Industry Committee on May 6th, 2021

[Frank Cairo]

Traditionally, new home builders are able to prevent a whole host of competition by owning the very rare land resource. If we could create competition by manufacturing housing in a new way that's disconnected from land ownership, that competition for the building products and the homes themselves might trigger a more affordable housing stock.

It doesn't address anywhere near the magnitude of increase in land value that's the big issue or the taxation built into municipal fees, provincial fees and tax, but I do think competition around manufactured product will make a positive impact on the overall affordability of new homes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cairo.

We will now go to MP Jowhari.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To all the witnesses, thank you for your testimony today.

I'd like to ask Mr. Allan a question.

I understand that one of your subsidiaries, FLO, is working on a $13-million curbside electric vehicle charging program in New York City. I also understand you have a number of these projects across North America.

Can you give us a breakdown of, when you say North America, how many of them are in Canada, how many are in the U.S. and how many are in Mexico?

[Travis Allan]

That's right. We actually took stations that we designed and built for the City of Montreal, and adapted them and made modifications for a number of American cities.

Our two largest American deployments are in the city of Los Angeles, where we've deployed stations on their existing light poles to take advantage of energy efficiency measures they made and create more charging stations. We're in a couple hundred there. We've also just announced that we're shipping over a 120 stations to the city of New York. They'll go in all five boroughs. Those stations were custom designed for the New York streetscape, because they wanted a particular look and feel.

We hope that's the beginning of a lot more. Right now, most of our operations are in Canada. We have sold over 40,000 charging stations since we started. The bulk of those are in Canada, but we're getting ready for a major expansion in the United States.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's great.

Can you tell us about the financing? How was it financed? Was it financed by the municipality? Was it financed by the state? Was it financed as part of a federal government initiative in the U.S.?

[Travis Allan]

It depends which case you're speaking of.

In Los Angeles, it was financed by the Bureau of Street Lighting, which is a municipal agency that controls the street lights. In the city of New York, it is a co-funded program by Con Edison, which is the local utility, and our company.

We've seen different models, many utility-owned models or municipal-owned models for Canadian deployments. In Canada, of course, there's very important support from Natural Resources Canada, which has done a lot to expand charging station deployment in Canada.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes.

Richmond Hill is the recipient of 13 of those charging stations. I'm not sure whether they are coming from your company or not. This was great news not only for Richmond Hill. but also for York region, which is receiving a lot more.

In your point of view, do we need to have these charging stations ready in anticipation that the demand will come down the road? Should we wait for the electric vehicles, EVs, to get much cheaper, much more affordable, before we start putting in these charging stations?

What are your thoughts on that?

[Travis Allan]

If you survey people who are looking for new vehicles, they will overwhelmingly tell you that they will not buy an electric vehicle unless they see some way to charge it. In practice, most Canadians charge at home or at work most of the time, unless they live in a condo building or an apartment where it can be harder to charge. You find most charging happens at home and in the workplace, and those are really important areas to deploy.

People want to know that when they're going to their kids' baseball games or they have a long driving day after work they can get public charging. It's important to provide charging for people who are doing ride share or people who, as I say, live in condos and apartments.

What we find is that you really do need to build the base infrastructure to get mass adoption. It's actually one of the most important ways to transition the transportation system to clean energy.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Great. Thank you for that.

In your opinion, what can the federal government do specifically, on top of everything that it's doing, to help build that infrastructure that you're talking about?

[Travis Allan]

The federal government plays what I would call a critical role in supporting the build-out of public charging through the EVAFIDI program and ZEVIP from NRCan. Those are absolutely essential programs that have recently been expanded, and they play a role in making sure that all Canadians, not just Canadians in big cities or in particular regions, have access so that they can get the benefit of cheaper electric transportation.

In addition, we think there is a big role to play in government procurement because the government operates so many fleets.

I see that I am out of time. Thank you.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

That ends our time for today.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us, and for their excellent testimony. It's been very helpful for us in our study.

Of course, thank you to our IT crew, the folks in the room, our analysts and our clerk.

Again, I thank the interpreters very much for their hard work.

With that, I will call the meeting adjourned.

Have a good afternoon, everyone.