Natural Resources Committee on May 9th, 2007

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

If I may, because I'll probably be allowed only one more question, what will we be hearing and saying about the cap, specific to the oil sands, on volatile organic compounds? What will be the firm cap?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Again, my colleague, Minister Baird, can give you that number. I can only tell you that they'll be in discussion.

As you know, we had a smog day this year already. I think we heard that today is a smog day in certain parts of the country. But we're committed to cutting the smog in this country by 50% in a real hard cap reduction. These are the most ambitious aggressive targets.

Independent people who audit these will tell you that our actions toward reducing greenhouse gases and smog over the next five years will be far more aggressive than those of any other industrialized country, including France and the U.K. What we're going to impose on the industry here will be far more aggressive than what's imposed anywhere else in the world. We admit that we're starting late, so we have to become more aggressive. But we feel it's important to do that.

Do you want to go for five more minutes? Is somebody watching the clock?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

House procedure suggests that we suspend when the bells start ringing.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm okay for five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I need the unanimous consent of the committee to continue. Could we get that to give Monsieur Ouellet five minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

All right, we have unanimous consent.

Monsieur Ouellet, for five minutes, go.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Minister, AECL's current budget stands at $103 million. The budget for nuclear facilities and activities is $66 million, while the budget for R&D is $37 million. The budget for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been increased by 20% this year and now stands at $94.4 million. A total of is $94 million has been earmarked for operating expenditures, while $420 million have been allocated for grants and contributions. Therefore, the total budget for nuclear energy is $814.4 million.

Earlier, in response to a question from Mr. Trost, you said that nuclear energy was clean energy. A mere $57 million per year is being earmarked for other forms of energy, including passive solar and active solar energy, photovoltaic energy, tidal energy, wind energy, biomass, mini hydro-electric power stations and, of course, geothermal energy. Can you explain to me the reason for the large discrepancy between the two budgets?

It's no secret that the different forms of energy that I just listed could meet 20% of Canada's energy requirements by the year 2020. Geothermal energy harnessed from deep within the earth is a newly discovered form of energy that could meet all of our energy requirements by the year 2025.

I will put my second question to you right away, as I imagine your response will be quite brief, based on what I've just told you. When you were here last time, you stated that LED bulbs were a new discovery and so forth. We thought that you would be investing in this technology, but you changed your mind and opted to go with fluorescent light bulbs.

I did some calculations to compare the figures that you gave us. There are between four and seven light bulbs in every home, in addition to 20 to 25 halogen lights, and additional outdoors lights. If you calculate the amount of heat that houses emit, bearing in mind that lights are on mostly in the winter, you will not manage cut CO2 emissions by 6 million tonnes per year, but only by a mere one million tonnes.

On which studies did you base your conclusions? Can you share them with us? To our way of thinking, it's absolutely impossible to achieve these reductions solely through the use of these small light bulbs.

Why do oil tax expenditures total in excess of $300 million per year, when a mere $57.8 million is being spent on renewable energy?Again, it's a matter of comparison. I'd also like to know how the $57 million budgeted will be spent.

Finally, if you think nuclear energy is so clean, as you stated earlier, are you prepared to tell us today that all nuclear waste could be stored in your riding?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much.

Let me go very quickly. You've touched a number of issues.

First of all, with respect to nuclear, we increased their budget by 9%. We had to actually add $94 million. A large portion of it went to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

I want to stress that our government is promoting renewable energy with $1.5 billion for things such as wind, solar, tidal, biomass. The $1.5 billion is a production incentive for that renewable energy. But we are seeing increased activity in both the refurbishment of and in new nuclear builds. Here in Ontario we're seeing it, and we're hearing about other parts of the country where there's an interest.

Our job as the federal government, as the regulator, is to ensure that all aspects of the environmental approval process, the safety aspects when they go through the Canadian environmental assessments—all of that—would be done by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. They will absolutely need these resources to complete that work.

Just to put it in perspective, we haven't seen an application in this country to build a nuclear reactor in three or four decades, and we're seeing a lot of activity now. We have a responsibility to ensure the safety and ensure, when they go through the regulatory approval process, that the resources are there to have a comprehensive, thorough review, so that no stones are left unturned.

Nuclear is only one form of energy. We're blessed with many forms of energy in this country, and it's really up to the provinces to decide on their energy mix. Places such as Quebec, your province, or my province of British Columbia, are blessed with a lot of hydro electricity, which is a very clean form of energy. Not all other provinces have that opportunity, and thus are looking at other sources. So we had to put those resources in.

With respect to the light bulb, the story I told about the company Group IV Semiconductor actually wasn't about LED but about solid-state lighting. We've invested $1.2 million in the development of a very efficient way of lighting. We're quite enthusiastic about it. We'll continue to support these types of initiatives.

With respect to banning inefficient light bulbs, 5% of the energy used in North America—you can translate that back into Canada—is used in lighting. We can revolutionize the way we light up our country. The amount of energy savings is enormous.

I would encourage you to go out and buy energy-efficient lighting. It may not necessarily be compact flourescents. As I say, there will be incandescent light bulbs coming on the market in the coming years that are as efficient as compact flourescents. They're coming; I think we should be open to that fact.

The numbers speak for themselves. There is lighting available today that uses 20% of the power of an inefficient light bulb. If we add that up across the country, we're literally talking about five or six or seven coal-fired electricity generation units.

We'd be happy to share those numbers with you. I don't come up with these numbers; these are from scientists, independents. And this is really easy math to do; this number has been calculated.

So this is a really simply fix, and the most exciting part is that by putting these regulations in place, we're really pushing the industry, people like Philips and GE, to accelerate their investments and develop the most energy-efficient lighting.

We all need to look at the energy we consume. We can't just continue to blame it on everybody else and say it's the refineries or it's the oil companies. Every drop they produce, you and I use.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

What about the waste? Will you take it?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

What I can tell you about the nuclear waste is that this is being done by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. They're looking at everything from deep geological storage.... Actually, they do quite an effective job of dealing with the nuclear waste. I would defer to them.

I will say this: the work that's being done, the way they deal with this, is quite impressive. The nuclear industry has an excellent safety record, and they've done a very impressive job. We should keep an open mind and base not only all of our answers but our questions on sound science in considering waste as we move forward. We need to look at all clean forms of energy, if we're going to make a difference in the environment. That's exactly what our government is doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.

I appreciate the extra time you gave us. We're now going to have to run to the vote in the House. I appreciate your coming, and the questions of the committee.

Thank you very much for today.

We are now adjourned.