Finance Committee on Oct. 12th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Welcome, everybody. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 106 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. Pursuant to Standing Order 83.1 and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, June 8, 2023, the committee is meeting to conduct the pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2024 budget.

The finance committee is honoured to be starting its cross-country tour on the pre-budget consultation in advance of budget 2024 right here in Atlantic Canada. We've been to P.E.I. and New Brunswick. We drove in from Fredericton yesterday. It was a beautiful drive, with some great scenery all the way here to Halifax. We're delighted to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Our finance committee members are from right across Canada, although we are blessed and lucky to have three members from the Atlantic with us here today. From right here in Halifax, we have MP Diab, who is one of the members joining today. We also have MP Perkins from Nova Scotia and MP Thompson from Newfoundland. The other members we have are MP Daniel Blaikie from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and MP Gabriel Ste-Marie from Joliette, Quebec. I'm Peter Fonseca. I'm the chair, and I'm from Mississauga, Ontario.

Again, we're delighted to be here with our witnesses. We thank you for coming before us with your organizations to provide your testimony.

Also from Ontario, I forgot we have MP Eric Duncan. I apologize, Eric. Eric is from eastern Ontario. What's the riding?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

It's Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

He's from Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. We're delighted to have Eric and, again, all of you with us.

I'm going to let everybody know who the witnesses are today before they get into their opening statements.

From the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, we have Michael Kabalen. He's the executive director. From the Association of Atlantic Universities, we have Robert Summerby-Murray. He is the chair of the association. Joining Robert, we have Dr. Peter Halpin, who may jump in for some of the answers to the questions from members. From Bear Head Energy, managing director Paul MacLean is joining us.

We are now going to start with some opening statements. We have some witnesses arriving as we speak. They'll make their way to the room and get seated, but we are going to start with our opening statements.

Mr. Kabalen, if you could start, please, you have five minutes.

[Michael Kabalen, Executive Director, Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia]

Thank you. I'm Michael Kabalen. I'm the executive director of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia. We were founded in 1990 as an advocacy group, even back then, to advocate for the need for continued investment in forever affordable housing in our sector and our region.

Today, we are builders of affordable housing, which I'll speak to a bit later, and we're the community entity for Reaching Home, which is the federal government's strategy to reduce homelessness. We receive a block of funding from the federal government to make targeted investments, both in the designated community of Halifax and in rural and remote Nova Scotia, to help reduce and prevent homelessness.

I'll talk a bit about that first, because I think that's where we'll likely spend some of our time. Through that, we receive about $5.5 million for HRM in Halifax, and we receive about $1.4 million for rural and remote Nova Scotia.

It's a community-led funding program. That's actually the key to the success of the program. The government does what it does well, which is hand the money over to the community and the experts. The experts on our community advisory board and panel then help make informed decisions on where we can make targeted investments in the community through other non-profits and with other partners to help prevent and reduce homelessness.

A lot of good work has been done through that program, but the need far outweighs the funding that currently exists. I think that's something you'll hear if you speak to any Reaching Home community entity in the country.

At the current scale, we always have to choose between the project types and any investments. If there's a capital investment—we wanted to buy a vacant building and turn that into permanent supportive housing for individuals experiencing homelessness—we have to weigh that against existing ongoing investments for support workers, shelters and the things that exist. That's the challenge at the advisory board level.

If funding in the next budget for Reaching Home was increased even by only 10%, that's not going to have a major impact to help reduce and prevent homelessness. If it was increased tenfold, it would have a substantial, huge impact, particularly in rural parts of the province, because the money is smaller in rural, the investments are smaller and the capacity of those organizations is reduced. We often say that we give less money to rural in this because the organizations are less sophisticated, but that's, in fact, preventing rural organizations from making the investments, growing, becoming more sophisticated and resolving the issue. Our colleagues who are from rural parts anywhere in this country would recognize that rural homelessness is often more difficult to understand, diagnose and measure, and it's often more difficult to resolve because of the geography and the lack of services that keep people housed longer.

I just want to highlight that as part of being the designated community for Halifax, we maintain what's called the “by name list”, which is all the service providers. They're all the people who are knocking on tents at night and asking people, “How are you doing? Can we help you? Can we support you?” They have to report back to the “by name list”, so we at AHANS maintain that data.

As of our most recent report on October 3, there are 1,005 people in HRM who are actively experiencing chronic homelessness.... I'm sorry. They're actually experiencing homelessness today, and 735 of those are experiencing chronic homelessness. That means they've been homeless for six months or more. They've been in and out of shelters, on and off their friends' couches, living in a car or worse, at times. To highlight that number, 254 are considered tri-comorbid, which means they have other factors that will typically contribute to ongoing homelessness. They're living with a mental illness; they may be living with a disability, and often, they're living with addiction. When we measure those types of things, they often make homelessness more difficult to resolve, so we measure them independently.

Since 2019, that number has been around 250, but the new number of 1,005 shows that the gap has grown substantially. We had only about 250 people experiencing homelessness in 2019, when we started taking this data. Now we have 1,005, but we still have 250 people who are high acuity. To understand what's happened over the last number of years, it's no longer what I would say is your stereotypical individual falling into homelessness because of something that's contributing to their life; it's external factors. It's the lack of available housing. It's the lack of being able to afford housing. If someone loses their job, they're more likely to fall into homelessness because of just that than they would have been prior to the crisis that we're all facing.

I'd be happy to share more about that as we talk, but I want to use whatever remaining time I have left to talk about how we are builders of affordable housing and users of many of the federal programs that exist through CMHC and through the federal land initiative. We have built a property with the rapid housing initiative, where we now house 12 people.

[Michael Kabalen, Executive Director, Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia]

We are building an additional 32 units through coinvestment, which is another CMHC program. We are active builders of affordable housing right across this province. We have about 150 units that we've built, bought or converted over the last two years, and we have about an additional 300 in our pipeline. We are going to be active in creating what we call “forever affordable” housing. If you have questions on how we make that happen, I think we can do that through the dialogue that follows.

That's what AHANS is. We continue to advocate. I think that we're at a moment in time—I'm at the end of my comments—I'll say, when we know what needs to be done, and we just need to do it. There are motivated people on the ground, willing to deliver. We just need the resources from the federal government, the provincial government and our partners in the municipal government to act on it. We're really excited to hear about all the attention, because we've been talking about this at AHANS since 1990. We're ready to go in Nova Scotia. We just need to see those investments come forward so that we can deliver.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for that, Mr. Kabalen.

Now we'll hear from the Association of Atlantic Universities and its chair, Dr. Summerby-Murray.

[Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray, Chair, Association of Atlantic Universities]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the committee members for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Rob Summerby-Murray. I chair the council of the Association of Atlantic Universities. I'm also president and vice-chancellor of Saint Mary's University here in Halifax.

I thought it might be useful to give a bit of context for the AAU. We are a member organization across Atlantic Canada that connects 16 universities across four provinces, and my presence with you this morning is an opportunity to highlight and amplify key components of our written submission made to the committee a few weeks ago.

It's important to note that we are a diverse group of institutions with a number of larger, research-intensive universities across our region; smaller, community-based institutions that may be primarily focused on undergraduate learning; and then specialist institutions across many parts of Atlantic Canada. We are a key part of the fabric of this region, a key driver of economic growth and change and of technology, medical research, health, wellness and social betterment for our region, and a key part of fuelling the region's economic prosperity.

We believe as well that there is opportunity here in Atlantic Canada to advance key agenda items for Canada as a whole. Particularly, those include increasing the Canada's competitiveness in the search for global talent. That's how we see our role. In building that out, we see a much bigger agenda than perhaps may devolve on an individual institution. We see something that is much bigger and much more significant at a national level.

Certainly, in our pre-budget submission—this is a short form of that—the AAU advocated for three key priority areas. I want to present those to you this morning in an abbreviated form.

The first of these is accessible housing, and it builds out very nicely on the previous witness's point about the ongoing need for access to affordable, appropriate and safe housing for Atlantic Canadians and, I would add to that, for a population in Atlantic Canada who are students across our region. In particular, we would call for a revision to the national housing strategy, and particularly the housing accelerator fund, to make universities eligible for funding from this program.

Right now, we are not eligible to apply for support from the Government of Canada to help us resolve the housing crisis. This is a housing crisis, not only for our universities and colleges but also for Canadians. The ability of universities to help to deliver on a resolution would be part of that. At the present time, we are not eligible for that funding. I'm not just seeking more money.... I'm not sure how often this committee would hear someone say that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray]

I'm not seeking more money this morning. Rather, I'm seeking increased eligibility and access to existing funding, particularly through the housing accelerator fund.

The second is building a green economy. The key elements of what we have in our region for our universities include aging infrastructure, infrastructure that is not climate change-resilient going forward. We are looking to provide other opportunities, working with the green buildings strategy through NRCan, so that we can include all post-secondary institutions, including those in Atlantic Canada, with a fair chance to access funding for that programming.

I have a quick example from my own university. We are about to switch on North America's tallest retrofitted photovoltaic cell system. It will generate 100,000 kilowatt hours annually. It will power the attached residence building and several other buildings.

I will be very clear: There's not one cent of federal money supporting that initiative. We go to the bank. We're not eligible under existing programming. I just want to make that point clear: We do the right thing, but it's very important that we think about ways in which universities could become eligible to be working in partnership with you to continue to do the right thing in terms of climate change resilience as we go forward.

Certainly, therefore, there is a further request, and it is indeed, I might suggest, yet another request that is not for new money but for increased access and eligibility. I know that my good friend Kody Blois has heard me make this pitch before, but really, it's about ensuring increased access for our universities as drivers of a regional economy.

[Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray]

The third key point is related to demography, demographic change and population growth in our region. Our universities in Atlantic Canada enjoy an important role in bringing students from around the globe to our region. International students are key drivers of our research, our diversity and our building out the next generations of high-quality employees for Canadian businesses.

We would call for continued focus on the part of IRCC around visa processing. We have concerns about disproportionately high rejection rates for international students in Atlantic Canada. Many colleagues around the table will be well aware of the House of Commons report of 18 months ago on those challenges. We encourage you to think carefully about those. The value of international education is significant for us in Atlantic Canada. It's our way forward. We enjoy and benefit from it, all of us in our region and indeed across our country.

Thank you very much, committee members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you very much for that, Dr. Summerby-Murray.

Yes, Kody Blois has joined us. He is the MP for Kings—Hants in Nova Scotia.

We will now hear from Bear Head Energy and its managing director, Paul MacLean.

[Paul MacLean, Managing Director, Bear Head Energy]

Good morning. My name is Paul MacLean. I am the managing director of Bear Head Energy. I lead a team of engineers, project developers and permitting specialists who are seeking to develop, construct and operate a green hydrogen and ammonia production facility near Point Tupper here in Nova Scotia. We thank you for the opportunity to share Bear Head’s perspectives on the standing committee’s consultation process for budget 2024 and for travelling to Halifax to gather our feedback.

In April of this year, Bear Head’s facility was permitted for up to two gigawatts of hydrogen electrolyzers. At full build-out and peak power inflow, Bear Head could produce up to 350,000 tonnes of green hydrogen and two million tonnes of green ammonia per year, positioning Nova Scotia to be a leader in the production of green energy and a critical contributor to the global energy transition.

Bear Head’s facility will be developed in phases. Our development costs are being funded by Bear Head’s owner, BAES Infrastructure, which is a diversified energy company focused on the development, construction and operation of the transition projects. Bear Head is busy working on detailed engineering designs, our power sourcing and transmission plans, and the remaining permitting that we will need for those building blocks. We are also actively engaged with the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, various first nations bands and the local broader community. We can clearly see a path to producing green hydrogen and ammonia well within this decade and bringing many skilled jobs to the province of Nova Scotia.

We are working to clarify our cost per tonne to produce ammonia. As you can imagine, this is of particular interest to the potential customers with whom we are in dialogue. Gaining more certainty and clarity around the investment tax credits for which we may be eligible would help us to quantify those costs and continue to advance our offtake discussions.

Once we are successful in organizing all the elements necessary for this viable project, especially customer contracts, we will approach the project finance debt market for the majority of the funds used to construct the facility and its associated wind farms. These financing sources will take into account and in fact assume receipt of certain investment tax credits when agreeing to the project’s pro forma capital structure.

With that background, I would like to acknowledge the generous package of investment tax credits put forth in budget 2023. This budget was a very tangible and positive step for the development of a green energy industrial and export sector in Canada and in particular Atlantic Canada. Given the significant potential for both local industrial and export sectors in Canada, it is important that policy frameworks support the hydrogen industry on a global basis to ensure that the industry is competitive in world markets. For Bear Head, the clean hydrogen investment tax credit and the ITCs available for wind farm development will be critical in financing our project and helping it to be cost-competitive with similar projects located in other countries around the world.

In terms of Bear Head’s commentary today, my suggestion is that the committee help promote adequate rules and interpretations set forth in budget 2024 to provide the clarity and certainty necessary for Bear Head and similar projects to benefit from the proposed ITCs and to quantify their impact. Our comments on budget 2023 were previously provided to the Department of Finance, but I will summarize our principal suggestions.

First, the industry would benefit from more detail as to which assets are eligible for which tax credits, especially the necessary common infrastructure assets that aren’t specifically used in either hydrogen or ammonia production.

Second, the industry would benefit from specific guidance as to how the carbon intensity calculations are to be made. Given the complexity of this calculation and its potential for different outcomes depending upon when it is measured, our suggestion is that Canada provide as much detail as possible so that projects such as ours have adequate time to plan for our compliance with those rules.

Finally, our assumption is that a one-time carbon intensity test must be assessed at the time of successful commissioning of the facility. A predictable but rigorous one-time test will mirror the one-time nature of the ITC itself, and will therefore help to ensure that lenders have sufficient confidence in the availability of the ITC to give full credit to its financial benefit. A multiple testing requirement that extends beyond commissioning would create barriers to securing investment, and would therefore impair the developer’s ability to finance the available investment tax credits.

As previously noted, more details on each of these points are included in our letter provided to the Department of Finance and separately provided to this committee. I would be happy to elaborate on any of those points.

I hope these suggestions are helpful to the committee. I will conclude by saying that Bear Head welcomes the government’s ongoing dialogue in consultation on these important and consequential tax credits. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. MacLean, for your opening statement.

We will now hear from EverWind Fuels. The two representatives will be sharing their time. The founder and chief executive officer, Trent Vichie, is with us, as is the president and chief executive officer of Bayside Development Corporation, Rose Paul.

Mr. Vichie.

[Trent Vichie, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EverWind Fuels]

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thanks for the time today.

I would say as a general comment that Canada has made the right statements and has sent the right messages to the world, and the world is paying attention.

Without going into the details, it's really a matter of acting and timing. Sitting here today, we've spent $180 million in private sector money to make this decision easy for you. Most of the projects in the U.S., without exception, are literally sitting there waiting for the policies to come. We have taken on the risk where this makes sense. It's one of the only ways you can decarbonize and, when you want to ask for policies, show the plan. We're working aggressively today to make sure we can deliver a first-mover advantage.

The reason this is important—and you've seen it before—is that when you get a first-mover advantage, industry comes around. I'd say, sitting here today, that we've seen definitions of green hydrogen, green ammonia and mandates, both here in Canada and in Europe, that have come into effect in the last days. I can tell you for a fact that what we have seen in the last two months is enough inbound custom demand to develop 15 gigawatts, which is the entire portfolio of wind that sits here today. This is very real. We're being approached on a daily basis. The reason for it is that we have spent the $180 million and we have a full team of engineers going as hard as we possibly can.

We can absolutely deliver this. The economics make sense. When you're making green fuels, you really want to...but the whole point of tax credits is not for us: It's for the customers, so that we can bring it down. If you do that, you bring the cost down, and then all of a sudden the demand starts to go. That's the whole point about what we're doing here today.

There is a global race going on, and I think Atlantic Canada is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it. We have a report from McKinsey, which has looked at all of these various things. They are telling us very clearly that our project, other than one in Saudi Arabia, is the most advanced on the planet, and it's sitting here today, so you have an opportunity to take a lead over the U.S. Despite all the talk, they're waiting.

We've risked our money. We've received literally zero dollars from the federal government at this stage. That's fine. We'd like to show what we're made of first, before we ask and define a business plan. We've been completely transparent with NRCan. They've been fantastic. We don't have any secrets. We're a transparent organization.

Very simply, I would just say, “Act.” We've given the details. We can cover those later, but I really want to pass this over to Rose Paul. This is an important part of economic reconciliation as well.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Rose.

[Rose Paul, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bayside Development Corporation, EverWind Fuels]

Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present today.

I'll introduce myself. I'm Rose Paul, and I am the CEO and president of the Bayside Development Corporation, which is the business arm of the Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation.

Today, I'm sitting here to express my support for the economic development renewables project in Mi'kmaq territory. I am referring, of course, to the project that we are partnering and working on with EverWind Fuels. We're working on and partnering on bringing this to life in Nova Scotia.

As first nations partners in developing this project, we are putting our nation at the centre of what we believe are the great clean energy projects in the world, especially and certainly here in Canada.

As indigenous partners, we have developed much-needed opportunities for this project right in our backyards. It's really a true path to reconciliation. This is a prime example of ensuring that economic prosperity and environmental sustainability go hand in hand. This is a very important part for our first nations as we contribute to the clean, net-zero plans here in Canada. In fact, our partnership and our Mi'kmaq partnerships are actively trail-blazing to advance the net-zero goals of the federal government as a solid display of indigenous growth in the energy economy.

As a Mi'kmaq matriarch and a business leader standing here today with a voice before the Standing Committee on Finance, it is an honour and a privilege to display strength in partnering and developing these relationships that are so key right now to economic reconciliation. This project with EverWind gives us an opportunity to have a strong voice for first nations and to occupy a space that we have never occupied before.

Before closing, Mr. Chair and honourable members, in my Mi'kmaq language, wela'lioq. Thank you for giving me this time together with you to allow me to carry the voice of my community to you as we move past measures needed for these projects to succeed. Specifically, I would be remiss if I didn't urge you to acknowledge the importance of indigenous involvement and to support partnerships in these projects by allowing our indigenous entities, not just taxable corporations, to fully participate in investment tax credits.

I bring this question. Why does corporate Canada get 30% ITCs while first nations get 15%?

We know that global investors can go anywhere. However, we want them to choose Canada—preferably here in Nova Scotia. Putting in the right tax initiatives and supports will quickly help us ensure that Canada is the global leader in this quickly emerging energy sector. Moreover, we can show the world that with the right approach and by working together, social licence is truly possible here. We are witness to that.

In closing, I will reiterate that we support all efforts that the federal government will provide to help projects like ours move quickly. Our communities are counting on these projects, as are all Canadians.

In respect of treaty obligations, aboriginal and friendship, wela'lioq, thank you and merci beaucoup.

I will be happy to answer any questions the committee members may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Paul.

What an innovative and dynamic group of witnesses we have with us here today. I'm sure there are going to be many questions from the members, so we're going to get on with it.

In our first round of questions, each party will have up to six minutes to ask questions. We are starting with MP Perkins for six minutes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's six minutes for questions and answers, not just questions. That's just to be clear. I did a bit of filibustering in this committee. I won't be speaking directly for six minutes myself. I'll try not to.

Thank you, as well, for the wonderful presentations in this important part of the process of this committee providing advice to the Minister of Finance as she prepares her budget. It's great to get our perspective from Nova Scotia and hear about the diverse projects and issues you are dealing with.

Maybe I could start with Dr. Summerby-Murray.

I'm a proud Saint Mary's graduate as well, as I think Lena is. I'm not sure...Kody is as well. All right. You have a lot of supporters here who love your institution. I certainly enjoyed my time there and the alumni stuff I did afterwards.

I would like to start off by asking about accessible housing. We've read a lot recently, not just about the general housing challenges in Canada, but also about the housing challenges of students.

Can you tell me how bad the housing issues are here in Halifax, in particular, where I think there are five post-secondary institutions?

In your view, what are the primary drivers of the shortfall of housing and the challenges students are having with the affordability of it?

[Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray]

Thank you. I very much appreciate those university connections in the room. Thank you so much.

Yes, there certainly are challenges across our region in Atlantic Canada. I can speak for Saint Mary's University, where we maintained a wait-list on our residence but cleared it Labour Day weekend. We housed all of our students. What we don't know is the number of our students who are in what I would describe as “precarious housing” situations. We run at about 18% of our population in residence, but the remaining 82% are in local areas, and that's where much of the challenge is.

Certainly, across our region, we have students who have deferred the university experience. They cannot come to Halifax, Sydney, Moncton, Fredericton, Saint John or Charlottetown because of the lack of housing. It's a key issue for us as we go forward.

The highlighted challenge, of course, also has been related to international students who come to our region, often with less access to housing at the beginning and less familiarity with landlord-tenant relationships. We have programs to address this, but that remains a big challenge for us.

The primary drivers of the shortfall, I'd suggest, are the increased pressures on our local markets for housing that have come simply from immigration itself. There's a good-news-bad-news story there as we bring population in. Certainly, I've had colleagues from the federal government say that we need more people to build the houses but we need the houses to accommodate the additional people.... That vicious circle is one that we need to break going forward.

Certainly, from the university's perspective, access to federal support for long-term capital, including working with private developers, would be very important for us by way of a solution going forward.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Just briefly, how much is the cost of the housing, as well as the lack of housing stock, an issue both in attracting students and for the affordability? We're recently reading that universities have their own food banks and are seeing a large increase in food bank usage, obviously because the cost of food and the cost of housing are impacting them.

[Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray]

Absolutely, and we are a university that began a food bank approximately six years ago. It is well subscribed—oversubscribed—and overwhelmingly used by international students. They're in that food insecurity and housing insecurity situation.

Certainly, there are opportunities for us to be working together in partnership with the three levels of government—municipal, provincial and federal—to find solutions and opportunities. We, as a sector, are willing to do that. We cannot do it on our own. Our biggest challenge is in terms of access to long-term capital, and I would just note that the reason for that is that we are essentially running public institutions on a private funding model.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's right. Yes.

I have only about a minute left, Mr. Kabalen. Your numbers were stark on the increase in three years in the “by name list”, and the reasons. Of course, I represent part of Halifax, but also a large rural riding, where we have a housing challenge everywhere, as you're dealing with over the whole province.

With the increasing cost of things like heat, how much of a challenge is that causing people who are trying to find affordable housing in terms of actually attaining housing or being able to afford housing? Our heating costs here, with oil and electricity, are quite high.

[Michael Kabalen]

I think most rental housing usually includes the energy or the heating. However, the cost of everything has gone up, and low-wage workers in particular are not receiving cost-of-living increases or even having access to generate more income, so they're more vulnerable to falling into homelessness.

In Nova Scotia, and in particular in rural Nova Scotia, you'll see the folks on a fixed income who work: the person who works at the Tim Hortons drive-through or is pushing the carts back into the local Walmart. When the price of everything goes up, what's the first thing they choose to not pay? It might be their housing. Then they'll fall into homelessness, and then there's a downward spiral into all the other factors, such as addiction. I don't think that the cost of fuel is necessarily the only factor. It's that the cost of everything is really inflated and the wages of the lowest-income workers actually are the last to catch up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Perkins.

We will now go to MP Blois.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's great to see the finance committee here in Atlantic Canada. Thank you for your leadership on that.

I'm going to start with Bear Head.

Paul, I certainly know about the concept, where you have your facility in northeastern Nova Scotia looking to export markets. Can you tell the committee where you're going to actually get the electricity that will drive the electrolysis process? Is that something you'll procure externally, or is that something you're intending to do internally as part of an integrated process?

[Paul MacLean]

We were quite fortunate that we participated in a provincial Crown lands process and were awarded sufficient lands for 500 megawatts of onshore wind power production. We've also secured private lands for an additional 500 megawatts, which would give us, in round numbers, about a gigawatt of onshore wind production that would power the initial phase of the project.