Industry Committee on April 29th, 2021

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Maybe instead of giving Tesla owners the subsidies they now receive, we could start a little bit of a fund when this does happen. I'm just afraid that it's going to be people who don't own cars and so on who are going to be caught with the cost of the upgrade.

In the minute I have left, Dr. Exner-Pirot, I want to stress how critical it is that we look at the great industrial leadership we have in our indigenous community. You had talked about the requirements with regard to Bill C-69 and talking to our native population. Do you see ways that we could make this work better when we are trying to engage with the mining sector?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

Absolutely. I think sometimes the federal government has a tendency to put up more barriers and to see indigenous peoples as people to be protected, rather than removing barriers so that they can interact with industry more directly. Bill C-69, and even Bill C-15, I think, are examples of that.

As for ways you can improve it, groups like the First Nations Major Project Coalition do an excellent job. If there's a bottleneck, it's because indigenous nations need to do their own due diligence. They want to get their own environmental monitoring. Supporting them to get through those due diligence processes will reap so many benefits, I think, in shortening timelines and approvals.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

[Gary Vegh]

By the way, adding these charging stations is not that expensive. We added 16, and we're not a large company and don't have the money that Tesla has.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to MP Erskine-Smith.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I want to start with Lynne.

You have spoken about the gap in existing federal supports as it relates to early stage start-ups and the necessary research and development that needs to happen for those companies to succeed. There was a lot of money in the budget for a SIF renewal, and specifically a net zero accelerator, and there seems to be a continued and increased focus on clean tech going forward and on growing clean tech in Canada.

Walk me through how those proposed supports continue to miss early stage start-ups.

[Lynne Manuel]

Thank you for the question.

The issue is that those programs require industrial participation up front in terms of dollars. They require private investment before the programs can even begin.

The issue with this is there's so much technology that is created.... We have a great research community in Canada, we really do, but in order to get to the stage where investors are willing to put out money—industry, private investment or even the federal government programs—companies are required to prove that they have something, that they have something investable.

It's a kind of catch-22. In order to get money, they have to show that they're investable, but they can't show they're investable because they don't have money to prove it. It's a really difficult situation.

What that tends to do is really elongate the time frame it takes for these new technologies to get to market, because they struggle to raise the money to get there, and some of them don't make it. Some of them leave and go to another jurisdiction. They go to a different country or—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Should we be looking to say, then, in our recommendations, that some fraction of the proposed SIF funding and the renewal of SIF should be devoted to early stage start-ups?

[Lynne Manuel]

I've been talking about this for quite a while now, and I think that's really a necessary part of what the government needs to be supporting, and I will say that there's so much leverage on those dollars. We're talking about doing lab-scale work where people can take that data forward and convince other investors that they have a working technology.

Working at that scale is very economical for everyone concerned. We don't want people to reach that investable stage before they've done their homework, because it costs so much more to do the work at that point. I think it's really a good deal for everyone.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I see a couple of hands up.

Céline, I want to get to you first. It's nice to see you again.

You can comment on what Lynne has said, but I'm also interested in.... We had Brian O'Callaghan before us at the last meeting talking about how we haven't really made the serious investments in workforce training that we need to make as we look to a clean transition. If you were to identify some of the missing pieces going forward—feel free to comment on what Lynne has said as well—where else as a federal government are we missing pieces that we really need to address if we're concerned about a green recovery and really tackling climate change in a more serious way?

[Céline Bak]

Very briefly, I would recommend that in terms of the role of SMEs in the economy the committee look at the U.S. federal acquisition regulation, subpart 19.7, on the small business subcontracting program. That is the U.S. law that requires SME procurement for all major contracts by any federal dollars, and even state dollars, I think. It seems to have a copycat in the EU at the moment.

In regard to your question on developing people and skills, the standard formula for the next gen funds in the EU is 15%. For all capex for build back better programs, whether it's the electric vehicle program, the battery program or the hydrogen program, there's 15% that is considered essential to enable workers to continue to be able to be productive in the economy.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Sarah, do you want to chime in? You've got your hand up.

[Sarah Sajedi]

Thank you.

We actually have tried to leverage some of the work with the money for new projects, since we are an R and D company, but there are too many conditions. We even have partners, because we deal with Fiat Chrysler, GM, Toyota and many more. There are so many written conditions to actually comply that it became impossible, so we gave up.

You may want to consider looking at the conditions that have restrictions preventing people from using the funds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today. It was very helpful.

I'm a member of the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States. On February 23, it was announced that there would be, in the road map for a renewed U.S.-Canada partnership, a Canada-U.S. critical minerals action plan created. I'll work with the analysts to see if we can circulate that to the committee members, because everything we were hearing today feeds into that plan, and there are some opportunities there for us to leverage that and go forward.

I want to thank everyone today for their excellent testimony.

I want to thank again, as usual, all of our colleagues in the room, the technical support service, the interpretation service, our analysts and the clerk. It has been a real pleasure working with you today.

The meeting is adjourned.