Natural Resources Committee on March 10th, 2009

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Let me follow in a slightly different way, but one that may actually follow up. We often get questions on education and about people needing to know more, but when I do an election campaign I educate voters too. There are different levels of education. I can say “Re-elect Brad Trost”. That's very simple education. In some respects, that's the way we would educate the general public on these issues: “Get more energy-efficient; it will save you money.” Then there's education that's much more sophisticated: lengthy documents or education to technical people, to tradespeople, etc.

Where right now would be the best place to put our educational push as a federal government to provide encouragement? Would it be for the general public, would it be to technical trades people, would it be to engineering people, or would it be to municipalities? Where should we put the educational push? Where is it most necessary—assuming it is necessary?

[Andrew Cowan]

I absolutely think it is necessary. One of the things the Green Municipal Fund does—and you have a package of information there.... We provide and share information; we work with the municipalities to build capacity through education and training services. There are other organizations and federal and provincial departments that are also doing it.

So to answer your question—

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I'm not asking who's doing it, but who needs it.

[Andrew Cowan]

Who needs it? I would say most of the folks you identified need it in some way, shape, or form. As we're talking about integrated energy systems, we also need an integrated approach. I don't know that this is an appropriate answer or whether you're looking for something a little more specific, but I would say municipalities.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Someone else is going to take a try at this one.

[Thomas Mueller]

I think you have to divide it into two groups.

One is what I would call the professionals. For a homebuilder or an engineer or a housing technologist or a plumber or an electrician, with new technologies I think there comes a significant requirement to upgrade your skills.

I can give you an example. In our Vancouver office we installed a lighting system that's highly energy efficient. The electrician didn't know what the system was and how the controls worked and was in our office forever, simply because he didn't know. In the end, he appreciated that he had learned something new.

In order to bring in the technologies and the people who install and maintain technologies, who design buildings, the capacity-building is probably the biggest demand you can have right now among professionals in Canada. We educate about 5,000 to 6,000 people a year, but we are non-profit and we don't have the reach to educate an industry that has hundreds of thousands of people working in it. The building industry is one of the largest ones.

On the other side is the consumer. I think educating the consumer is not—how should I say it?—as easy as it seems. There's a higher awareness now, and I think people are looking for solutions, so there's an opportunity to provide those solutions, however small they may be.

But just move out the different solutions. I think people pick them up and use them.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I'm one of those consumers who can be somewhat hard to educate. The thing that always gets my attention at the end of the day is the big dollar bill.

You're presenting these things as cost-effective and that they're self-evident. And some businessmen are getting involved. I know of one developer in Kelowna who said the first one he made didn't make money, but all the future ones would.

If these things are so efficient and in some ways self-evident from a financing perspective, why would the government necessarily have to give it much of a push? The market mechanisms will kick in, and people will see that it's in their own self-interest to save energy and therefore save money. At the end of the day, that's what motivates me more than any warm feeling about environmentalism.

I'll throw that one out there. Why isn't it self-evident just from the financial perspective?

[Thomas Mueller]

I think incentive, and by incentive I mean not necessarily a financial incentive, but various types of incentives, is needed—not forever, but I think it's needed initially to get people over the hump. In Canada we are quite comfortable with our lifestyle and really have never had any big resource concerns, until energy prices went up to $150 a barrel. Now they're down again.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I'm from Saskatchewan. I think that's a good thing.

[Thomas Mueller]

Of course. I'm not trying to argue with you. But I think that for consumers driving a car or heating a house, it might be less good. I think we were never really challenged on that front.

Incentives are good to get people over the hump, to say that there are opportunities to increase energy efficiency or reduce water use, and that once people use it on a large scale, the costs will come down.

To give an example that Andrew had, when waterless urinals first came on the market, they were exorbitantly expensive. Now you find them in a lot of buildings, because many have been bought and they're coming into the marketplace as competition and are priced in such a way that many building owners can afford them now.

I see this with other technologies as well; it's the economies of scale. The government can play a role to incentivize us so that we get over the hump, first of people finding these technologies and using them more frequently, so that we have experience with them, and then also, as more people use them—and word of mouth, I would say, is always the best promotion—more and more people use them.

It's not something that should go on forever. It's something that should incentivize people for a certain amount of time, to get them over the hump into using those technologies and then benefiting from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We go now to the second round, a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Tonks for up to five minutes.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

At the beginning of the deputations there were some rather oblique characterizations of the City of Toronto as environmentally backward. As a former municipal member, I have to take exception to those suggestions. I'd like to cite the document provided by the FCM that says, “The City of Toronto has always been at the forefront of environmental initiatives.” Then it gives a very excellent overview of some of the energy projects in the city. I just wanted to put that forth.

Second, I'd like to thank the deputants on behalf of the committee. I'm sure we all appreciate them.

Mr. Mueller, one of the sheets you provided said the target is to be carbon negative for both construction and operation.

There's often been a concern about the creation of green energy jobs. Is it the experience that after the development has been finished, there's an ongoing value added in jobs and the kinds of expertise needed to maintain the systems and so on?

[Thomas Mueller]

You particularly find value added in existing buildings, because there are just so many of them, and we have hardly done much to retrofit buildings or to have better operational practices. The opportunities for green jobs are really in the existing building sector: in existing homes, if you do a renovation, or in an existing building, if you do better operational practices—you install new energy systems, or whatever—and maybe there are jobs being created.

In a typical development.... I wouldn't say you have more jobs in Dockside Green than you would have in any other development, but there is upgrading in skills. The people who work on these developments are learning new skills. I think they're quite marketable. I can tell you that in our industry, which has grown tremendously, we can't find any people who have that expertise.

In terms of longer-term jobs, I think there's an opportunity for people to retrain in those jobs, to familiarize themselves with new technologies and new building practices. And it's very far-reaching.

Are there more jobs at the end of the day? I would think so, but I would like to see the numbers, as everyone would.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

On another one of your overlays, you showed the LEED projects. There were commercial projects, at 36%; university/college projects.... You've broken it down with respect to percentage. But there is no mention of light industrial projects.

In an integrated energy system in brownfields redevelopment, which many urban areas across the country are engaged in, do you give any consideration through the LEED approach to incentives—a catalyst through which local municipalities or provincial and federal governments could encourage brownfields redevelopment with an integrated energy strategy?

[Thomas Mueller]

Dockside Green is actually built on a remediated site. It has been remediated. There are credits to be had under the LEED rating system for soil remediation.

On the LEED for neighbourhood development, there are also credits given for soil remediation, bringing an industrial area back into productive use for development. So it is recognized and it is supported.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Okay.

From the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the critical question with respect to the GMF is what percentage of the Green Municipal Fund program funds is being used for integrated systems.

[Andrew Cowan]

For integrated planning, we fund studies. I don't have the actual percentage. I can get it for you.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Could you give us some examples?

[Andrew Cowan]

Well, in terms of numbers, as Eamonn mentioned, we have funded about 69 capital projects, and over 150....

In your package is a small subset of examples in which the Green Municipal Fund has been active. Municipalities have been much more active than just what the Green Municipal Fund has funded. Some of the examples include Revelstoke, B.C., for a community energy system using wood waste. We're looking at a GMF grant and loan of $2.7 million. We're looking at the estimated greenhouse gas reductions of 4,000 tonnes, a nine-year payback, and—

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

We can look that up. My researcher is looking at those. But I'm running out of time, and there is one question I really want to get to, on behalf of the committee.

In the line of questioning from Mr. Cullen, you suggested a bottom-up planning approach with respect to development of integrated energy systems, as opposed to a top-down approach. Yes, there are provincial-federal programs that can be locked into, but what has been the experience, in terms of how that bottom-up approach can happen? Municipalities are not within our jurisdiction, so how can we act as a catalyst to a bottom-up approach and set a mission in place across the country so that we could achieve the carbon reductions and meet our climate change targets and so on?

[Andrew Cowan]

Again, I think it's through the provision of information and knowledge. Part of planning in an integrated way is having the information you need to make that plan. Having the federal government represented at the table in that bottom-up approach and providing the information and resources required would go a long way to improving the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead with a very brief—

[Eamonn Horan-Lunney]

If I could quickly add to that, something the federal government can do right across this country, wherever you have an institution, is work with the local municipality to do integrated energy, such as in a tax centre somewhere that employs a lot of people but also generates a lot of heat. Could you work with the local community to have some of that heat go to local homes and vice versa? Or water integration....

So when you're designing your buildings, work with the local community to find an integrated approach, thereby creating new technologies, creating local markets for those Canadian technologies, and creating a new labour force that knows how to work in that environment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

We go now to Ms. Gallant, for up to five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you to our witnesses.

I'll start with Mr. Mueller. On your waste wood energy system, where is the waste in terms of gasification? Are there oils, the residues...?