Government Operations Committee on Feb. 4th, 2019

[Hazel Sutton]

The assessment will usually take about six months. It's just a yes-or-no questionnaire, but you have to be able to provide documentation supporting your answers. We will ask questions like, “Do you have a hazardous building materials management program?” It's a yes or no, but then we say, “Show us your actual hazardous building materials management program.”

That's the part that takes a bit more time. I would say that it takes about six months to really go through the whole process. Then we will send a third party verifier to the building to go through the assessment with the building manager and make sure the answers are corroborated with documentation. We would be happy to share a link to one of our sample questionnaires, absolutely.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

That's perfect.

One of the things we have been discussing.... I want to ask you to maybe respond to what Paul Paquette said. As you know, electricity is the biggest cause of GHGs, and the government shows that its real property accounts for 89% of total emissions.

We're talking about a heating and cooling system. I was listening to all of your presentations. They're very interdisciplinary and interrelated. I was wondering about it, when you talked about PPP not being a good thing. There are businesses, technology and innovation available that could probably be capitalized or leveraged.

My question is for either Madam Giroux-Schmidt or the BOMA people. Mr. Paquette was talking about the conversion from steam to low-temperature hot water and some of the concerns he had, but I was under the impression that it is a bridge to carbon-neutral energy. Is that true or false? What is your assessment?

[Paul Paquette]

Absolutely false.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We have only about 30 seconds left.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. That's fine.

You'll answer the question next time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We will have another round of questioning, so we'll have an opportunity for all of you to get back to that question. Mr. Paquette, if you want to join in, you certainly can.

We will now go to Mr. Blaikie for three minutes. Then, colleagues, we will probably have enough time for one full round of seven-minute interventions after that.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I did want to ask Mr. Wayland this, while he's here. I think there is some effort to get beyond this, and we've heard some promising things today, but often there is still a kind of a dichotomy presented—politically, anyway—between creating jobs and employment on the one hand, and greening the economy on the other hand.

I'm wondering if you could offer some insight into the available kinds of work and the prospects for creating employment. We talk a lot about new training, and there is definitely some new training to do, particularly for folks who've been working in the oil and gas sector, but for a lot of the people who have skills already and aren't working right now, how do they stand to benefit quickly from investment in greening buildings?

[Matt Wayland]

Absolutely. In the IBEW, we have training centres across the country. We have just over 23 training centres. We have a certified solar PV installation program; you must be an electrician to achieve that. It's certified by the CSA, the Canadian Standards Association. We have electrical vehicle infrastructure training programs. Two of our biggest union locals, in Toronto and Vancouver, have building automation and lighting control system programs, so they become experts not only in being electricians but in those fields as well.

In terms of looking at the availability and putting people to work specifically in areas where there may be high unemployment or a change from, say, an oil sands production job, where there's a lack of work right now, there are immense opportunities, such as jobs in retrofitting buildings, giving these individuals.... An electrician is an electrician, whether they're working in Newfoundland on an oil project, or at a hydroelectricity plant or an automobile facility, or installing solar panels. The amount of training involved makes them more rounded journeyperson electricians or apprentices. Beyond the electricity side of things, earlier I mentioned the plumbing and pipefitting trades: hooking up new boilers, insulators, insulating all the pipes and HVAC systems.

There are a lot of opportunities to provide work and spur the economic action in those particular areas where the government buildings are. We can't move the buildings—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Are there things that you think government can do from a policy perspective to ensure that the investments they're making in the government building and fleets or whatever are easily transferable to the non-government sector? That could be on the training side, in terms of making sure there are apprentices on the job or....

[Matt Wayland]

That's certainly one of them. We're advocating—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sorry to interrupt again. We'll have to get you to park that answer for just a moment. Perhaps you'll be able to expand on that when we go to our seven-minute rounds, which we will start immediately with Madam Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you. I'll continue my question.

I'm looking at the energy services acquisition program. I'm looking at what the government states, which is that when it greens itself, because of real property or real estate contributing 89%, it wants to cut the GHGs by 40%. Some of that will be done by basically introducing smart buildings, using low-temperature hot water and switching from steam to electric chillers. This is technology and innovation.

I'm sure there are conflicting.... We listen to every side. Whether it's the opposition, the government or whatever, we do listen to all sides.

I'm trying to get my head around what you stated. From what I can see, it states that when you move from steam to low-temperature hot water, that action will reduce greenhouse emissions by 63%. It could be a matter of debate. It could be a matter of scientific research. I have worked with just about everyone, and I'm trying to get their sense. I've heard you.

I'd like Mr. Wayland's input into this. It would be important because you talked about how the 80 buildings we have in the capital region could be made more energy-efficient through A, B, C, D and E. Your insight would be important—and the insight of you ladies would be very important as well—in order for me to understand what we are talking about.

Who would like to go first?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Why don't you assign the question to one of the witnesses?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

I'd like to assign the question to BOMA, whether converting steam to low-temperature hot water has impacts and what risks are involved. If you don't know about it, you can say that it's not your area of expertise.

[Hazel Sutton]

Unfortunately, it's not my area of expertise. I can hypothesize, but that wouldn't be useful.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

No, if you hypothesize, somebody might take it as the truth.

Madam Giroux-Schmidt, would you have any insight?

[Colleen Giroux-Schmidt]

Unfortunately, it's also outside my area of expertise.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How about you, Mr. Wayland?

[Matt Wayland]

Unfortunately—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Matt Wayland]

Electricity, yes; steam and water at low temperatures, unfortunately not....

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Paquette, what is the scientific evidence you have? If you have any papers that you can present to us, it would be really appreciated.

[Paul Paquette]

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to read the study and see what parameters they were looking at. Were they looking at the condensate return coming back to the plant, or were they considering that a total heat loss? I'm not sure. I don't know what they were looking at. When you do something like that, a study of that type—that large—I don't know where they're calculating their heat losses or their energy losses in the system.

A hot-water system works great, but a low-temperature hot-water system.... If it's just for one particular building, it's fine. You can get away with it. When you're talking about a distribution system that could be up to 10 kilometres long, all the way from the Printing Bureau to here, to the Château Laurier and Sussex, it's too long a distance to travel. If you have 185°F water, less than 212°F.... Sorry, I'm using Fahrenheit. I'm old. We still work in Fahrenheit in the plant. You can get away with it in a small line, but in order to have that low amount of energy, water at 185°F, which is barely higher than what you get out of your hot-water tap, you would need huge pipes to supply the whole downtown core. There are just too many square feet. That's what it comes down to.

That is why, when it was initially proposed to us and they were telling us that they were going to run it at that temperature, we all shook our heads and said, “They've got to be kidding me.” Now we have them up to 150°C, which is about 302°F, so we're getting closer to the target numbers necessary to have hot water travel long distances. Imagine the heat loss at -30°C outside with a pipe from Gatineau, Quebec, all the way to right here in this building. When it's -30°C and your water is at 100°C, there's a major heat loss. Nobody has calculated that. They want to put it underground. They want to put it on the bridge. There are all kinds of things they're looking at. We didn't get a clear business proposal.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Who is “they”?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I'm asking the questions.

Who is “they”?