Finance Committee on May 26th, 2026

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Epp, I'd like to share my time with you.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Loomis, it's great to see you again. I want to congratulate your sector on getting the attention of the government to get some TRQs and some tariffs in place for steel imports from non-market economies. I hear you. I hear the concern that the levels aren't high enough.

I have a two-part question. First of all, what's your level of confidence that the CBSA is actually catching the majority, or hopefully all, of the imported steel that is coming from non-market economies that are subject to TRQ rates, be they 25% or, hopefully, 50%? I know the aluminum extrusion industry is still looking for the very same thing you got the first time around.

The second question is, can you explain to the committee about steel I-beams? We don't make any in Canada. How does that work when you have to export the I-beams back to the U.S.?

[Keanin Loomis]

I sure can. Thank you, MP Epp. It is good to see you again as well.

When it comes to CBSA—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Answer very briefly please, Mr. Loomis. We are running out of time.

[Keanin Loomis]

Because the CBSA really didn't have to worry about this and we didn't have to evaluate the content, proportions and various products, and understand the derivative side of the industry, which is what most steel products are, it has been an education for everybody. We are working with them and coordinating with them. I think they are getting more knowledge—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I'm sorry, but that concludes the time we have. Thank you, Mr. Loomis.

We're going to continue now with Mr. MacDonald for five minutes.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to ask a question of Ms. Tranberg, from the Alberta Cattle Feeders' Association, on the temporary foreign worker program.

In my previous life, I required temporary foreign workers because I'm in an agricultural field of year-round work that is not attractive to the youth of Canada today. We have to come to the realization that it isn't. There's an ongoing argument that they will do agricultural jobs, like milking a dairy cow or feeding a beef animal, but they'll choose not to do that, because there are a lot of opportunities for the youth of today, and we encourage them to pursue their best career paths. However, we still have to have agriculture, so your recommendation to have a direct agricultural stream would be a tremendous step forward, just to identify that we need the year-round presence. This isn't for the seasonal agricultural streams, but that's fine. They function. The people go back home and they return.

There is an Australian model I've looked at. I just want your viewpoint on it.

In Australia, an LMIA is for three to five years and is tied to a region, but it remains open. Workers who come have to stay in that region. If it's an agricultural region, like where your beef feeding is occurring in Alberta, then they could leave a particular operation, but they would have to stay in the region to complete their PR and get their PR status.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that. I think we need to incentivize the LMIA to get workers to come for agriculture, and then give them a direct path to PR.

[Janice Tranberg]

I was just at a conference, and they reminded me of a quote that I thought was really interesting. Primary agriculture actually employs more people than both the auto and the aerospace manufacturing industries combined.

Truly, getting people to work in rural locations in -30°C and 30°C...and it's hard work. You're right; Canadians just don't want those jobs.

When we bring these people in, they become part of the rural fabric. They grow schools. They bring their families. They become Canadians. We definitely need a process to bring them in and get them through.

I'm going to turn this over to Curtis, because he actually hires temporary foreign workers.

[Curtis Vander Heyden]

You're right. We currently have 15 foreign workers working for us right now. The furthest ones date back to about 16 years. They are actually Canadian citizens now.

These people come to Canada knowing what to expect. They come from an agriculture background. They have veterinary experience. It's very expensive to take a young person out of the city who wants the Yellowstone model, I call it. They think everything is a ranch, that everything is fun. When they get boots on the ground, that's not the case. There's quite a steep learning curve. A lot of resources are used to train these individuals, never mind getting them out to the rural locations to do the job safely.

Foreign workers are a very big asset in helping us safely produce the beef we have and are a long-term solution in our communities.

[Janice Tranberg]

I'll quickly add that an LMIA in Canada is two years. It's pretty hard to come here, get a new job, get settled and also try to get permanent residency in two years. A four-year LMIA would be fabulous.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

That was going to be my next question. I like your answer.

I'm going to move on to the aerospace industry. I represent a riding in Prince Edward Island, and I would be criticized if I didn't mention that there was a large investment in Summerside, P.E.I., just recently with MDS Coating, an innovative company that's providing a dual purpose for defence and other applications in the aerospace industry.

I support Mr. Garon's statement, but I want a Canada-wide strategy for aerospace. I think that's important. Can you speak to all the opportunities there for youth? We're doing a lot of apprenticeship training. Do we have to do specialized training for the aerospace industry as well?

[Mike Mueller]

Absolutely. In Slemon Park, P.E.I., there are world-class facilities, with lots of opportunities for youth.

Export is 80% of what we do. I want to make a comment in support of Minister Sidhu and the free trade agreements that he's pursuing, in particular Mercosur. They are absolutely critical for our industry and for the youth who are entering the industry, to tie it back to your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Mueller.

Thank you Mr. MacDonald.

To conclude this hour, I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Garon for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to be clear: What I was pointing out is I don't think that interprovincial turf wars should prevent us from having a national strategy. We're moving in the same direction.

Mr. Mueller, I carefully read the document you submitted to the committee. In your brief, you say you'd like to see a review of Transport Canada's governance model for regulating aviation activities. That's my translation.

Do you have a model in mind? What should we draw inspiration from? What should the parameters be?

You have a minute and 50 seconds.

[Mike Mueller]

I won't give ideas on what that could possibly be because there are so many different models. The outcome is about more attention being paid to aircraft certification, and government providing more resourcing, as we talked about before.

The innovation is moving so quickly. How do you ensure you have the resources and skills for Transport Canada to keep pace with what is going on? If you take a look at the significant funding the government has put into the innovation side, we feel that needs to keep pace on the certification side. It's more the outcomes that we're looking for.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Recently, for example, there was an episode where the White House deemed some aircraft weren't certified quickly enough here. I don't know whether the White House was right in principle, but not having enough resources to quickly certify aircraft can obviously harm our trade and exports.

More generally, can this also be an irritant in our trade relationship with the U.S.?

[Mike Mueller]

I don't want to talk about any one particular situation, because I'm probably not qualified to do that. The aerospace sector is a strategic sector for the country and a reputational sector for the country, and the ability to certify the new innovations coming forward is absolutely reputational. We're one of very few countries in the world that can do this. As I said, it's a crown jewel for the aerospace sector, and we need to keep doubling down on that, providing the resources and attention to that. It's absolutely critical.

As I mentioned before, 80% of what we do is exported. If it can't be certified here in the country, it can't be exported. This is an ecosystem altogether, and we need to be paying attention to every single part of that ecosystem, from the defence side to the civil side to the workforce to certification, and then getting in place free trade agreements and maintaining zero-for-zero trade with the U.S.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Mueller. That concludes our time.

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

Colleagues, this is a reminder to take your conversations outside as opposed to having them during the committee. We like to have a respectful environment and like to listen to our colleagues' questions and the witnesses' answers.

With that, I would like to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

We're going to take a brief suspension while we turn over for the next panel.

Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Welcome back, colleagues. We're going to resume the meeting.

I would like to welcome our next round of witnesses. From CVW Sustainable Royalties Inc., we have Akshay Dubey, the chief executive officer. From New Economy Canada, we have Jason Clark, vice-president. From StormFisher Hydrogen, we have Brandon Moffatt, chief development officer. From The Transition Accelerator, we have Moe Kabbara, chief executive officer, who is joining us virtually.

I would like to remind participants of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating via video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I would like to remind witnesses that committee members may ask questions in English or in French. If you will need interpretation, please take a moment now to prepare your earpiece and select the listening channel you need in advance in order to take full advantage of the time allotted for questions and answers.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

We will now begin with Mr. Dubey.

You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Akshay Dubey, Chief Executive Officer, CVW Sustainable Royalties Inc]

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today on the pre-budget consultations for the 2026 budget.

My name is Akshay Dubey. I'm the CEO of CVW Sustainable Royalties, a company that's at the forefront of sustainable finance and innovation. We began as a clean technology innovator, developing a commercially ready, made-in-Canada solution to one of the oil sands sector's most persistent challenges: treating and managing tailings. The good news is that these tailings represent a significant economic opportunity, as they are rich in resources, which can be extracted, while also accelerating environmental remediation.

Through our journey in advancing this technology, we have seen first-hand one of Canada's largest innovation challenges: Many promising Canadian technologies struggle to move from demonstration to large-scale commercial deployment due to both capital constraints and a lack of industrial adoption. In response, we have expanded our business model to include a royalty financing platform that supports emerging Canadian industrial and environmental technologies. Our objective is to help with funding between early-stage innovation and project financing for mature technologies. To date, this strategy has enabled us to finance Canadian technology companies engaged in waste asphalt shingle recycling and sustainable ice production.

Our own creating value from waste, or CVW, technology has been developed to reprocess oil sands tailings before they enter tailings ponds. In doing so, our technology can recover the hydrocarbons and valuable critical minerals that are currently being lost. Importantly, this one Canadian technology can simultaneously advance several national priorities: economic growth, job creation, emissions reduction, resource security and critical minerals development. This is not an early-stage concept. This is a commercially ready technology that has advanced through piloting, engineering and technical validation with the support of both levels of government.

If it were deployed across the industry, we could recover approximately 12 million barrels of lower-carbon oil annually, while also producing meaningful volumes of critical minerals from existing waste streams. Industry-wide deployment would recover 24% of global zircon production, 8% of global titanium production and 14% of rare earth production.

These minerals have already been extracted from the ground. They are just not being recovered today. Collectively, recovering these minerals and hydrocarbons would add $48 billion to Canada's GDP and over 144,000 person-years of employment.

The environmental case is equally strong. By processing tailings before they enter ponds, our technology can reduce fluid tailings and water volumes and can help address long-term liabilities. CVW can also prevent methane emissions at the source by recovering solvent before it degrades in tailings, thus reducing methane emissions by 90% from the single largest area source of methane emissions in the country. Industry-wide deployment would reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by three million tonnes annually, contributing one-third to the methane emissions reductions targeted in the Canada-Alberta methane equivalency agreement referenced in the MOU.

To unlock these benefits, we're proposing three key recommendations for the 2026 budget.

First, expand the CCUS ITC so that it better recognizes the full range of emissions abatement opportunities, including methane prevention. Canada's climate policy should not only incentivize the capture of emissions but also incentivize the actual technologies that prevent emissions in the first place. Technologies like CVW can deliver this outcome.

Second, broaden the clean technology manufacturing ITC to include mine waste and tailings reprocessing, as these are bona fide representations of clean technology and the circular economy, which we believe should be incentivized through this ITC. This change would also be more consistent with Canada's strategy, which includes resource recycling as part of the value chain.

Third, expand the list of eligible critical minerals under the clean technology manufacturing ITC to include titanium and zircon, which are strategically important for defence, nuclear energy, aerospace and advanced manufacturing. Notably, titanium is on Canada's critical minerals list, and zircon has been recognized on the critical minerals lists of many of our trading partners.

We are encouraged by the creation of the Canada strong fund, alongside institutions such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Canada Growth Fund and the strategic innovation fund. However, a persistent challenge for many public financing programs is that they only support projects once they are already fully bankable, a stage when private capital is often readily available. In our view, Canada's greatest financing gap exists earlier in the commercialization cycle, when technologies need catalytic capital to move from demonstration to first-of-a-kind commercial deployment. This is when flexible capital is needed, and it's where these pools of capital should be focused.

In closing, the 2026 budget represents an opportunity to strengthen Canada’s long-term economic competitiveness through targeted updates to Canada's incentive framework, which would allow the deployment of commercial technology, innovation and industrial capacity in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dubey.

We're going to continue with Mr. Clark for five minutes, please.

[Jason Clark, Vice-President, New Economy Canada]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting me.

My name is Jason Clark, and I'm the vice-president at New Economy Canada. We are an alliance of more than 70 businesses, labour organizations and indigenous partners. Together we represent over 485,000 workers across emerging and traditional sectors, such as manufacturing, electricity, mining, construction and clean technology, generating over $200 billion in annual revenue.

Increasingly, Canada's economic agenda is pinned to projects that require a significant amount of affordable, reliable power. Put another way, our electricity system is central to the country's economic growth, industrial competitiveness and investment future. That's why Canada's national electricity strategy is so important. We need to double the grid and accelerate electrification while increasing the share of non-emitting sources of power as we track towards net zero by 2050.

Expanding and modernizing Canada's grid will require an enormous amount of capital, up to $1 trillion by 2050 according to the strategy itself. A recent RBC analysis pegged electricity growth as a $680-billion investment opportunity by 2035 alone.

The payoff is a Canadian economy that's more efficient, more productive, more energy-secure, lower in cost and ultimately cleaner. The strategy sets the right ambition with technology that exists today, improving at great speed, and costs are coming down.

To attract the scale of investment this opportunity requires, budget 2026 can focus on two priorities: extending the clean economy investment tax credits to 2040 and investing in new major transmission projects. Please allow me to elaborate.

First, budget 2026 should expand, extend and simplify the clean economy ITCs to 2040. Building a new energy regime will take dedicated long-term commitments from a diversity of investors. Stable and long-term tax credits give investors the certainty they need to deploy capital in Canadian electricity and manufacturing.

Extending the ITCs by five years to 2040 would create a longer window for development, supporting new projects alongside industry, training providers, contractors and asset owners by reducing the risk of rushed project timelines, workforce bottlenecks and missed opportunities for project development.

Expanding the criteria will help deliver on the economic potential of the tax credits themselves. Specifically, that means adding trusts, co-operatives and other community-owned entities into the clean electricity ITC. Further, refine the clean technology ITC to ensure the 2023 fall economic statement amendments include waste biomass heat generation and apply to integrated industrial process heat systems, including cement alternative lower-carbon fuel.

Second, budget 2026 should significantly invest in electricity transmission as a critical nation-building economic project. Silos of electricity are costing Canadians money and slowing economic growth.

The federal government has three critical roles to play: direction, financing and coordination. A low-cost immediate opportunity is developing a cost-benefit framework to identify the projects that will deliver the most benefits and the optimal financing to balance risk among provincial ratepayers and federal taxpayers. The government should invest in the transmission interconnect strategy using tools like the Canada strong fund or alternative mechanisms such as debt financing. Finally, the government can help establish clear roles for governments and utilities to support the provincial and territorial national energy corridor agreement.

Here's the opportunity: Canada already has one of the cleanest electricity systems in the world. That's a major economic advantage in a global economy increasingly shaped by energy security, industrial competitiveness and access to clean power. However, with the ballooning demand of electricity from industry and households, that advantage won't hold. We need to build faster, connect our grids and give investors certainty to invest here in Canada.

The electricity strategy gets the ambition right, but budget 2026 can go further by building the electricity system that growth will depend on.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity, and I look forward to the committee's questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Clark.

We will now have Mr. Moffatt, please, from StormFisher Hydrogen.

[Brandon Moffatt, Chief Development Officer, StormFisher Hydrogen]

Madam Chair, vice-chairs and members of the committee, thank you for your time today.

My name is Brandon Moffatt. I'm the chief development officer and one of the founders of a company called StormFisher. We're based here in Ontario, but we have staff in Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. We are focused on the production of low-carbon molecules, so not traditional wind and solar, but making gaseous fuels and liquid fuels for hard-to-abate sectors. This could be natural gas utilities, the maritime space or the aviation industry, both domestically and abroad. We've done this at home for the past 20 years and have been able to attract capital here in Canada and foreign direct investments across the nation.

Our flagship project is in Varennes. We acquired a project and are now focused on the production of about 75,000 tonnes of what's called e-methanol to supply the maritime sector and the large container ships you see coming into the ports, helping them to decarbonize and comply with European laws and their own voluntary interests in the space. To make that methanol, we source industrial CO2—so think about ethanol plants and landfill gas. We will purchase CO2 from them to make these products that the market is asking for.

We're here today because there are a couple of tweaks or changes we'd like to see in the clean hydrogen ITC to not only unlock more investment across the country, but also allow for competitiveness. We completed an independent economic study. Philippe Gougeon worked with us, as did others in the space, to look at what the impacts of the growth of this industry in Canada could provide.

In our case, we could add $1.1 billion of GDP over the next 10 years. You can look at that on a per capita basis. We are significantly above the average in Canada from the project in Varennes. We would create hundreds of jobs both at the facility and in construction and operation, direct and indirect, which we think is great. We'd add about $145 million in federal tax revenues. The changes I'm going to talk to you about actually pay themselves back quite quickly, and they make us more competitive.

This isn't just a one-project situation. We think there are opportunities across Canada for the production of e-fuels. In Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia, where you have clean grids, it makes the most sense to do that. We have the natural resources to do this, not just in Alberta with the oil sands, but also in the other areas. We can use our resources to help decarbonize both at home and abroad.

People always ask, “Who are you going to sell your molecules to?” The EU has policies in place, and they are trying to find these products globally. We are competing with China and India for the production and delivery of these products. The U.K. is looking for these products. We also see great opportunities to decarbonize the north, not just from a lower-carbon perspective, but from a heads-up basis against diesel. We see great opportunities.

Our first recommendation is with regard to the clean hydrogen ITC. When it was originally conceived, we had the actual production of hydrogen. In that area, it was well understood that if you had a very clean grid, you could get the ITC. For the downstream conversion of hydrogen to other products, ammonia was the only one that was allowed a 15% ITC. We'd like to level the playing field and allow all derivatives—so the conversion of hydrogen to other products—to receive that 15% ITC. The economic study we did with Mr. Gougeon showed that this fits within the existing budget for the clean hydrogen ITC, so we think it would be a net positive to the country if we were able to make that change.

The other change we want to talk to you about is on the carbon intensity of the grids. Right now, the only province that can get the 40% ITC is P.E.I., so even though Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia have some of the cleanest grids around the globe, they can't unlock the 40% ITC.

ECCC views our grid based on the embedded carbon in those assets, so they view the carbon intensity as 10 times that of the European Union. What we want to do is adopt a European-style policy where any grid that's greater than 90% renewable unlocks the 40% ITC. We think that would be beneficial not only to ourselves but also to other projects across Canada, because as we've looked to pull back the electricity that we were exporting to the U.S., this gives us an opportunity for economic development in Manitoba, British Columbia and anywhere where these grids are relatively clean and where we're looking for a large load. We can create good, very sticky jobs in these communities.

I'd like to thank you for the time today. I look forward to any questions you have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Moffatt.

I will now hear from Mr. Kabbara from The Transition Accelerator.