Industry Committee on May 11th, 2021

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Ms. Petrunic, I'm going to move to Mr. Samray, but the problem is this. We have a lot of signals on child care, pharmacare and a series of different things. When you have expenditures crossed over almost a decade of spending, it's a real challenge.

I'm glad you mentioned the analytics with regard to the data and all those things that haven't really been compiled before. They are really important, especially with climate differentials and so forth, and expectations for consumerism. Moving them to public transit is part of the information gathering that really needs to be a confidence builder for people, because then they have a lot more strength with those things in mind.

Real quickly, Mr. Samray, we talked about this last night in the Investment Canada Act report we did—the closure of Rona in the buyout by Lowe's. Do you have any comments in terms of how that's now affecting our building and our opportunities for our communities? I see that lack of competition is an issue, but perhaps you might have a different perspective.

[Jean-François Samray]

If you don't mind, Mr. Masse, I will let our chief economist, Mr. Vincent, answer the question.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, that's fine. Whatever works is good.

[Michel Vincent, Director, Economics, Markets and International Trade Branch, Québec Forest Industry Council]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Actually, we still don't have an idea on the subject, because the news is too recent. All in all, I don't believe that this is going to make a huge difference in the price of softwood because—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Vincent.

We won't be able to pick up the interpretation with that microphone.

[Michel Vincent]

What do I do?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'll go on to a different question, because it is a health and safety issue for our interpreters.

My apologies to you, Mr. Vincent, but the reality is that it disrupts our interpreters, and they have a tough enough job as it is. I'll maybe go back to the transit question, because there's more to say there, and I can follow up off-line for questions.

Thank you, Mr. Vincent, but it is important for our translators.

We were talking about the data assembly. What are the concerns or the issues that you've already worked on for privacy? Privacy is one of the things that pops up with regard to collecting information and to confidence amongst users. Is that baked into some of the work you're doing right now? I see that as an issue. It's almost like a distraction, but at the same time, it is important to cover it off. Perhaps you can provide a little information about that.

[Dr. Josipa Gordana Petrunic]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

It's a perspicacious question and certainly it's the first thing that comes up when folks think about Sidewalk Labs and that boondoggle and everything that unfolded from that.

When we talk about data analytics and the transit and transportation world, whether it's bus, coach or truck, we're really talking about impersonal analytics of the machine. It's putting the loggers on the machine, the bus, the coach or the truck to determine how many units—how many kilometres—it is going per unit of energy. What is its efficiency on the powertrain? Is the motor performing at the efficiency level that the operator expects?

We put loggers on the chargers to know exactly how many electrons are coming from the grid and making their way through to the battery pack and being lost on the way. All of that adds up to dollars and those dollars add up to millions of lost dollars when you're talking about a complex transition to this kind of energy system.

Personal data is a non-issue right now because the data analytics we're talking about are analyzing the bus, the charger, the energy storage device, the fuel cell stack, the hydrogen electrolyzer—the energy systems or the inanimate objects that perform the actual propulsion.

Is it possible that, over time, in the creation of such a data trust, one could identify opportunities in obtaining the consent of riders in order to also track them? In the interest of transit, yes, it is a hypothetical possibility. If a data trust led by transit and communities were set up in the future, there would potentially be merit in asking Canadian riders if they would consent to having their data tracked. The primary reason for doing that would be to hand back benefits to transit riders in the sense that where you ride, how you ride and the time you ride should give you some reward or price deduction on your transit ride. That's an issue for a few years from now.

The big issue right now is the performance of the energy systems.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Informed consent....

I see the red card is up, so thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We'll now start our second round of questions. Our first round goes to MP Dreeshen.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I must say that I was a little nervous with the data trust to track people, but hopefully it will be a long time before that happens.

In the discussion this morning, we've heard about plastics versus no plastics. We've heard about responsible resource development versus no oil and gas, no pipelines—even though there are pipelines going in all over the world. Ethically produced oil versus ethical coffee is something I talk about.

Our push for electric vehicles, of course, results in a push for mining in Canada. My concern is the “not in my backyard” mentality, where we're going to have activists who will no doubt be against Canadian mining interests when we get to that stage. It's easy to talk now about how we should be able to build batteries and storage. It is very critical.

Again, as someone who was a schoolteacher for 34 years, I think it's important that we prepare our children, not scare them. I think that's something we should be taking a look at.

To Mr. Lyman, there's a lot of public information concerning environmental damage that would result from a transition to sources of energy like wind and solar. Mining for raw materials, as I had mentioned, is going to increase. We've had to build and expand a whole new infrastructure made from hydro dams and wind farms. Do we believe it makes any sense to turn our backs on the traditional sources of energy? What are other countries like the U.S. doing? Are they abandoning their fossil fuels?

[Robert Lyman]

The short answer to that question is no. The point that always seems to get lost when talking about energy transitions is that 84% of the energy currently being consumed in the world is based on fossil fuels. Only 5% is based upon renewables and about 2% of that is wind and solar. These are very new energy sources. They are a long way from being major sources of energy supply. Even if one can move to achieve more efficient or more diverse sources of energy in the world, it will take time.

Vaclav Smil is a professor of geography at the University of Manitoba and the world's foremost expert with respect to energy transitions. He estimates that a major energy transition of the type that's being contemplated now would take 50 to 70 years to conclude.

These transitions are occurring all the time. They certainly are possible, but the key question for governments is the extent to which they attempt to accelerate the pace of such transitions when doing so requires extensive use of regulations, taxation and mandates.

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

I think that's one of the key components. We have the natural resources. We have the technology. We have the ability to create those products that we have in a world class manner. If we want to shut ourselves down, of course, that simply means that it's going to be taken up by others.

I think you are probably aware that the Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg notes in one of his books that even if all of the signatories to the Paris Agreement met their global greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, there would be no measurable decline in global warming, but trillions of dollars of public funds would be wasted making people he refers to as green crony capitalists rich. Would you agree with that statement?

[Robert Lyman]

Yes. Bjorn Lomborg is an expert and someone who believes that humans have a role in the warming of the planet, but that there are far more important problems for the world and that the cost of the transition that's been talked about is far too high.

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

Thank you.

I see that the yellow card is there. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very 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 very much, Madam Chair.

I want to begin with the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium. Many of the recommendations I see in a recent report.... Some relate to federal governments, provincial governments, municipal governments. I wonder, given the level that we're at, if you could focus in specifically as it relates to what your views are on recent initiatives via the budget and the fall economic statement and what more you would like to see the federal government move on going forward, keeping in mind federal jurisdiction.

[Dr. Josipa Gordana Petrunic]

The first thing I would say about that, and I'll give a little example to highlight it, is that the signals going forward in terms of the investment in public transit are critical. They're great, but what needs to be refined out of that? As an example, the real pressure coming from our industry partners and our transit partners is that investment from the federal government needs to be partnered with municipal investment.

That's not so much a dollar figure. That's a philosophical issue around how the federation will work with our cities going forward to transfer that money to them, to the transit agencies. The big issue that has come up is that, if any of that funding flows through provinces, it's going to become highly problematic, become a bottleneck, not get deployed and certainly not achieve 5,000 zero-emission buses by 2024-25.

One issue there is the philosophical issue and the constitutional issue of how to work with the cities and transit agencies directly to deploy that money. If that can be achieved, then we know in agencies across this country from TransLink to London to Quebec City, there are about two dozen cities that are ready to roll.

The second point of recommendation is that, if there is a way to get the funding to the cities and transit agencies quickly, it won't be all cities and transit agencies that are ready to absorb it on day one. If we try to do the Canadian thing of spreading the peanut butter thin and handing out some money to all cities with transit, it's not going to be effective in achieving our transition goals or the 5,000 bus goal. Instead, what has to happen is a focus on those 20 to 25 cities and transit agencies that meet three KPIs.

First, their municipality has passed a climate action emergency or a ZEB target, which means city councillors and mayors are not going to be the obstacle. They're already philosophically and politically aligned.

Second, the agency has already deployed, on its own dime or in partnership with the province or federation, a pilot or first procurement of buses. Trying to send millions of dollars and tens of millions to a city that has zero buses right now is not going to be the fastest way to deploy the money effectively. There are a couple of dozen agencies in Canada that, on their own dime over the last four years, when it wasn't popular to do so and was very complex and difficult, actually deployed buses already. That's TransLink, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, etc., and Laval and Grande Prairie, so some of the smaller cities too.

The third KPI is that the agency has to have a feasibility study done. In previous funding from PTIF to ICIP and other kinds of federal funds, there was no requirement that the city or transit agency show up saying, we did the physics and the mathematics, we know what kinds of buses, charger systems or hydrogen fuelling we need. Instead, money was deployed and often with a high-pressure timeline. The result of that was that we did get procurements, but they weren't the best procurements for those communities.

Nobody wants wasted tax dollars, so the third KPI is to target the initial tranche of funding in the next 24 months to those cities that have done the feasibility studies, the transit agencies and cities that have a climate action commitment at the council or regional level and that have already deployed at least a pilot or initial procurement. The second tranche of agencies that follow soon after are the ones that haven't deployed a pilot or initial procurement but have the feasibility work done and the climate action commitment.

If you use those three simple KPIs, we will get to 5,000 ZEBs. We will transform the industry. We will retain investment by New Flyer, Nova Bus, ABB, Siemens, Ballard, Hydrogenics and the other players in this industry that, right now, are being pulled to California and are being pulled to Europe because of major procurements there.

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

When you're talking about flowing dollars directly to municipalities, that would be welcome from my perspective. You mentioned delay challenges and provincial bottlenecks. Is there also a concern that it may politicize the issue in some context?

If I look at transit planning in Toronto, you have a lot of work that gets put into transit planning, and the premier does Ontario Line on the back of a napkin and tears up years of transit planning. Is that a concern as well?

[Dr. Josipa Gordana Petrunic]

I should clarify. I should say not just municipalities, but municipalities and regionalities, since York Region Transit and TransLink are regions.

I can't get into the ontology or eschatology of our transit investment. I don't think there's a transit dollar in the history of Canada that has not been politicized at some point in the past.

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

That's fair enough.

[Dr. Josipa Gordana Petrunic]

Will it be effective? Yes, the cities and the regions are the most effective absorbers of the funds and the most effective in deploying those funds if we're serious about climate action. If we're not, spread it anywhere and go through the provinces.

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

Thank you.

I am out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I'm sorry about that, MP Erskine-Smith.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to point out that my sons, Léon and Jules, will be 40 and 38 years old in 2050.

As a citizen, in Rouyn-Noranda, I participated in the activities of Mothers Step In, particularly those opposing the gas pipeline project, and I was certainly pleased to meet Ms. Robert.

I would like you to give us your proposals for our recommendations for the report.

Are there other topics you would like us to focus on, such as agri-food, the circular economy and mobility? What are your proposals?