Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 26th, 2009

[Carol Buckley]

I apologize that this slide was not made available to you. I will make it available to you afterwards. We put a great deal of effort into some graphics that would help demonstrate--for those of us who are visual--what was different about these communities. I'll now run through them a little more slowly.

The one in Emerald Hills near Edmonton, Alberta, did the integrated design process for the neighbourhood from the start. As Kevin Lee was describing, they invited the developers and the design team in at the beginning. They planned it this way from the start, that they would integrate every opportunity for saving energy use. They started with a higher mix of uses and a higher density than otherwise might have been the case. They put building performance targets in place for all of the buildings, which is not usually part of a building design project.

We, from the Canmet Energy lab--my colleague is in charge of the one that's run out of Bells Corners--provided some of the design input, I guess, in terms of the actual design processes for the different structures and technologies to be used. The first townhouses are under construction. They're not fully built yet. They have a community energy system planned. I believe they had originally planned to have a waste-to-energy facility. They're now replacing it with another idea. Those are just some of the things in place in that community.

With regard to the third community, I talked about the chief integrated and high-efficiency aspects of that. All of the homes were built to R-2000 specification. That's 30% better than the conventional home. Then the solar collectors on all the garages, storing that energy in the ground over the winter, make an absolutely unique and very exciting technology given the potential to save the summer's heat and use it all winter long. And this is in Alberta, which, as some of you know, has quite a heating season. Hearkening back to one of the questions about the role of utilities, ATCO, the utility in the area, will own and service the community energy system for that subdivision.

Kevin, did you want to add anything to the specific energy saving aspects of that, or have I covered it? Okay.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

As a matter of fact, I'm from Calgary, and I personally visited Okotoks last summer. I have physically seen this project. It's a great project.

Finally, what can the federal government do to help these three great ideas become the norm for all new communities?

[Carol Buckley]

Although we're not yet finished the work on our road map, where we're taking a year to think through all of the policies, programs, and measures that the federal government can put into place, I'll leap ahead and say, just from listening to the comments here, that I think we need to continue the work we do in three areas--in R and D, in policy, and in programs.

Certainly R and D is needed to continue to deliver the technologies that will drive the savings. As Kevin says, it doesn't really matter what technology; a lot of technologies are available that can be combined for an integrated community approach.

The policy work is kind of important and often overlooked. Ken Ogilvie was talking earlier about capacity and tools, and the ability to put those together. I really see that as a federal government role. Actually, I could come back to Mr. Cullen's question, about being able to demonstrate the effect of the federal government. I see that as a very obvious role for the federal government, to provide a common tool that then can be used at different levels and in different communities, large and small, maybe to provide a variety of different tools--for instance, some that are more useful for remote or rural regions, or for the north, or for larger-density cities.

So I see a number of roles that the federal government can take. But I won't be fully informed until we take our thinking a little further along the quest here, if you will.

[Michael Harcourt]

To go back to the points I made in my presentation, there are about five different ways in which the federal government could be very helpful in bringing about more compact, less car reliant, and more energy efficient cities and communities. It could take place in a variety of ways for big cities and medium and smaller rural communities.

If the federal government--for example, through your report--encourages the integrated approach that we're talking about with QUEST...and you've heard from our colleagues from NRCan. If you can build into the investments that are being made right now to get people back to work, the shovel-in-the-ground investments over the next 120 days, making sure that they're green infrastructure projects as much as possible, that they're into sustainable cities and communities strategies, and that energy, in an integrated way, is incorporated in your technology, program, and infrastructure investments, then that is a very significant amount of funding already going to municipalities through agreements that have been signed by the national government, provinces, and municipalities throughout this country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you

And thank you, Mr. Shory.

I would just like to ask you one question. Actually, I'd like to give you the opportunity, Mr. Ogilvie, Mr. Cleland, and Mr. Harcourt, in particular, to advise this committee on what issues you think we should deal with and what approach we might want to take to produce the most effective study we possibly can, in the most efficient manner possible.

[Michael Cleland]

I'll kick it off with one, and then I'll let my colleagues take it from there.

The focus of the study, I think, shouldn't be on a whole bunch of individual technologies, because what we're talking about here, QUEST, is in its very nature about integrating across technologies. I think one of the things you should be thinking about is hearing from municipal leaders and getting their perspective; hearing from builders and developers and how they put the pieces together; and you should be hearing from utilities.

So it's all about connections, more than it is about individual technologies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Ogilvie.

[Kenneth Ogilvie]

I think there's a need for knitting this together nationally and for sharing information. We need some leadership politically, and we would like to call on the Minister of Natural Resources to assume that role. We'd also like to see this committee support that call, including all of the things Carol was talking about, whose benefits can be brought to the country. Have a voice, an active voice, and policy that starts to balance out across the spectrum of opportunities for our future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Harcourt.

[Michael Harcourt]

I think your report, and the recommendations you're putting forward to Parliament, could be very useful. We could follow up, because we'd like to take those recommendations and possibly have the minister and, let's say, an organization like the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which I sat on for nine years, to convene exactly the kinds of people you're talking about, and to test out your recommendations and to see who is doing this. Who are the leaders? Who is providing integrated energy systems into a smarter way of doing communities? Are they able to measure the CO₂ reductions? Are they able to show a higher quality of life for their citizens? Are they able to show less of an ecological footprint?

I think your report, and the minister taking a leadership role in the ways we're talking about, could provide some quite significant information to the government, to the Minister of Finance, which could then be incorporated in next year's budget, getting people back to work because of the challenging times we're facing, but also providing a more integrated and different way of doing our communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you all very much, and thank you to all of you for your help in getting us started on this report.

We will suspend for two minutes while the witnesses leave the table, and then we'll get back to our discussion of where we will go with this project in the future.

[Proceedings continue in camera]