Environment Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2026

[Annie Levasseur]

There are projects that exist and that are being developed. The sector needs support to develop everything related to the removal of carbon dioxide and the capture and storage of carbon, so that these processes can be used in the sectors where they are needed. This development by the industry should therefore be supported, because we will need the technology. However, it should not be used to increase the number of fossil fuel projects by reducing their emissions.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Can government tax credits for carbon capture and storage projects, such as the Pathways project, be considered fossil fuel subsidies?

[Annie Levasseur]

Yes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

If I understand correctly, you're saying that this money should instead be invested in other solutions for combatting climate change, right?

[Annie Levasseur]

Yes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay.

Are there projects of the same scope as the Pathways project being deployed elsewhere in the world?

[Annie Levasseur]

Yes, there are some. As I said, it was first developed in the fossil fuel industry, which has a strong command of carbon capture processes. The industry started by reinjecting the CO2 into old oil wells, so, yes, it has been demonstrated. However, it can also be used very effectively to reduce residual emissions from cement plants or to produce bioenergy—this is known as bioenergy associated with carbon capture and storage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Bonin.

Now we'll go to Mr. Rowe for five minutes.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

Thank you.

My first question is for Mr. Whittingham.

You talked about carbon capture through mineralization and how there's an opportunity to use existing mine sites and the tailings and waste from there. I'm curious. How does that work in the sense of net carbon emissions? Wouldn't we spend more carbon emissions using all of this equipment that's diesel-operated and all these crushers, whether they're hooked up to the grid or hooked up through diesel, to crush all this waste material and put it through the system?

Is there a net-positive relationship between how much carbon we put into the air while we're trying to capture it?

[Ed Whittingham]

Absolutely, there can be a net-positive relationship. In terms of the mineralization, it depends on the technique you use.

Take these ultramafic tailings. It's akin to microwaving them and agitating them, and that takes a lot of energy. There are other ways, in which you're dealing with them in situ and you're essentially farming the tailings. It can be like farming equipment passing over them. That has much less of an energy input—

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

Is anybody doing this yet?

[Ed Whittingham]

Yes. We have demonstration projects happening, including in Canada.

Thetford Mines is exciting because of the volume they can do and, ultimately, the cost economics they think they can achieve.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

You mentioned that there are only 100 companies that you know of that are in carbon capture. I don't believe that all 100 of those are in carbon capture through mineralization. You said there are 12 removing it.

Why are there 88 companies simply thinking about being carbon capture removal companies and not doing it yet?

[Ed Whittingham]

I'm sorry, sir; that's to Na'im, I think.

[Na'im Merchant]

There are, yes, a dozen or so projects that are operating at a meaningful scale, and it comes back to my earlier point. There's a lack of funding available for this missing middle, essentially, in which you have companies working in labs and developing technologies that can drive down the cost, drive down energy needs and simplify supply chains. They are innovating in a really exciting way, but the demonstration funding that they need is more than what they could get from venture capital, for example.

It's still too risky for conventional project finance. That's why we've advocated for demonstration funding through the energy innovation program to support projects such as this. This would get first-of-a-kind facilities off the ground and get more projects developed to turn their innovations into something that is operating and that they can learn from to get the cost down over time.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

You're saying that the difficulty is getting the money, and that's my next question.

Where is the money coming from for those 12 that are currently operating? Is it coming from government—taxpayers?

[Na'im Merchant]

Of the companies that are operating, many are supported by private sector buyers that are buying carbon removal credits. Some of them are banks in Canada, Stripe, Shopify or Google. They are major tech companies, typically, companies that are expanding their operations. Maybe they're trying to deal with their carbon footprint, and they've been relatively profitable and have bought carbon credits at a higher price to support these companies, but it only goes so far—as you pointed out—and it's the reason we have only a dozen or so projects operating when we need so many more.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

The need for carbon capture is as much as what people want for carbon capture, and I'm not sure why we would continue to try to keep going without being able to make those private investments and getting people involved.

I'll move on to another question that I have. We're talking about the tax credits here, and it seems that the government's going to be reducing the carbon tax credits for this after 2040.

After 2040, when these carbon capture tax credits are reduced by half, do you think that the industrial carbon tax should also be reduced because we won't need to take that money and give it to the carbon capture industry?

[Na'im Merchant]

The industrial carbon price is going to be necessary to support companies in the sense that it creates a committed revenue stream for the sector so that they'll be less dependent on such things as tax credits and subsidies in the future.

If we have a highly functioning industrial carbon price and industrial carbon pricing system, then companies have a revenue source that allows them to attract private capital to grow as opposed to requiring government subsidies.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, The Eastern Peninsulas, NL]

I've only got 10 seconds left, so I'd like to ask you a really quick yes-or-no question.

Do you think the Liberals and Mark Carney are planning to put back the carbon tax on fuel, and should they?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

I'm sorry. You're out of time, Mr. Rowe. There's time for a quick yes or no from Mr. Merchant.

[Na'im Merchant]

I don't know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

We will now go to Mr. Malette for five minutes, please.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Madame Levasseur.

You addressed this earlier with my friend Mr. Bonin, but how can we ensure that carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies projects can deliver a genuine net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions once the energy required for capture, transportation and storage is taken into account?

[Annie Levasseur]

First, it depends, of course, on the technique. When you do direct air capture, it requires more energy than if you capture it at the chimney of a cement plant, for instance.

That's also why I talk about a road map. We need to do this at the same time as we decarbonize our energy system so that the energy used to do that will be decarbonized electricity, for instance. If we do that over several decades, then this will be beneficial. Still, the total energy required does not emit as much CO2 as the CO2 that is captured.