Evidence of meeting #8 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was battery.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
It is a fair comment. I would not want Canada and the U.S. to be in the same position that we were in with geopolitical tensions in the 20th century because of our dependence on foreign oil.
What we are seeing right now in working in energy transition is that we want to make sure we have diversified sources of supply for critical minerals. Canada can be a reliable source for critical minerals for friendly countries like the U.S., and for Europe as well.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Are there other ways in which your industries are being impacted right now by Canada's not having a critical mineral strategy?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
As I mentioned earlier, it is not just Canada. None of the western countries have been listening enough to what I and other specialists like Karim have been saying for decades regarding the transition towards electric mobility. This is not something new. It's just that countries are now realizing that we are in the middle of a shift towards electric mobility. Now, all of a sudden, everybody is waking up to that fact, and we really have to move a lot faster than we would have had to do if we had started this shift 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Are you seeing with respect to critical minerals a lot of red tape right now that might be impeding your industry?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
That's a good question. We all say that we find the process quite long and the time is pressing. Yes, I would say that we need to accelerate the process. While we're saying we want to reduce our climate change GHG emissions, we have to accelerate exploration in critical minerals to make sure we produce cleaner vehicles, not in 20 years but in five to 10 years.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Can you provide any examples that might be top of mind?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
Yes. Right now, what we are seeing is that we have some companies making electric vehicles in Canada that have to get their batteries from China, because the processes to get the critical minerals and the cells have not yet been developed in Canada. When we talk to the CEOs of the different companies who are members of EMC, they are looking at this and saying, “Well, we want to make the switch, but right now it's taking too long, and we need to have those batteries now.”
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Can you just clarify? When you say, “It's taking too long,” is there something from a government regulation standpoint?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
Well, like Karim said, we're talking five to seven or eight years to open a mine and to start having the minerals and getting them processed. Right now, 99% of the lithium that's being extracted from Canada goes to China to be transformed. This is not the way to go, we think. We have to make sure for national security reasons that we have enough of a supply of critical minerals to be able to make those cells and those batteries in Canada. It is not happening right now.
I could get back to you on that with more details if you want, after this panel, but yes, there are some issues with the amount of time it takes to open a mine, and not only that, but to look at processing and what can be done in Canada. We don't process much of anything in Canada at the moment.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Also, we've already seen shortages in products like microchips and semiconductors, due to growing demand. If the Chinese regime were to choose to retaliate against Canada by shutting out or reducing access to these critical mineral supply chains, what effect would that have on your sector?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
It would be devastating, because obviously electric vehicles need more microchips than gas vehicles do, so the more technology we put into cars, the more we need microchips. Relying on microchips that come from China, for instance, can be a real issue.
I know some plants are going to be opening in the next few months, because we've seen what happens when the supply chain comes from very far away, not just for electric cars, but for everything. We've seen that with masks. That's something we have to look into as well, not just for the critical minerals but for the microchips as well, because we are seeing that to get them made close by brings safety, which we haven't had in the past two years because of microchip issues and COVID.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
If you don't mind providing that information to the committee, that would be very beneficial.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you, Madam Gray.
We'll turn now to Mr. Fillmore for five minutes.
Members, we'll have 10 more minutes, so if others want to have questions just let me or the clerk know.
February 11th, 2022 / 2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
I want to start just by leaving a thought with Mr. Breton.
Mr. Breton, you heard Mr. Masse mention diversifying the use of electric batteries in Canada, and he mentioned snowmobiles. I just want to surface electric bikes. I'm a planner, and I was the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure in the last Parliament, leading the development of Canada's first national active transportation strategy and fund. I can tell you, from the nationwide consultation that we undertook to develop that, that there's a tremendous and growing appetite for e-bikes in Canada, so I hope to see that come into the narrative. I'll leave that with you. Thank you.
I want to ask the same question to both Dr. Zaghib and Mr. Fortier, although through a different lens for each.
For Canada's aspirations in this space, should we be focusing on the hard rock variety of lithium or the brine lithium? I want to get answers from both of you.
Dr. Zaghib, could you focus your answer on the lens of the raw material processing and the electric chemistry perspective? Which one should we be focusing on? Is there a better one?
Professor, Concordia University and Professor of Practice, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes, if we focus on active materials—coming from water, you make active cathode materials and active anode materials—it means we will become very competitive. We need a lot of energy, and we have low-cost energy and green energy. It's not very difficult and not very intensive on the finances.
In French, this is called the “composants d'électrode pour les batteries lithium-ion“—the electrode components for lithium-ion batteries.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
You mentioned energy in your answer. Did you mean the energy required to process?
Professor, Concordia University and Professor of Practice, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes, because to heat cathode materials we need 900 degrees Celsius, and for a heat treatment of artificial graphite we need 3,000 degrees Celsius, so it's really intensive energy. Also, CO2 emissions need to have active cathode materials with almost no CO2 emissions, and you have good traceability for raw materials. If we keep it inside Canada, we can export it.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
I'll turn to Mr. Fortier now, and I think Dr. Zaghib got into it a bit.
When we think about the processing in Canada that can be done in a green way, resulting in green lithium through hydro power with no global transport, we're producing the lithium in Canada, and that's a good thing. We're keeping Canadian jobs and Canadian dollars in Canada, adjacent to vehicle construction and all that.
Could you just share with me, Mr. Fortier, whether or not your group has any perspective on hard rock or brine? Which should we really be producing to be smart in the years ahead?
President, Accelerate: Canada's ZEV Supply Chain Alliance
I'll answer that directly and say that it's both, and the reason is that we need a lot of this stuff.
We've talked a lot about dependency on foreign powers for these materials, and that's a real issue, but a longer-term issue is that actually the world is going to need a lot more of all this stuff. If we want people to be driving electric cars, for example, by 2035 or 2030, then we need to have the capacity to put these batteries together.
The reality is that as a country we should be supporting companies that are prospecting and developing hard rock. We should also be supporting companies that are developing innovative solutions around brines. They exist in different parts of our country, and that's the good news. Different regions of this country can be involved in this, and that's a great news story. This can create economic activity across the country.
One more thing I'd say is that if we think about the electric vehicle sector as being from mining all the way through to mobility and recycling, it's economically multiplying. If you have an OEM that's set up to build an EV, and that OEM sources materials within Canada, that means we're creating jobs throughout the supply chain and the value chain. That's great news.
To answer your question, it's both, and graphite and cobalt and manganese—and we can do it.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you for that.
It seemed Mr. Breton had something he wanted to say about e-bikes, so maybe I can give him the last 45 seconds.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
You're absolutely right. When we're talking about electric mobility, we have to look at the broad spectrum of mobility, because within Electric Mobility Canada we have members, actually, who build and sell e-bikes.
It's e-bikes, it's cars, it's buses, it's trucks, it's boats, it's snowmobiles, it's waterskis. You'd be surprised. Now we have mining trucks that are fully electric. That's how far we're going.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you, Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Breton.
We have about 10 more minutes. I'll give each party—the Bloc, the Conservatives and the Liberals—three minutes each.
For the Conservatives, I think we have Mr. Fast.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I'll just ask a brief question of Mr. Killeen. I've taken note of your request that the METC be increased, and we'll take that back for consideration.
You mentioned that you'd like to see an increase in public geoscience funding to inform future decisions on things like infrastructure, but you also talked about increasing our understanding of what our inventory of critical minerals might be.
Do you have any rough idea of what our potential as a country might be in terms of rare earths and critical minerals, and what the future might hold for us in terms of leveraging those assets to greater prosperity and developing a robust EV system?
Director, Policy and Programs, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada
I would suggest that the government does a pretty good job of tracking some of this information. We use Natural Resources Canada as a good resource ourselves to understand where opportunities may lie.
If we look to the current list that NRCan has in terms of the top 100 exploration projects in Canada, there might be only one project on that list that is a lithium project. There are some uranium projects, but by and large you will see those projects earmarked as more traditional—for instance, copper, nickel or gold.
When we think about what our current inventory is in Canada, it's not very extensive when it comes to some of the lithium products that we've been speaking about, or rare earths. However, from the potential aspect, we're certainly confident that it is very high. It's not just notionally so, because we enjoy a big geography; it's factual, because of the results that companies have had over years in terms of exploration in different terrains around Canada. I'd say the ability to build up our inventory is extreme. There's huge potential there. Now it's just a matter of directing the investment dollars and the attention towards those ends of industry.
When we think about how we can accelerate that, we think public geoscience is important, because we understand there are bigger questions at play in front of Canadians right now. We are attempting to conserve 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030. We are attempting to become a net-zero producer of carbon emissions by 2050. These are huge challenges all at the same time while we're looking to expand this industry and create more opportunities for our supply chain to feed into the global marketplace.
When we think of those things in concert, it really brings us back to the central question. We need to know where things are and how we want to develop them, so that there can be those proper conversations; we can generate those social licences to operate, and we can really get all Canadians behind the concept.