Evidence of meeting #17 for International Trade in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
Substantively, yes. There are gigawatt hours installed throughout Canada.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Right, and that pace is continuing to increase, as people try to store the energy for lower energy bills. Hospitals put in battery storage systems, as an example. Some of this technology is being used in those applications.
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
That's correct.
That's actually where you see a lot of energy storage is—renewables integration, AI data centres and critical facilities.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
If Parliament does not take action now, I assume that once these storage systems are in place it's much more difficult to remove them.
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
That's correct.
These control electronics are a single-digit percentage of the cost of the system. If done in advance and prioritizing domestic suppliers, it is relatively easy—in fact, quite easy—to install a system that has all safe domestic controls.
If we allow this east-west corridor to go in with foreign adversary electronics, it is very difficult to get them out afterwards.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Have you had discussions with the government, various ministries, about your concerns? Is this a new advocacy for you, or have you been at this for a few months or years?
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
We've been at this for the better part of a year.
We've made excellent progress in Ontario, with Bill 5 and Bill 40, working with Premier Ford and Minister Lecce. We have very good relationships with them. In Ontario, it's very much a bipartisan support.
Equally, we've been highly active in the U.S. I've been to Capitol Hill multiple times, and it's a bipartisan issue there.
We continue to get very good support on this. Really, we're here in order to educate that this risk exists, and we need to be in action about it.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I note that you do have a number of recommendations, but overall, you would implore the committee and Parliament to address the concerns that you've raised here today.
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
We would implore that, yes. We need to be aware that this risk exists, and we need to be in action in order to prioritize domestic suppliers.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I’d like to welcome the two witnesses.
Ms. Young, has the removal of some interprovincial barriers helped your organization, The Surrey & White Rock Board of Trade?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
Yes. Certainly, we've seen some advancements, at least in the attitude or the thought process between where businesses used to want to do business just across the border with the U.S.—that was easy—and where now they're starting to think beyond. They're thinking east to west instead of north to south.
However, there are still, I would say, a lot of people just sitting back and waiting to see how things will go. This is because they'd rather not risk getting into any new market and leaving behind what they know has worked for them.
I had one business say to me that it takes about a year to get into a new market. I was telling them that they need to diversify, and they responded, “But, Jocelyn, it takes a year, and we have limited resources. We've made so many investments on our current supply chain.” I said, “Well, you have three years left of Mr. Trump, so you can decide what you want to do now or later.”
At the Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade, we have established a trade hub, and we are looking for funding to improve the B2B networking that can happen across the country by building a database that connects all of the chamber CRM systems. That would allow us to do business with each other more easily. Right now, those relationships are not necessarily established or thought of first.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I know there are occasional trade missions abroad, but do you have any domestic missions to open up new markets east to west? What would be the most promising market for you?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
It sounds like you've read my PacifiCan application.
In fact, we would love to do interprovincial trade missions. We feel that would be an excellent way to improve B2B connections.
The current appetite is there. We have many different industries. There's agritech, for example. Innovation Boulevard in Surrey is very strong. There are opportunities to connect with various provinces; most in the tech space, I'd say, would go across Canada. We also have a very rich post-secondary environment with SFU and other universities in the area that work with industry to create new solutions to businesses' problems.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
As far as The Surrey & White Rock Board of Trade exports are concerned, is the existing infrastructure, such as railways and ports, sufficient for your export needs?
In your opinion, are there things that need improvement?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
I have formerly worked for both CN and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, so I can tell you that Surrey is very ideally situated to support our trade capacity.
What we do need is more trade infrastructure. We need more port capacity, and we also need the road and rail infrastructure to lead us to those ports. What people don't think about is that the west coast is the end of the line. All of the trade supply and the supply chains get pushed into the Vancouver region, and then they're stuck. Where do you go from there? If that's not working well, trade for across Canada does not work well.
Yes, we have a great base, but we do need more.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you.
Earlier, you alluded to the need to defend everyone when you spoke about diversity. I also have the privilege to serve as the chair of the national women’s Liberal caucus. Women make up 40% of members of parliament.
In your opinion, what does it take to help more women and first nations? I know it’s more difficult to access capital.
In your opinion, what are our greatest needs?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
We need to offer education, first of all. Most SMEs started with a good idea but not necessarily the knowledge that they need to, for example, read a profit and loss statement; so the business will get ahead of them, and then they don't have what they need in order to take it to that next level, bring in investment and grow the business.
We have established something called The Business Growth Academy, which will allow for peer-to-peer learning. We take those in the know in the business community who have gone through it and can teach others how to get through those hurdles. Again, going to the post-secondary environment that we have, we're connecting with the universities for microcredential learning. Because of the diversity of our population, everyone's very welcoming in the Surrey—White Rock region, and they know what it takes to be successful. They also know how hard it is, and they like to help each other.
That's what we've established in order to try to help our business community. I would love to help other chambers across Canada establish the same opportunities.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you.
I looked up your business, Mr. Worry. It has a presence in the U.S. and Canada.
What is the percentage breakdown of your business activities across the two countries?
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
Thank you for your question.
I speak a little French but I’m better in English.
The majority of operations are in Waterloo. We're a company of about 80 people, and about 75 of those are in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
All of our manufacturing is done here in Ontario, in Markham.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Next is Mr. Savard-Tremblay, please, for six minutes.