Industry Committee on May 27th, 2021

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Well, go try to give that answer back in Alberta. I grew up there, too.

[Mark Carney]

I have—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I can tell you that the people of Alberta would be ashamed with the answer you just gave.

[Mark Carney]

That's not—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

You would give billions of dollars to foreign pipelines—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

—while not allowing Canadians to build pipelines here at home.

[Mark Carney]

There are pipelines—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That is the kind of elite hypocrisy—

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

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[Mark Carney]

Could I please—

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Madam Chair, it is really unbecoming of a member to badger any witness. This is really, truly unacceptable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

We have a point of order from Monsieur Lemire.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

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

I just want to flag that the interpreters are having a very tough time. I really feel for them. We are all familiar with the already difficult remote working conditions they have to deal with.

We need to behave professionally for their sake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

I have been trying to point that out since the meeting began. We can't have two people speaking over one another, or else the interpreters cannot do their job.

Please, I'm asking the members.... I want you to be able to ask your question, and I want the witness to be able to answer, but please don't talk over each other, so that we can have the translation.

That being said, continue, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Carney, you've just said that you support your leader's decision to kill a western Canadian pipeline that ships the most ethical product in the world, yet you also support your company's decision to invest billions of dollars in foreign pipelines in Brazil and in the UAE. It's clear that this is not about the environment. If it were, you'd be consistent, and you would oppose fossil fuels everywhere, but you're happy to profit off foreign fossil fuel companies while killing jobs among our own people.

How do you address that flagrant hypocrisy? It smacks of the Davos elite at its worst.

[Mark Carney]

First, I support Canadian jobs. I support Canadian jobs today and tomorrow. In order to have those jobs tomorrow, what we need and what this committee can contribute is an energy transition.

Canadian fossil fuels and Canadian companies will play an essential role. Brookfield itself is heavily invested in Canada, including in energy infrastructure for fossil fuels. We collectively, as Canadians—and we look to our Parliament to support this—need to be putting in place the energies and industries of the future. That means carbon capture and storage, and that means blue hydrogen, both of which are absolutely essential for Canadian jobs and jobs in my home province of Alberta. That's where the future lies.

We need to have the overall picture, which is why—and I'll finish with this, Madam Chair—I emphasize the clear pathway, walking back from that, not jumping on specifics and not seeing the bigger picture, nor providing the support that Canadians deserve.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round goes to MP Erskine-Smith.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Carney, I want to start with you.

We have come a long way on climate action since 2015, including with the rising price on pollution, phasing out coal-fired electricity, methane rules, and the recent December updated climate plan. Also, in the recent budget, we see a collective $8-billion clean-tech innovation fund, a home retrofit program and more. You've also advocated for quite a while now for greater climate disclosure, and that has a significant place in the budget.

When we look at the scale of investment required.... We've heard from Oxford's economic recovery project. They have said that Canada isn't in the top tier of countries investing in the green recovery. We're investing a lot, obviously, by way of the recent budget, but we are not in the top tier of countries around the world. You've said, I think, that you don't do it through one budget.

When we look at the scale of investment, how much more does Canada need to bring to bear towards a green transition?

[Mark Carney]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Let me start with something Mr. Bradley said in his opening remarks, which gave a sense of the scale of what we've required in the electricity sector.

Forgive me, Mr. Bradley, but I agree on the order of magnitude of, I believe, $1.3 trillion of investment over time. These are enormous sums. They are also consistent with taking what is a remarkable system at present, with almost 85% zero emissions across Canada and bringing it to 100% zero emissions. Then, really, it's of the order of magnitude of doubling and, by some estimates, potentially tripling that capacity over the next few decades, with electricity at the heart. It's not just energy, but home heating, transportation, many industrial processes and so on. There is a scale.

That gives one sense of the orders of magnitude of investment. For that $1.3 trillion, what is not being asked is that the federal government is of course supplying that, nor necessarily provincial governments. There are roles to play. There are key things that both levels of government can do. We can help with interties. We can provide incentives to accelerate, particularly on the demand side, key emerging technologies that are not just for generation but also for storage, such as hydrogen.

Mr. Bradley, rightly in my judgment, referenced small modular reactors as another opportunity. A lot of the capital, a lot of the investment, will come from the companies themselves. Some of them are publicly owned firms, but effectively, it's private sector capital that will be reinvested.

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

On the $8 billion net-zero accelerator, would you support hiving off some percentage of that for a breakthrough fund?

[Mark Carney]

In terms of breakthrough technologies—

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

High risk, high reward—

[Mark Carney]

Yes. I know what you mean, and I would agree with it. In the interest of time, I will say yes.

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

You've written, “Financial markets increasingly recognise that sustainable investment is the new horizon that can bring enormous opportunities ranging from transforming energy to reinventing protein.”

As it relates to high risk, high reward, do you think we also need to look at alternative proteins as well?