Evidence of meeting #39 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ira.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
It also needs to be clear and simple. Would you agree with that?
2:20 p.m.
Director, World Energy GH2
Absolutely. It needs to be clear and simple, yes, because banks won't finance...they will not want to get into an argument with the government over whether or not—
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
—you qualify for a certain program. The bank, if it's going to finance a project, wants to say A plus B equals C.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Gorman, when we talk about the role of nuclear power, we also have to talk about the expansion of the electricity grid. RBC has a report out on the path to net zero. It talks about the cost of expanding the electricity grid across the country. It makes suggestions that billions of dollars a year need to be invested in that.
What's your take on increasing the electricity grid in conjunction with electric generation?
2:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Association
This question keeps me up at night.
I think there is a very significant underappreciation of the sheer amount of electricity infrastructure that we're going to have to build out over the next 30 years or so. It's being reflected in underestimations by the provinces and by their systems operators. It's looking at electricity generation only, and isn't taking into account the sort of fuel switching that has to be done in various other sectors across this nation.
When really knowledgeable people speak about the need to double, triple and quadruple the amount of electricity infrastructure power generation that we have, I think we have to start planning to be able to build out that amount of infrastructure, and we're not doing that at this point.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
It keeps you up at night. It's something I think about very often as well.
The incoherence we seem to get from the government on nuclear.... Is there any path to net zero, in your opinion, in Canada and around the world without nuclear?
2:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Association
There's a growing consensus that there is no cost-effective pathway to net zero without significant amounts of nuclear energy. That's certainly true here at home, but globally.... That's not to say that nuclear is a panacea or silver bullet. It's going to require every bit of existing clean energy technology that we have, be it wind, water, solar, conventional or nuclear. It's going to take everything that we can be developing—hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, small modular reactors, etc.—to meet this challenge, but nuclear energy is certainly going to be a very important component of that mix.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry, but you have two seconds left, Mr. Seeback. Thank you
Mr. Sheehan, do we have you with us?
I'm going to hold that spot for a bit. He's not popping up.
I will go on to Monsieur Ste-Marie, for two and a half minutes, please.
2:20 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Once again, my question is for all the witnesses. Given the short amount of time available to us, I will ask Ms. Kwan. I would ask other witnesses to send their answers in writing to the clerk, who can then pass them on to all the committee members.
Ms. Kwan, when the representative of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. came to testify before the committee, he raised the problem of the uncertainty caused by the American act and the risk of a suspension of planned activities until the actual impact of the new act is properly understood. This was often raised by today's witnesses. So until the actual impact is understood properly, there may be repercussions on corporate investment decisions in Canada.
What are your comments on this? What repercussions would the uncertainty resulting from the American act have on Canadian corporate decisions with respect to investment in Canada?
2:25 p.m.
Senior Researcher, Canadian Labour Congress
Thank you very much for the question.
I will just quickly say that policy certainty was definitely part of my presentation today. Especially in the auto areas, we—the unionized auto sector—embraced the opportunities that the IRA presented in terms of EVs, batteries and all of that. This is a much better place to be than Build Back Better. It's a good place to be.
Generally, around the suspension of activities, even that is muted by the switch from build back better to the IRA. I think the call for suspension was probably a little bit stronger previously.
Right now, the markets are so integrated that a lot of activity is ongoing. With the IRA, I think we need to be able to study the impact and know what the standards are and whether all standards are equivalent, acceptable or agreeable above what's stated in the IRA, and go from there.
It's not an either-or question. The vehicles and the batteries need to be built, and that has to be done now.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
That was a good segue into a question that I wanted to shoehorn in to this discussion.
I think I'll start with Mark on this one.
I'm from Sault Ste. Marie in northern Ontario. When I was on council, a former NDP MP who was a city councillor and I put forward a resolution declaring us that alternative energy capital of North America. We took a bold statement. We talked about a lot of what was happening in northern Ontario.
A couple of years ago, when I was the parliamentary secretary for FedNor, I made an announcement for cobalt sulphate up in northern Ontario. It was an investment by FedNor and our coterminous NOHFC.
There are a lot of critical minerals in northern Ontario that are under way. I think that positions us well to demonstrate to the Americans how well we are poised to work together on this decarbonization and this whole electrification of our economies.
Mark, what kinds of other suggestions would you make for how the government can attract more investments, such as cobalt, in other places? In particular, we always talk about the Ring of Fire up in northern Ontario, where there's a potential for a lot of critical minerals. We talk about “from mine to road”.
What kinds of strategies do you think the government could employ to attract that kind of investment and innovation up to northern Ontario?
2:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Clean Energy Canada
That's a great question.
There are a couple of things.
One is the $3.8 billion that has been invested in critical minerals. That needs to move quickly.
Two, getting projects through regulatory processes federally and provincially in Canada is exceedingly difficult. It takes a decade to build a mine in Canada. That has to change.
Number three is our labour force and skills training. We have an advantage relative to the U.S. in terms of the skills ability of our labour force and our general labour force, but, again, we need more workers.
Fourth, the infrastructure needs to be built to be able to electrify those mines and be able to get the minerals back down into the lower part of Ontario, where they can be refined and turned into battery precursor materials and eventually batteries for cars.
Then fifth, in my last couple of seconds, we need to drive domestic demand. We need a zero-emission vehicle mandate that will actually require Canadians to buy these cars, and therefore they will be made in Canada, with Canadian batteries and Canadian metals and minerals. We need to connect to the supply chain.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I truly appreciate that.
I'm also co-chair of the Canada-Japan Inter-Parliamentary Group. One of the things that Japan is really hungry for is for a stable partner, in particular with what's happening with Russia and North Korea and China over there. I think there's a lot of opportunity to attract some other investments, other than from the Americans, into northern Ontario.
How much more time do I have, Madam Chair? Do I have a couple of minutes?
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Okay.
Very quickly to the CLC, I was pleased to be in Montreal as a delegate many years ago. I don't know what year that was. It was years ago. I know that labour is going to play a significant role as we move to a cleaner, greener society and sustainable jobs.
The steelworkers were fabulous with us when we fought the 232 tariffs, and I asked them this: What could the CLC do with their American counterparts to work together as we decarbonize the economy and work for the jobs of the future?
2:30 p.m.
Senior Researcher, Canadian Labour Congress
Yes.
The CLC actually works very closely with unions like the USW. We work with other unions, actually, on both sides of the border. That's where we exert our best contribution and most powerful contribution to the conversation and to policy development and to trade.
2:30 p.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you very much.
I'd like to put to Mr. Zacharias the question I was asking before. To what extent is there already administrative infrastructure for proper industrial planning, or to what extent does it need to be built? If it needs to be built or approved, what do you think that looks like in the case of the industries you work in?
2:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Clean Energy Canada
I'll give an example.
We convened about 12 to 15 industries along the battery supply chain, from metals and minerals right through recycling at end of life. Our recommendations to government were several.
First and foremost, they are doing good jobs in certain parts of the value and supply chain, and then completely ignoring others. You have NRCan and you have ISED. You have Minister Champagne landing battery deals in Ontario and Quebec. That's excellent, but what we're saying is that without a holistic approach, you're going to miss the opportunity, and that is labour supply, skills training, building the infrastructure to get the critical minerals, building the infrastructure to get the electricity to these new plants, and then actually moving to a clean grid.
All the things we've actually talked about here are all important, and they are the parts that aren't happening right now. That is in addition to things like whether we need more production tax credits and whether we need to get moving quickly on this, but there is an entire vacuum that needs to get filled and recognized and acknowledged.
Canada can do it. It's just a matter of getting the right people in the room to move it forward.