Government Operations Committee on March 5th, 2013

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

I think Mr. Rogers was hoping to be recognized for a comment on this.

[Wayne Rogers]

I just wanted to make a comment about the FBI program. We have attempted to make the FBI program work. There's rebate money. There's grant money, of course, that comes with doing the program. But there comes a significant analysis that is required, and the cost of doing that usually exceeded the amount of money that was available to come back to the investor. It made more sense just to go off and do the project if it made sense on its own, without the money.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That's an interesting observation. Thank you for that, Mr. Rogers.

Finally, then, in this round of questioning, we have Mr. Peter Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses and representatives for being here today. We've had some very good discussion.

I have just a couple of quick points. Then I'd like to share some remaining time, hopefully, with Mr. Albas.

First of all, we've heard from many of you about the importance of the federal government having an overarching program and goals to achieve. I couldn't agree more.

It's my understanding that we have such a thing, though. We have an overarching strategy, the federal sustainable development strategy, and the goal is for each department to contribute to the overall benchmark or goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020.

Why is that not enough? Could I have some reactions?

[Ryan Eickmeier]

When we look at it from an industry standpoint, it's not in our face. When our industry and government own really the same stock and have the same energy-efficiency problems, it needs to be publicized, it needs to be out there. There needs to be a target that the public knows, that industry knows, so that any employee walking down the street would be able to say, “Oh yes, we're trying to meet this target”.

So in terms of publicity, it needs to be out there more.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

So it's awareness, perhaps.

[John Smiciklas]

There is the awareness factor. I used to run sustainability at Research In Motion.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Now BlackBerry.

[John Smiciklas]

Yes, it's now BlackBerry, but it will always be RIM to me.

One of the key things internally there was celebrating successes—people knowing that there's a goal and a target, but not knowing how to get there. You've told me I need to get somewhere, but you haven't given me the tools to get there. That's why we think the BOMA BESt program is one of those tools to allow people to get there. It gives an assessment afterwards. It was developed by building owners and managers, not by consultants, etc. It meant the cost was very cost-effective, because building owners and managers are looking at cost.

Tools are required to get to the goals. It's not enough just to give a goal.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Love, do you have any final thoughts on this?

[Peter Love]

It's good that a target is out there. I don't think it has percolated down to the rank and file. It's there and it's commendable, but the phone at the federal buildings initiative is not ringing off the hook on how to sign up. 2020 is far enough away. They have all sorts of issues and fires that are happening right now. So it's “I'll deal with that later”, or “Maybe I'm not going to be around at that point”. Maybe you need an interim target, but it needs to be more clearly articulated that this is serious, that you're really going to do this, that it's good for all of you. You're going to save money. It's good for the environment, and you're going to employ people.

I come with three E's. Those are pretty compelling reasons that people understand. It just needs to get out there. It's going to be very important for our international reputation.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

The final one for me, then, is to Mr. Eickmeier.

I appreciated your suggestion with respect to potential tax credit or capital cost allowance for boilers and chillers under section 43.1 of the Income Tax Act. That's better directed to the finance committee and the budget consultation process.

Have you had the opportunity to do that?

[Ryan Eickmeier]

We have, yes. It's included in our pre-budget, and we are working through some of the numbers.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll thank my colleague for so deftly asking his questions, and the witnesses for answering so quickly.

Just in regard to some of the conversation that we've been having about aspirational targets, my constituents, for example, empirically just believe that the government should be doing these things already, and I believe we are. Mr. Trottier mentioned the federal buildings initiative. He talked about the marginal return. That has more to do with the fact that when you do a third of the buildings, probably somebody had an inventory and asked which buildings were the worst, which were the energy hogs. They simply just started picking, project by project, and worked on it. To me, rather than setting an aspirational target, that seems to make sense, and the taxpayers are best served by doing that. As newer buildings come up, maybe they don't need the same things because of some of the issues that Mr. Eickmeier mentioned about retrofitting.

There's also the greenhouse gas emission issue. Mr. Love mentioned earlier that certain areas like British Columbia and Manitoba are gifted with hydroelectricity. Should we be making large-scale investments in those buildings over in Ontario or other provinces that already use carbon-based methods for their power generation? Those are some of the things we should talk about.

Again, getting back to the question of aspirational targets, a lot of these are things that I think people are just expecting to be done. In terms of adding more certification, adding more awareness to it, I think people would say just get on with the business.

I'd like your response.

[Peter Love]

On the greenhouse gas emissions, we have better connections to the U.S. So to the extent that B.C. can save electricity, they can ship more into the U.S., where it's displacing coal. Especially in Manitoba, it's a huge economic driver for Manitoba Hydro. They have among the best energy-efficiency and electricity-conservation programs in Canada. It's a major export opportunity, because they are selling that electricity into Chicago, where it is displacing coal-fired generation. And greenhouse gas emission is not a local pollutant, it's a global pollutant.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

But should we be focusing federal resources in areas that do not generate the same carbon-intense fuel? It's a question for me. I think some of these other gentlemen wanted to get on the targets, aspirations, and awareness.

[John Smiciklas]

As to targets, or aspirational targets, going through the assessment process allows people to know where they stand. When they find out where they are in comparison with other areas, it tends to drive improvement.

Regarding the greenhouse gas emissions, I've done greenhouse gas reporting. That's an extra benefit, let's say, in Alberta that you wouldn't get in Manitoba.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

In Penticton, we had a small building being built specifically for staff and our advanced waste water treatment facility. The extra cost to go LEED was $75,000, and the council said that we weren't going to pay $75,000.

[John Smiciklas]

Yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

It's already been built to that standard. Why spend $75,000 for the extra certification when we already know that a lot of it is there?

Those are just some of the issues I have with awareness. Quite frankly, this is one of the first times I've ever met a business group that actually has said, "Get in our face". Usually with government, they say, "Please, stay out of our way". It's interesting that on awareness programs, that's the consensus.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'll have to leave that as more of a comment than a question, because we're out of time for the questions. I think you can tell that it's a very interesting topic for all of us. We all have more to say than we have time for.

Thanks to all of you for being here, especially our long-distance guest. Mr. Rogers, thank you for your patience. I know it's difficult being the one who's outside the room, but your contributions were very useful and much appreciated.

[Wayne Rogers]

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, sir.

[Wayne Rogers]

It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. The technology worked very well.