Finance Committee on May 24th, 2022

[Jean-Denis Garon]

I see.

We're talking here about $2.6 billion a year that would be allocated to these technologies and that would go directly to oil companies. Then we would continue for five additional years, beyond 2030.

Do you think this strategy will help the government meet established greenhouse gas emissions targets?

[Tom L. Green]

It could help a bit, but it's a very inefficient way to go about it. There's also a risk that it might encourage the sector to increase rather than decrease our emissions.

That's definitely not what the planet needs right now.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

Okay.

Just recently, the government announced that it was going to provide a $10 billion loan guarantee for the Trans Mountain project. In other words, after having financed an extremely risky project that has already generated numerous cost overruns, let's make a loan at the taxpayers' expense.

The government is telling us that it does not constitute public support to Trans Mountain. Do you agree?

[Tom L. Green]

No. We consider it to be public support and a very regrettable move.

This unnecessary project should have been shut down. A large amount of money will be spent on it. When you think of what these funds could have accomplished in other sectors, we don't understand why this project is being maintained.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

Ten billion dollars is an enormous amount of money. Do you think that the government could have guaranteed loans to finance other projects that could have been more helpful in meeting our targets?

[Tom L. Green]

Yes. The point I want to make is that renewable energy sector is really where Canada should be making significant investments. There are all kinds of opportunities.

Alberta and Saskatchewan could be renewable energy superpowers. There has clearly already been a lot of investment in this sector in Alberta. That's where we ought to be headed.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

All right.

Also very recently, the government of Canada, according to the Minister of the Environment himself, approved the Bay du Nord project. I believe that this could in the end represent a billion barrels produced by Canada.

Do you think this was a sound decision given today's climate context?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Give a very short answer, please.

[Tom L. Green]

It's not in tune with the recommendations made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

Now we're moving to the Liberals and MP Baker for five minutes to finish the second round.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here today.

I'm going to begin by directing my questions to Mr. Green.

Mr. Green, it's interesting that just before walking into this finance committee, I was in a Zoom meeting with a group of constituents and residents from around the city of Toronto who are part of a group called the Citizens' Climate Lobby. You may be familiar with them. They do wonderful advocacy work—certainly at the local level in my community in Etobicoke Centre. They've inspired me to direct my questions your way today.

I want to ask you a little bit about electric vehicles.

In the prior parliament, I was a member of the environment committee, and we studied zero-emission vehicles during that time. I'm wondering if you could talk about the necessity of electric-vehicle charging infrastructure and how the government's consumer incentive program can make zero-emission vehicles more affordable.

[Tom L. Green]

Sure, I'd be happy to.

We certainly support the transition to zero-emission vehicles as a way to swap out fossil fuels and put in clean electricity. In our recommendation for this year's budget, we suggested that Canada really has an advantage in how clean our grid is and that we can get it to zero-percent emissions by 2035, as the government has promised.

It's really a key climate measure. Our rationale with the feebate is rather than make the public purse pay, you put a fee on the gas guzzlers and you pool it to give it to people who buy zero-emission vehicles. The government chose not to go in that direction and instead put the money in the purchase incentive, which is a good way to go as well. It needs to be supported with a zero-emission vehicle mandate, which the government is working on now, so that manufacturers put more zero-emission vehicles on the lots.

The problem is that if you go to a dealer now, especially if you're in Alberta or Saskatchewan, and sometimes in Atlantic Canada, it's very hard to find a zero-emission vehicle. In fact, across Canada, many, many people are driven by current gas prices and are seeing how our dependence on fossil fuels is really a form of energy insecurity, and so they want a zero-emission vehicle, yet they're being told that it's a six-month wait-list for that particular model or maybe a year-long wait-list and they have to put down a deposit, whereas if they want to buy a gas vehicle, they just walk on the lot and there it is. They have the keys and half an hour later they're driving away.

There are certainly some things to attend to there.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sure, and we also presumably don't want to provide.... What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I hear you saying that we need a mandate so that the auto makers put those vehicles on the lot and offer them up for sale, because, for a number of reasons you stated—and some that come to my mind—if we provide an incentive, but they're not providing the product, then they can hike the prices and the incentive just goes into the bottom line of the manufacturer, the car seller or the distributor.

Quickly, what about infrastructure, though? Talk to me, if you can, about the importance of electric vehicle-charging infrastructure. It's fine to say that we're incenting people to buy cars, and even if manufacturers are mandated to have a certain number available for consumers, it has to be a viable alternative, presumably, to the current options for consumers. Am I right?

[Tom L. Green]

Yes, that's right. It really does make sense to continue encouraging those investments across Canada in charging infrastructure. It is now possible to travel coast to coast, and there are fast chargers along the Trans-Canada Highway, but we need more of them. In particular, we need to attend to renters in older apartment buildings, who won't have charging infrastructure there. We need more charging infrastructure in smaller communities.

We also need to start thinking about much larger vehicles that will need higher-capacity chargers so that commercial trucks will be able to take advantage of this.

I really appreciate the government's investments in this area. I think it's certainly an area for the committee to encourage continued work on.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Green. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Baker.

Members, we only have about six minutes or so left in this first panel. As we usually do—I know there's very limited time—we're going to have about a minute for each of the parties to ask a final question of the witnesses before we transition to our second panel. We'll start with the Conservatives.

Who will be going for the Conservatives?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, we have no further questions. We thank all the witnesses for being here today and for sharing their expertise with us and with Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Albas.

We'll go to the Liberals for a final question or two.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll go to Mr. Ross very quickly.

I come from Prince Edward Island. I always feel that co-op housing is an extremely important asset to any community, but I feel that sometimes there isn't a champion to carry the charge for co-op housing.

I'm wondering if you could give any advice, based on your organization and what you do across the country, for small provinces or even smaller communities, as Ms. Chatel discussed with you about rural. Can you provide any information or leeway that could help alleviate some of these issues?

[Timothy Ross]

I think some of our sector's strongest leaders have come from more rural settings. I'm actually originally from New Brunswick. I personally know a lot of the members from Prince Edward Island as well.

Our organization participated in the provincial task force on affordable housing. We know how urgent and acute the crisis is on the lack of housing supply on Prince Edward Island. As a membership association, we give our members the tools to speak up and speak with decision-makers to promote the model of co-op housing. We have a regional office that serves Prince Edward Island. We can certainly follow up with you after the committee meeting to connect you with those resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP MacDonald.

Thank you for following up on that, Mr. Ross.

We're moving to the Bloc for a question or two from Monsieur Garon.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

I have a supplementary question for the Green Budget Coalition.

I am going back again to the hydrocarbon grants. We're talking about $2.6 billion over five years, and approximately $1.5 billion for each of the following five years. If I quickly add all that up, it comes to $17.5 billion that goes directly into the pockets of the oil companies.

If you had a $17.5 billion budget to put hydrocarbons behind us and meet our emissions reduction targets, what would you do?

[Tom L. Green]

I think we could invest more on renovating buildings to reduce energy use, on renewable sources of energy and on getting them to every part of the country, in addition to the electrification of heavy transport, public transit and personal transportation.

[Jean-Denis Garon]

Needless to say, the government would tell us that some of the measures are green, but we know that there are others that are not very green at all. Even though we realize that it's impossible to do everything perfectly and that there are some positive measures in the budget when you look at it closely, do you think that when the time comes to invest large amounts of money, there is a bias in favour of the oil companies? If so, how would you explain that?