Industry Committee on March 4th, 2022

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I guess we'll read that as a no.

Minister, did you recuse yourself from any cabinet decisions involving Ryerson University or Magnet due to a perceived conflict of interest?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think what you're asking me, and I just responded.... Ten organizations applied. Eight had completed applications. Four were shortlisted. Magnet went through that competitive process. I do not know who gets selected before the officials put the recommendations in front of me.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, are you aware of any involvement or past work with Magnet by the Prime Minister, any members of cabinet or their families?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I am not.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

The program seeks to train nearly 30,000 people to be advisers on digital adoption to small business. Will there be training for those applicants prior to connecting them with businesses?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

The digital adoption program has two parts. The first is to help businesses with e-commerce. Through that, there are service providers all across the country that have gone through a competitive process and will provide that e-commerce service, helping businesses get to that digital storefront. The second is for those businesses that really start with understanding what their digital capabilities are—so taking a DNA. Through that, we'll develop a plan and get access to—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

Part of the announcement is that these people will be advisers. They'll be experts/advisers who will be connecting with these businesses. Who will be administering the training to these youth who will become these expert advisers?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Let me clarify this.

There will access to a roster of experts. Those experts will help businesses create their digital adoption plan. They're going to get up to $15,000 in grants to do that. Those are expert advisers.

In addition, we're going to provide up to $7,500 for the business to bring on a young person to implement or help them implement their digital adoption plan. That is how the program is designed.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, who will be administering the advisers?

In fact, there are a lot of small businesses that do this type of work. Now you have the government, which will have these advisers, directly competing with small businesses that do this type of digital work. It seems there's a crash course they're going to do in order to advise...employed by the government, yet they're going to be directly competing with small businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Answer very briefly, Minister.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think what would be helpful here because of time is to arrange a technical briefing on CDAP so that you can get the answers to the questions in a technical way from the officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Gray.

Mr. Erskine-Smith, you have the floor.

You have five minutes, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

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

Thanks very much.

I want to start, Minister Champagne, with the net-zero accelerator initiative. Do you have a sense of how much of the $8 billion has been allocated to date?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

The NZA is really our flagship program. It's more than $7 billion. You've seen projects, for example. We've used part of the sums. I can give you the exact figure.

We've been using it so far mainly to decarbonize large emitters. You will remember the steel industry and the aluminum industry. You've seen the hydrogen project in Edmonton. We've used that also in the aerospace sector. We're going to continue to use that, because I would say that the NZA is probably one of the best ways for us to deliver on our vision to be a leader in the green industrial transformation.

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

I did see the $200 million for Algoma Steel, and I saw some smaller investments around decarbonization, including specifically around carbon capture and storage in the cement industry.

When I look at the purposes and overall strategy here, we have $8 billion that is allocated towards initiatives to support projects to promote, among other things, the development of a Canadian batteries ecosystem. That's a really critical thing. We're looking at that initiative in the course of our study on critical minerals.

I wonder to what extent there's a concern and how you might respond to the concern. When we look at the buy American provisions doubled down on by President Biden in his state of the union address earlier this week, how do we navigate the fact that we are investing in a very targeted way at creating a battery ecosystem while managing the politics south of the border?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I think that should be a concern for all the committee members, seeing Canadian competitiveness every step of the way.

I think the big differentiator is proximity. I'll take a very concrete example. There's a premium Japanese company that is looking at exactly whether they are going to go into the U.S. or Canada. The point we were making was proximity to resources, proximity to the markets, proximity to the assembly plant, the cost of energy, renewable energy, a reliable baseload and the talent pool that we have in Canada.

I can tell you that this morning I was inspired by what I heard from the Japanese colleagues who were in front of me saying they're looking at the world and they realize they need to bring their supply chain to Canada to succeed in the auto market of the future in North America.

Coincidentally, I'm meeting Sunday with Europeans, who are bringing a huge delegation from Europe to do exactly the same.

Yes, there was discussion at the time, but I can assure you that we are as competitive as any state of the United States. We compete with them every day. We've been winning, and we're going to continue to win.

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

As you look to the critical mineral strategy, obviously there is collaboration with our American partners, and there is a need from our American partners for Canadian resources and rare minerals. Is there any sense of an ability to push back against buy American and say that if the U.S. is going to proceed with buy American and hurt our auto sector here in Ontario as a result, we're not going to be so collaborative on the critical minerals front?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

That's a smart approach. I'll give you a very practical example.

When I was in Washington, I met with my counterpart, and we were talking about the ecosystem. I'm doing that just as Minister Ng is doing. I said, "Madam Secretary, did you know there is only one cobalt refinery in North America?" There was a bit of silence in the room. I said, "Do you know where it is? It's in Cobalt, Ontario. If we want to do anything, you have to work with us, because it took 10 years to permit, and there's only one facility in the whole of North America to refine cobalt."

The good news is that we're looking at expanding that and building a new refinery. We're going to be producing north of 10% of the lithium that is needed in North America. We're working on graphite and class one nickel.

I think there is an understanding, but more important is that the manufacturer understands that. They understand that they have to be on this side of the border to succeed in the battery ecosystem of the future.

The announcement this morning looked at BASF. If you're looking at a German company that is doing its homework, we were competing with U.S. states, and the company decided to go to Bécancour, Quebec.

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

Last, when you talk about moon shots in the context of climate change, you point to CARPA. CARPA is many months away, many years probably, if we're being honest, and it's only a government endowment of $2 billion, if we follow through on our platform. You have $8 billion sitting there today in the net-zero accelerator. Have you turned your mind to taking a portion of that $8 billion and directing it specifically to high-risk, high-reward moon shots?

I'll just give one example. A recent IPCC report identifies alternative sources of protein for food and feed. It says alternative protein sources for human food and livestock feed are receiving considerable attention. Lab or “clean meat” is one potential contributor to the human demand for protein in the future. That's obviously a high-risk, high-reward initiative. It's one that the U.S., Singapore and Israel are all pursuing. Canada is not, unfortunately, at the moment. Entrepreneurs are leaving the space in Canada, unfortunately.

I wonder if you would turn your mind to high-risk, high-reward research via the net-zero accelerator.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Totally, and I appreciate the question. I'd like to be invited back to the committee to discuss that more. I'm seeing people nodding, so it may happen.

Think about superclusters. If you look at the protein superclusters in the Prairies, that's exactly what is being done. I agree with you. We should be a leader in forestry tech, biotech, clean tech, fin tech, and ag tech.

I totally agree with you and your colleague that we need to do more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Minister. We're over time.

I'm sure the committee would be happy to invite you back sooner rather than later.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hope you are going to invite the minister alone, because we can't give everyone time. So I'm going to take a bit of time with Ms. Hutchings.

I am very interested in the subject of building cellphone towers. Unfortunately, based on the answer you gave in the House just now, I have the impression that the development of high-speed Internet and of the cellular network are being looked at very differently, when they should be connected. Let's agree that wireless data transmission can be transformed into cellular transmission, and vice versa.

As industry critic, I have had the opportunity to visit a number of places, including Notre-Dame-du-Laus in Laurentides—Labelle, the village of Racine in Shefford, the community of Lac Souris in Berthier—Maskinongé, not far from Mr. Champagne's riding, along highway 167 in northern Quebec, near Chibougamau, in my home riding Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the community of Kipawa, or in Preissac or Rochebaucourt. They are all places where people would like to see investments to get a cellphone tower.

Unfortunately, the federal government is not offering any programs for building cellphone towers. Since telecommunications falls under federal jurisdiction, I think you should fund 50 per cent of building those towers. The government of Quebec could fund the construction, since it did so in my riding, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in the Mobile A-T project.

My question is simple: could the federal government offer a program to build cellphone towers?

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you for your question.

First of all, I want to thank the Government of Quebec, because it was the first to come to the table to negotiate a deal on broadband. Thanks to that, Quebec is going to be one of the first. We have four provinces now, and Quebec was the first to get it over the wall. I think it's just a matter of a couple of years that you're going to have all Quebec communities connected, so hat's off to that.

We also know the importance of cell coverage. Under the universal broadband fund, there's $50 million that's been carved out for indigenous communities. We all know how important that is as we all walk the path of reconciliation. One project that's dear to my heart is the Highway of Tears in British Columbia, and I know you have some indigenous communities in your area.

The other thing is the CRTC. The CRTC broadband fund does have application availability there for wireless and cellular broadband.

I hear you. It's an issue I hear in my riding, as well. Once we get the country connected with broadband high-speed Internet, trust me, cellular will be next.

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

Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to get answers. Yes, the government of Quebec had the right strategy. I think that all of the programs funded by the federal government have been transferred to Quebec, which then mapped out its territory in order to give answers.

I want to go back to cellphone towers. The Canada Infrastructure Bank offers an infrastructure program in which one of the solutions proposed is to make a change to its mandate letter so that it can contribute to loans for wireless, Internet or cellular infrastructure, in order to carry out projects. However, little money has come out of that program, as if it contained dormant funds.

Might that be a solution to consider?

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

There are many solutions to get everybody connected with high-speed Internet and, of course, with cellular service.

Under the universal broadband fund, nearly 2,000 applications have been received, and the department is doing an incredible job of assessing all of those. Some of them will touch on cell service and wireless, but my job is to get the country connected with high-speed Internet.

I can promise you, my friend, that cell will be next.