Natural Resources Committee on May 2nd, 2007

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. McDougall-Murdoch, I would like to know what staff you needed to coordinate your program. Did the municipality have to invest in human resources to carry out the project? I notice that you are able to measure your annual savings and changes in behaviour, and that you are able to offer energy audit services. Surely all that needs human resources.

Did your municipality create a position? What is the human resources situation?

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

With some of the work that we did on the verification of our energy use profile in the community and our greenhouse gas emissions and reduction opportunities, we did work with ICLEI Energy Services. We did hire them to do that work for us because we wanted that information to stand up to a very high regard and to be held to very high standards. Many municipalities do hire staff to do that work for them, that inventory process.

About additional staff for this type of work, I would say yes, this is definitely different from any other core piece of business within the municipality. But I think that many communities now see the benefits of a vested interest in pursuing sustainable development initiatives and pursuing energy opportunities. There seems to be a business case for doing this work, and then a whole host of benefits that go along with it.

[Richard Quail]

We're a small organization, with about 150 employees. As I said in my presentation, it's a way of doing business, it's not a “department of”. That's the context under which all of our business planning is undertaken. We don't specifically right now have an environmental coordinator. We'd like to have more specialization in that area, but we actually have physical space limitations in our community, where we've outgrown our administrative facilities, and we're working on that issue.

I'm certain that if we were to go back and analyze it, there would be a payback, not a payout, with respect to engaging expertise to undertake these kinds of initiatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Ms. Bell.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our two presenters for their very interesting and inspiring presentations.

Some of my questions have already been asked, so I'll try to think of some new ones. Following along the lines of what's been asked previously regarding the federal-provincial programs that were available and that you accessed to get started down this road, I'm assuming that if they weren't available, it would have been a lot more difficult, or maybe impossible, to get jump-started. I'm just wondering if those programs are still available for other communities, if they wanted to start greening their energy and their communities, because I know there are a lot of towns in northern Ontario that could probably take advantage of this.

I'm just wondering if you've had an opportunity, Ms. McDougall-Murdoch, to go to any other communities and talk about your success story—as well as coming here.

And the same thing for you, Mr. Quail. Have you been able to share your experiences with other communities and help them move down this road as well?

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

We found great value in working collaboratively with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and ICLEI. We have been acknowledged for the leadership we've shown, not just around strategic energy planning, but also for our work on local action planning in becoming a more sustainable community. That recognition has extended throughout Ontario and nationally, and even internationally, as both of those organizations have provided us with tremendous exposure.

We also take any opportunity we can, in partnering with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to network with other northern communities and to share our experiences. We've participated in an ICLEI best practice exchange with the City of Phuket, which sent a delegation to Sudbury to study the work we've done.

We also work collaboratively with municipalities across Canada at various stages in their local action planning process, and help guide and steward them through that process by sharing our expertise in it.

[Richard Quail]

Some of the most successful funding programs we've had have been three-part programs: federal, provincial, and municipal. The real issue, or crux of it, relates to eligibility, as there are core infrastructure needs in municipalities who desperately need to repair and replace their infrastructure, and the funding formulas need to reflect and prioritize around these areas. If you don't take care of the structure of your home, the cracked paint on the inside wall is not really important; and if you look at municipalities from an infrastructure point of view, the same sort of analogy does apply.

So we've had really good success with respect to federal-provincial-municipal cost-sharing agreements and with the financial support that's provided, particularly around utility infrastructure replacement, upgrades to waste water treatment plants, water treatment facilities, etc.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I have another question with regard to electricity use in your community, because you're using so many different methods to generate that electricity, including solar, in-river, and biomass generation. Have you measured electricity use in the community on a residential and commercial basis?

[Richard Quail]

No, our focus has been on municipal accounts and municipal electricity consumption. We haven't been able to do it on a broader basis; we just don't have the authority to do that.

But there is, for example, a municipal showcase project out right now in Alberta. We're building a new municipal facility and are installing solar photovoltaic panels on the municipal centre to generate electricity to meet its electrical needs—though I'm not sure about the percentage.

So our focus is on municipalities, and where you folks come in is in taking care of the other element. We can take care of our own backyard, or we can work hard at it with your support and policy initiatives, but in terms of the broader Canadian public, that's where municipalities really don't have jurisdiction or ability.

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

Through our work with ICLEI Energy Services, the community's supply is 47% electrical, and we've set some very stringent goals and objectives for us to help offset some of those needs through renewable energy generation like wind and small-scale hydro, biogas, solar panels, and demonstration projects around domestic solar hot water. So we're looking into opportunities in these areas to offset some of those requirements.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

And of the sustainable technology that you're using, are you able to purchase any of that in Canada, or is it all coming from offshore, from somewhere else? I was just wondering what our manufacturing capacity is.

[Richard Quail]

On the Drake Landing solar neighbourhood, for example, that was the largest procurement in Canadian history of solar thermal panels: 800. And the firm that we purchased from was EnerWorks. They're based in and manufacture out of Ontario.

Of some of the challenges that we had on that project, there was quite a bit of European technology that we had to depend on, not the least of which was glycol. There was not a North American manufacturer for the glycol required for the system that met the spec. But as a result of doing this—EnerWorks, the solar panel manufacturers, the evolution of technology, the learning, the demonstration—how critical it is to have those research development dollars to move to the next step.

I can tell you, I met with our project facilitator on Drake for lunch today, and there are projects of this design and much broader scale being proposed in western Canada, in Ontario, in the Maritimes. It's moving forward, but you have to have those demonstrations, you have to have those “learn from your mistakes”, both from manufacturing and from installation. We now have home builders where R-2000 has become the norm because they now understand the technology and the procedures, and it makes sense, and the marketplace is asking for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

I should note that we are having CMHC here on Monday next to look at some of these. We had a home builder doing it from Calgary, Jayman Quantum, who was going to come too, and who has developed the same kinds of programs. They're very popular among homebuyers these days. They want to save energy. It's all about the technology, and it's amazing what you can do with free enterprise.

Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for the quality of their presentations.

I feel that you have created a greener way of life in your cities and you are to be commended for that. When you began to work on the plan, did the people accept the idea reasonably quickly or was there a lot of work to do in that context? At our level, we have to take much the same approach with all Canadians. Was it an easy task? What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to convince people to save energy and to embrace renewable energy? Explain to me how you went about it.

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

I would say that it was fairly simple, with respect to our community, because I would say that the citizens and constituents in our community are very aware of our environment as a result of our history and what we've come through with land reclamation and recovery. So I would say that the citizens in our community were very receptive to this type of initiative. And, again, we focus on the benefits that will accrue locally and continue to promote that.

[Richard Quail]

This dates back to 1995, when we began this initiative of managing growth and living within our ecological footprint. There was considerable dialogue in our community and extensive letters from council to the editor. For example, one said: imagine you're in a helicopter and looking at this community 20 years from now; here's what it's going to look like. It spoke to the distribution of land uses, diversification of housing types, employment, recreation, and housing—to a self-contained, sustainable community. It articulated a vision, and it had a number of critical factors or foundation points in order to achieve that vision. All of that resulted in a cautious okay, we'll go down this road. But there was a lingering perception that we can change our mind if it doesn't make sense.

Now we're at the stage where within the next decade, we approach build-out. In our case, they're saying, what happens afterwards? The afterwards is what we're dealing with now as a community with respect to growth management, redevelopment activities and opportunities, a change in the evolution of commerce, and working as a community within a much larger regional context—in our case, it's the Calgary regional partnership.

We're dealing with how to manage those settlement patterns with finite, renewable natural resources, such as the water supply, for the next million people who are slated to move to the Calgary region over the course of the next century. So there's a broader understanding and a movement towards managing settlement patterns in harmony with the natural environment.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Have you looked at the difference in cost in an average single-family house with a family of two adults and two children? Given the energy savings with this house as a model, perhaps there is no difference. Do you see a noticeable difference in comparison with other regions of Canada?

[Richard Quail]

In our case, for example, in the Drake Landing solar community, the investment in the home and the upgrades to turn it into an R-2000 home—putting in the specialized solar thermal hot water heating systems and the air handling systems, which is stuff that's not off the shelf in the marketplace—cost in the order of $30,000 to $40,000 a home. I'm not positive of that number, but it's in the order of that amount, and the homeowners paid a percentage of it.

At the end of the day, there has to be market receptivity to moving in that direction. What we've seen is a steady decline in the cost of these innovative, energy-efficient initiatives, and that has helped to increase absorption and demand.

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

In Sudbury, we haven't quite moved as far forward as Okotoks, in terms of that kind of residential housing development. Recently we built Sudbury's first Energy Star home, so we're just sort of embarking on that forefront.

I'll address the question from a slightly different angle, in terms of opportunities on the conservation side of things for residential applications and within the single family home. In promoting something such as Energy Star products, and the purchasing or procurement of household appliances and electronics over conventional models, if a home switched out all of its appliances and electronics to Energy Star products, the savings would be in the order of $700 to $800 a year in energy costs. So very easily, somebody could start to realize savings by making different consumer choices, if they're in the market for a new appliance or electronics.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

For new subdivisions with between 50 and 100 new houses, what would be best: a communal solar energy system or individual ones? With geothermal energy, would it be possible to connect several houses to the same hot water supply system? In your presentation, you mentioned that it would be possible to heat an entire city with one system.

[Richard Quail]

That furnace was in Copenhagen. It was a very big furnace.

What we're finding from the research, from what we've done in Drake Landing, where we collect the solar and achieve 90% of the space heating requirements from solar, and from discussions with our technical folks is that there's a more optimal combination around capital costs for solar-thermal energy storage systems in combination with geothermal energy systems and solar photovoltaic to generate the electricity to run the geothermal systems, so our example has resulted in new thinking with respect to increased efficiencies and application of a group of technologies in one single framework.

What we found in Drake Landing was that the capital costs associated with it were in no way market competitive, but it was a demonstration, as we said before, and it would have to be on a much larger scale in order for it to make more economic sense. It would likely be in more of a multi-family style of housing complex than in a proliferation of single detached dwellings.

Our intent, and the desire from the forefront of the project champions, Natural Resources Canada, was to introduce this technology into typical residential housing forms to see the response and to see how the application would work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

It's now five o'clock. I think we have time for another quick round, but we're going to have to be pretty strict about limiting the questions and the answers to five minutes.

We're going to go now to Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for taking time to speak to us, and also for the great work you're doing.

I want to ask a couple of questions, and then, Mr. Russell, I think you have something you want to sneak in.

I first wanted to ask you about the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Obviously you've done a lot of tremendous work. How much have you been working with FCM to try to model some of this, so that other municipalities can tap into the experience of what you're doing? In other words, how helpful has FCM been in coming to you, collecting the experience you've gained in the projects you've led or that other municipalities have been involved in, and trying to create something that municipalities nationally could participate in?

[Barb McDougall-Murdoch]

We've worked very closely with FCM throughout this process. We are actually acknowledged by Louise Comeau, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, as a model for our local action planning process.

We've participated in a number of initiatives with FCM through capacity-building and promotion of FCM programs, and continue to work within that framework to support and build upon those initiatives and opportunities that exist with FCM and the green funds and the partnering between FCM and ICLEI.

I would like to say that ICLEI has done a tremendous job of profiling best practices or case studies internationally. They actually have a team that works out of the world secretariat office that partners with municipalities to help develop these case studies. For the many municipalities that might not have the resources to do this, ICLEI has a program whereby they will work with a municipality to prepare these leading-edge examples that are showcased internationally. Those are some pretty positive examples.

[Richard Quail]

I have a favourable comment as well. The green municipal infrastructure fund, an enabling fund, has provided valuable dollars, and the contribution of the federal government through the endowment fund has been critical. The administration of that fund through a municipalities association has really enabled targeted and streamlined funding assistance.

We were also involved in the initial articulation of what's become known as these integrated community sustainability plans and this exercise that municipalities across this country are going through right now as we speak. I think the message has really gone out through FCM to communities about the importance of integration and sustainability in community building.