Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll read quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman again, and thank you, members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak today. I'm president and CEO of the Canadian Gas Association. CGA is the voice of Canada's natural gas distribution industry, and its members are natural gas distribution companies, transmission companies, their equipment manufacturers, and other service providers.
Last year, the natural gas distribution sector directly employed over 15,000 Canadians and invested almost $3 billion in new systems and in the operation and maintenance of existing systems. Most people don't know that natural gas has a central place in Canada's energy mix, meeting 30% of the country's end-use energy needs. In fact, today over six million customers, representing well over half of the Canadian population, rely on natural gas for heat and power in their homes, apartments, buildings, businesses, hospitals, and schools.
The Canadian Gas Association agrees with the committee's objectives that advancing on those four objectives for the 2012 budget will help mitigate the threats facing the economy and ensure the economic well-being of Canadian families and communities. Our part of the effort centres on the energy system, a key foundation for economic well-being. Natural gas and natural gas utilities can contribute to smarter energy use, to more innovative applications of energy technology in Canada, and to help keep the Canadian economy strong.
We offer three recommendations for specific action. First, provide energy cost savings solutions to northern and remote communities, those not connected to existing gas and electricity grids. The federal government spends over $7 billion annually on Canada's northern and remote communities, a sizeable portion of which is for energy. CGA would like to work with the federal government to show how natural gas can reduce the energy costs and improve the environmental performance in northern and remote communities. Together, we can leverage investments by Canadian utilities and others to fund energy infrastructure. We can showcase technologies like high-efficiency natural gas-fuelled combined heat and power systems to make use of otherwise wasted heat. We can support national networking capacity billing and information sharing efforts. And we can drive community sustainability by fuel switching from more expensive, higher emitting fuels to less expensive, cleaner burning ones.
The second recommendation is to drive energy efficiency and innovation across Canada. Sustainable economic growth turns on the efficient use of inputs and a culture of innovation. By revisiting the government's energy efficiency programs, there's an opportunity to work more closely with industries to leverage private investment and improve program delivery.
There are two things here. First, on innovation, we'd recommend cooperation with industry on initiatives like our own Energy Technology and Innovation Canada, or ETIC, to mobilize strategic investment in the demonstration and commercialization of natural gas technologies. The goal here is to move efficient and innovative new technologies into the marketplace, and ETIC represents the first step of a virtual fund we've created to do that. We're working with Natural Resources Canada on specific projects now, and we'll want to expand on that cooperation. Second, on efficiency, is to cooperate with CGA and other organizations like QUEST, an organization that appeared before you earlier in the week, I believe, who have a particular interest in better delivery of energy solutions to Canadian consumers across the country. CGA member companies have been running efficiency management programs for over 10 years, realizing about $430 million in gas cost savings for Canadian customers. We think more opportunity exists still.
The third recommendation is to help provide more cost-effective transportation choices to Canadians. Natural Resources Canada worked with a number of private sector stakeholders to complete the “Natural Gas Use in the Canadian Transportation Sector - Deployment Roadmap”. This document shows that the medium and heavy-duty vehicles subsector is a good starting point in terms of where natural gas can offer significantly lower fuel costs, operating costs, and emissions. CGA and the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance believe that progress can be made at minimal cost by leveraging existing in-kind federal government and private sector resources. We'd recommend that the Government of Canada do two things: first, convene an implementation panel to act on the recommendations of the “Natural Gas Use in the Canadian Transportation Sector - Deployment Roadmap”; second, establish a partnership between Finance Canada and Canada's transportation industry to assess and define an appropriate fiscal measure to help diversify the sector's energy use.
Mr. Chairman, we believe that natural gas is smart energy. It is growing in popularity in Canada because it is versatile, reliable, affordable, safe, and clean. We believe that CGA, Canada's natural gas distribution utilities, and natural gas can support the government's economic, energy, and environmental objectives going forward.
Thank you for your time.