Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, committee. Thanks for having me.
My name is Lynne Couves. I am the director of the renewables in remote communities program at the Pembina Institute, which is a national non-partisan clean energy think tank. I join you today from the lands that raised me and the lands that are now raising my children, in Treaty No. 7 territory, in Mohkinstsis, also called Calgary.
For more than 30 years the Pembina Institute has studied clean energy systems in remote and northern communities across Canada. Over that time we have seen the consequences of what is often called Canada's infrastructure gap, which is decades of underinvestment that have left remote and northern communities without infrastructure that most Canadians take for granted, including all-season roads, modern electricity systems and reliable high-speed Internet. I'll focus today on one part of that gap, which is energy.
First off, energy reliability in the north is an affordability issue. More than 210 remote communities across Canada produce their electricity independently from the North American electricity grid. Most also rely heavily on imported fossil fuels for heating and for electricity, which means that when local infrastructure fails or fuel cannot reach a community, there are very few energy alternatives. At the same time, much of the infrastructure people depend on is aging and increasingly strained. The consequences of this can be profound, including power outages, fuel shortages, rapidly rising costs and, in severe circumstances, threats to the safety of entire communities, which require evacuation.
The second point I'd like to make is that the cost of this system is already extraordinarily high. Our research has found that energy costs in remote communities can be six to 10 times higher than in southern Canada. These numbers are from a few years ago, which show extremely high costs, even with significant subsidies throughout the diesel supply chain. For households, these numbers aren't abstract. This month, in Yellowknife—where Lorne is, and it's Julia's hometown—local news reported that a resident is expecting to spend about $8,500 on home heating, which is about $3,000 more than last year. Households are already this fall trying to figure out how they can afford their heating costs before winter has even begun.
The vulnerability goes beyond the price of fuel. Shorter ice-road seasons, low water levels and other disruptions to fragile supply chains can turn an affordability problem into an energy security crisis. Governments and utilities then face the growing pressure to increase subsidies to simply keep household energy bills within a questionable reach. The cycle becomes costly: We spend more and more money managing the consequences of an energy system that is itself becoming less affordable and less reliable.
My third and final message is the most important one, which is that we already know what some of the solutions look like because northern and indigenous communities are building them. For decades, indigenous and northern leaders have advocated for clean energy as a way to reduce diesel dependence, to strengthen energy security and to keep more of the economic benefits of energy development within their communities. That leadership has resulted in hundreds of renewable energy projects, including community-led and community-owned wind, solar, hydro and, in some cases, grid connection partnerships.
Federal programs have played a critical role in enabling this progress. Since 2016, clean energy projects in remote communities have displaced over 142 million litres of diesel and, most recently, we're seeing more than 31 million litres of diesel displaced per year. This is remarkable and critical progress, but it's also very fragile. Some critical federal programs that have supported this progress have already or are at risk of ending—including CERRC, northern REACHE and the indigenous off-diesel initiative—while the demand for electricity and heat continues to grow and communities face increasing economic and climate pressures.
This is not the time to step back. The federal government has an important role in providing the sustained partnership that communities need, including support for early-stage project development, local capacity building and major infrastructure investment.
The good news is that we know that change is possible. Communities across the north are already proving it: The technologies exist, the expertise is growing, and we have seen that these investments can produce lower energy costs, stronger local economies and more resilient communities.
When we talk about affordability in the north, we should not only ask how governments can subsidize today's high costs. We should also ask how we can invest now to reduce costs and the risks behind them for decades to come. If we do that, Canada has an opportunity to fundamentally rewrite the story of energy affordability and reliability in the north.
Thank you.