Industry Committee on May 8th, 2024

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

How much carbon did it reduce? It reduced nothing.

Why would you sign $8 billion in contracts with taxpayer money and not track any of the carbon released by the net zero accelerator? That's according to the Auditor General's office, not me.

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

The fund does not create carbon. I don't understand your question. The fund is about reducing carbon, sir—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The fund hasn't reduced any, according to the Auditor General's office.

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

I would respectfully disagree with that.

If you look at the investments we made—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Will you table the documents that were distributed to the Auditor General?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Perkins, you've asked the minister to use about as much time to answer as you take for your questions. You used about 35 seconds for your question.

Minister, if you want to answer, you can.

That's all the time you have, Mr. Perkins.

I'll give a bit of time to the minister for his answer, and then we'll move on.

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

I think I've answered. We don't agree with all the conclusions. We said the report was focusing on one pillar. One of the other pillars is about the battery manufacturing ecosystem in Canada, and I would say that now, Bloomberg ranks us first in the world, ahead of China. If you remove politics from that, Mr. Perkins, you would say Canada is great. Canada has attracted more investments than we have ever seen in the auto sector, sir. That is the decarbonizing.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Are you saying that the Auditor General is political?

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

We're talking about green steel and green aluminum. We're the envy of the world, Mr. Perkins. Let's be proud.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's nothing to do with the net zero accelerator fund.

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

Think about Michelin in your riding. Do you want me to talk about Michelin, a great company that I visited, which we supported?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm asking about the net zero accelerator fund. You called the Auditor General political on the net zero accelerator fund.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, colleagues. We'll end it there. Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

I will now move it to Mr. Sorbara for six minutes.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you Chair.

Welcome, Minister, and welcome, Mr. Kennedy.

Let's get back to the main estimates and the funds that will be used to invest in Canadian companies and companies that are coming to Canada to help grow our economy, especially in some exciting sectors.

Minister, I wanted to speak to the semiconductor industry. On April 26, you joined the Prime Minister to announce the federal government's $59.9-million investment in the $226.5-million expansion of the IBM semiconductor packaging plant in Bromont, Quebec, and to support R and D in quantum technologies.

Minister, why is investigating in this type of a project good for Quebec's economy, good for Canada's economy and good for the entire supply chain when it comes to high value-added manufacturing in the semiconductor industry?

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

I'd like to thank Mr. Sorbara. For the record, he's one of our very best, having been on Wall Street and Bay Street.

One of the things Canadians may not know is that Canada packages and tests about 80% of all the semiconductors that are manufactured in North America. You would appreciate that part of my mission has been to make sure that Canada is integrated in this key strategic supply chain.

I even flagged at the time that I was thinking we should replicate what we've been doing between Detroit and Windsor to have this corridor between Albany and Bromont, because, in fact, if you look at the CHIPS act in the United States and the investment they've been making, my point to our American friends is always about the resiliency of the supply chain. I said that they have their best ally, partner and friend just up north, which packages 80% of every semiconductor that is manufactured in North America, mainly in the United States.

When President Biden came to the House of Commons, he made the point that we have a very integrated supply chain when it comes to semiconductors. This was a great investment because, for us, it allowed us to keep our leading position. We want to make sure that we can be a trusted, reliable and significant partner to the United States. The fact that we invested to modernize.... Packaging and testing is far more than what people believe. Packaging is not about wrapping. It's really how many semiconductors you can put on a wafer. It is the most advanced technology you can find in the world.

We're very fortunate that we have that capacity in Canada. The IBM plant was opened in 1972 in Bromont. By the way, it's the largest IBM packaging and testing plant in the world, and this is in Canada. The investment that we're doing to be able to have a very stable, integrated supply chain with our American colleagues is the foresight we need. We are doing that in semiconductors. We've done that in the battery ecosystem. We're doing that in aluminum. That's the way you build a growth plan for North America.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

On a tangent, Minister, budget 2024 obviously made some major investments in artificial intelligence, which is really going to define not only Canada's economy but also the world economy, going forward, for decades to come.

On another tangent, though, and you can touch upon both, Minister, in your career you worked in Europe for a number of years and then came back to Canada. I have the privilege of being the chair of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association. Tomorrow is actually Europe Day, and we'll be celebrating that this evening.

As a part of ISED's 2024-25 departmental plan, we'll be strengthening our international scientific collaboration through Horizon Europe and the European Commission's nearly 100-billion euro research innovation funding program. Canada is now a partner in that.

Minister, through your international experience and now your experience as industry minister, can you expand on the opportunities that are available for Canadian companies, Canadian researchers, in partnering through Horizon Europe and our European friends and allies?

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

This is a very good question. Thank you. This is something that all Canadians should be proud of. Canada is the only non-European country that has been invited to join Horizon Europe, which is largest R and D endeavour, I would say, research project, that you see in Europe. Canada has been invited to be part of that, which is a great thing. If you ask our researchers and scientists around the country, they will tell you to be part of that great endeavour. I think it's a program of around $180 billion in research, and Canada is the only non-European country to be part of that. It's really good news for our universities across the nation, for our scientists and our researchers, because we're going to be able to pursue joint projects with our European friends.

You've seen in the last budget.... I always say that the science of today is the economy of tomorrow, and for us to be part of that is to build for the future. Our mission here as members of Parliament is to deal with today, but also to build for the future. What we did, for example, in the budget, where we had about $3.5 billion around science, for me was really something that everyone should rejoice about in the country. We've been the government that has invested the most since 2016. You will remember we invested significantly. Now we're investing in AI; we're making sure that there will be $1.8 billion for grants, for the different granting agencies in the country.

Also, we made sure there would be about $800 million to support those who are doing their master's, Ph.D.s, and beyond. What you're seeing is Canada leading where it matters, which is in science and research. What we've done in the budget is a good indication of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You're just out of time, Mr. Sorbara, thank you very much.

Mr. Garon, go ahead.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Minister.

Earlier, I heard you say when the microphone was off that you had found it difficult to hear my Conservative colleague take an unfriendly tone. I want to reassure you: This week, in committee, witnesses were subjected to even more deplorable remarks. I'm obviously not naming names.

That said, thank you for being with us for two hours. We have a number of good questions for you.

To your knowledge, how many companies build electric school buses in Quebec?

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

I know of two, but there may be more.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

What are they?

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

There's Lion Electric. I made an announcement about the second one, but I'm trying to remember the name. It will probably come back to me during the meeting. As I get older, I don't know the names off the top of my head anymore.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

You're still young, and you may have a big career ahead of you.

Of those companies, how many manufacture electric vehicles exclusively?

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

That's a good question. I think there is only one, Lion Electric.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I'll give you a fictional scenario.

Let's say a federal fund for zero-emission transportation was announced a few years ago, it was put in place two years ago, and the launch of 3,000 projects was on hold, pending funding. Let's also say that the intermediaries, the transportation companies that want to buy electric buses, aren't able to agree with Ottawa on an acceptable amount in terms of profitability. Would you find that acceptable?

I understand that this would be the responsibility of the Office of Infrastructure Canada, but I know that you will agree to answer my question, as it is related to the industry.