continue relying on fossil fuels for another 20 to 30 years after that. It implies that we're planning to continue our fossil fuel consumption at current levels for very long periods of time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
Thank you, Mr. Purcell.
We will now go to Mr. Rowe for five minutes, please.
Jonathan Rowe The Eastern Peninsulas, CPC
Thank you for having me here today.
My first question is for my friend in Atlantic Canada. She said a lot of great stuff. I was looking forward to asking a lot of great questions, but I kind of got stuck on something that I'm just going to have to ask about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you guys have said that you have invested $20 million in research on these projects. Where does that money come from? Is that mostly federal funding, a mix between federal and provincial funding, or from organizations and donations? I'm just curious where the $20 million originated from.
Senior Advisor, The ReCover Initiative
Some $16.5 million came through the deep retrofit accelerator program. Another $1 million came through the greener homes pilot program. The additional money was foundation funding from the McConnell Foundation, the Trottier Family Foundation and a few other organizations like those.
The Eastern Peninsulas, CPC
It would be about $2.5 million that was fundraised.
The Eastern Peninsulas, CPC
Those other two would be federal funding, so around $17.5 million from federal organizations. I know you do great work, but $17 million is a lot of money. That's almost 1,200, 1,300 or 1,400 heat pumps that we could be putting into the homes of seniors and struggling families throughout Canada who are getting off oil. What makes your organization, what you provide, different from, say, building code textbooks that already lay out the benefits of these utilities?
Senior Advisor, The ReCover Initiative
ReCover was established to develop solutions for deep retrofits. What we see on the ground is a very fragmented ecosystem where people want retrofits and don't know how to get them. We have building owners with various barriers. We have some very sophisticated building owners who have capacity issues. Either they can't mobilize to get the services they need or they are at the other end of the spectrum. We have a lot of small property owners who own only one or two buildings, and they really don't know how to make these kinds of projects happen.
We have an incredible problem with.... Our DRAI funding funds projects that are more in the commercial institutional space. The greener homes program is what funded our work on the part 9 or single-family level. In that segment of building owners...first of all we have the highest rates of energy poverty in the country. We have some groups that have an extremely difficult time accessing.... There are no programs that help African Nova Scotian property owners get retrofits at all.
The Eastern Peninsulas, CPC
I heard you speak of the energy poverty. I'm just curious. Are you talking about the issue that Nova Scotia has where there may not be enough electricity on the grid to handle these large [Inaudible—Editor]—
Senior Advisor, The ReCover Initiative
There are a few different definitions of energy poverty. I won't get into the actual numbers because different groups define it differently.
Essentially, it means that households that experience energy poverty pay a disproportionate amount of their household income toward energy. That's energy for all things. It's to keep their homes heated, or generally heated. Most of our low-income households don't have cooling at all. It's also transportation. A very high percentage of our population, between 40% and 50%, is rural, which means that people don't have a choice but to own a car in our region. That's across all of Atlantic Canada. These households have to choose whether to keep the heat on, buy groceries or get medicine. Those are real choices that are being made in more than 30% of households in our region.
The Eastern Peninsulas, CPC
I'm glad you talked about that, because that is a big issue. Energy is essential for heating our homes and moving in our vehicles. That's why the Conservatives are big on axing the tax on these energies, increasing salaries in the country and bringing home powerful paycheques so that we can increase the income such that people are not in energy poverty.
Thank you for your clarification.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shannon Miedema
Thank you, Mr. Rowe.
Finally, we will turn to Mr. Malette for five minutes, please.
