Thank you.
My name is Ken Ogilvie, and I'm with Shahrzad Rahbar from the Canadian Gas Association. I'm here to speak on behalf of QUEST, Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow, which is really about integrating our energy, land use, transportation, waste, and water planning at the community level, where 80% of Canadians now live—and that's growing—60% of energy is consumed, and about 50% of our greenhouse gases are emitted.
Our core message is to try to elevate the importance of energy efficiency and demand reduction policies to the supply side of the equation in Canada. We know, of course, that we do have a problem with climate change and do have targets and commitments; we all know that. We also know from the National Energy Board's reference scenarios that we're not going to achieve those targets with our current approach. There are some gaps in our plan that have to be filled, and the particular gap we're addressing is the 50% of greenhouse gas emissions that come from the community level in Canada. QUEST has brought together in a collaboration, or almost a movement across Canada, industry and the private and public sectors in a joint desire to look really closely at how we plan for and use energy in our communities. We believe that by 2050, we can help close the gap in current policy with achieving the targets Canada has set, through working together on integrated urban energy systems.
I think you've had presentations on the QUEST principles. I think Mike Cleland had mentioned those in a previous presentation. I don't want to cover old ground. What I do want to say is that the three asks we have for the federal government are really to help build the capacity that is partly there now but needs to be much more robust across Canada as a nation, to plan for and gather the data, do the analysis and planning for community energy systems, and to get on with the job of building these things.
We would also like to see new program support for demo projects in leading communities to help learn and prove out new technologies and new ways of integrating energy planning. We would like support for the groups across the country that are helping to move this agenda. So we have an ask of about a half billion dollars that we'd like to see over five years to help initiatives across the country—which are very much from the ground up, I should mention. This is not a top-down command and control process. This process is to help empower and catalyze the movement toward this new agenda across Canada, but it very much makes demands of local desire and provincial leadership.
So QUEST is really knitting all of this together. It has had a great deal of support from federal house committees and the energy ministers, with their energy solutions road map, and from provinces that are leading the way. We think this is a doable agenda and that it fits very nicely with an economic and social agenda that Canadians want.
I'll leave it at that, unless the chair has anything additional to say.
Thank you.