Natural Resources Committee on March 10th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Hiebert. Your time is up.

We go now to Mr. Bains for up to five minutes.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I just have a quick question, Chair. I'm not sure if this was asked, so I want to make sure I'm not repeating someone else's question.

The terms “green jobs”, “green economy”, and “green buildings” are fairly loosely used these days. It's almost as if everyone you talk to uses this term. In your capacity in working with these projects, what definition or threshold do you use to determine what's considered a green initiative, a green project, a green building?

I'm not sure the definition is very clear, because many people use it in many different capacities, and it's been mentioned here fairly often today. I just want clarity on it, because when we talk about the green jobs and green economy, and when we talk about this integrated system, the term “green” is used fairly often.

What threshold do you use to determine something that is considered green? Is it simply a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or is it something more specific than that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Cowan, go ahead.

[Andrew Cowan]

If I were to encapsulate it, I'd say it's in the manufacturing, sale, design, development, or production of technologies that can contribute to an environmental benefit. That could include renewable energy, production energy, or conservation technologies, as Thomas has mentioned, green building technologies and approaches, design, and so on. So the green economy encapsulates a number of those types of activities.

In terms of a threshold, whether it's a GHG thing or improving water, I don't think we would define it using one single measure. The fact of the matter is, it's a growing industry, and the fact of the matter is, Canada is buying most of its technology from abroad. There is an opportunity here to develop homegrown solutions and to assist with the challenge we have right now in the economy.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

No, I recognize the fact that we need to have homegrown solutions and that ultimately we want to be able to create the expertise and then obviously be world-class leaders. As far as the notion that something is green goes, that is something that is said very loosely fairly often, and I'm not sure that over a period time it will hold credibility if there's not some sort of clear definition. That's what I was getting at.

[Thomas Mueller]

I agree with you that it's used fairly loosely right now. We know why, because of what's happening south of the border.

I think Andrew covered one side of what those green jobs are in terms of production, manufacturing, and development of new green technologies that can help us, not just in housing but in all aspects of life. It's clean-burning engines for buses.

The other side is that people who do work in the industry right now are being retrained to learn new skills, including how to install technology. It can be anyone, from somebody who frames houses to somebody who installs lighting in a building like this one. I think there are new skills to be learned, and I think these new technologies are coming on.

Actually now with the recession in Canada, I think there's a great opportunity, particularly in the building industry, for people to learn new skills. Then people go back to school, and I think there's an opportunity to learn those new skills and to have greener jobs that actually go toward making housing more energy efficient, whether it is new housing or existing housing or when retrofitting existing buildings. They are learning operational practices and how buildings can be operated better.

In our industry there are so many jobs. As I said before, there are not enough people around who can do this type of work, and the demand is out there.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Just very quickly, I wanted to get clarification on the presentation you made. On the first page, are the tonnes of carbon dioxide per person? You have that calculation. You mentioned some Canadian cities. Do you have a list of all Canadian cities or the major ones?

[Thomas Mueller]

It's in the report that was issued by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. It's referenced here at the bottom of the slide. Is that on your slide?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Okay, that's perfect.

[Thomas Mueller]

That's the report we used.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I didn't see that. Sorry about that.

[Thomas Mueller]

As I said, it mainly goes back to building performance and urban form. Some of our cities, such as Toronto, are doing quite well, but I think we can bring it further down with some further considerations--

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

It has domestic and then obviously international benchmarks as well, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Actually, your time is up, but I think Mr. Tonks will get a chance a little later.

We go now to Mr. Allen for up to five minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here. I have a few questions.

Mr. Mueller, you talked about financing, developing, and integrating being some of the biggest challenges you have with this. When I asked the question to the folks who were here at the last meeting, they said that sometimes it takes two to three years to plan and develop and implement this, assuming you can get the financing. It's always occurred to me that developing and implementing one of these solutions for community energy has to be one of the most complicated things you could do, not to mention the time it would take.

Has it been your experience that it takes that long to develop one of these solutions?

[Thomas Mueller]

I wouldn't say they take that long, but big developments, like Southeast False Creek in Vancouver's Olympic Village, or Dockside Green, require quite a bit of research and thinking about what the right thing to do is. Then there are all kinds of impediments for people wanting to implement these. One is the planning act and local regulations about the energy system, and crossing rights of ways for energy systems that are not contained on one lot. These are all challenges that the developers had to overcome before they could actually end up developing these projects.

In terms of financing, we found it was not that difficult. Maybe it's more difficult now, but half a year ago it was not too difficult to raise the financing, because the payback from these energy systems, the way they are set up, is quite favourable. So we saw Vancity and third parties, like Terasen Gas, come to the table to finance those district systems, or the geothermal systems, which they then maintained and from which they then have an income over time, just like you would have from selling gas or from selling electricity. It's just a different line of business.

I don't know what the situation is now in terms of finding financing for these types of projects, but, in my opinion, it takes longer than a conventional project, and it would certainly be of benefit if there were more projects from which we could learn how to do this, and which could be shared across the country.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

When you make your comments, Mr. Cowan, keep in mind that the topic of financing is taking me right down to the next place I was going anyway.

I want to talk a little bit about the fact that there is no one level of government that can fund all of the intake. We've seen the intake of projects for New Brunswick and the infrastructure projects, and the number of them is huge.

Can you address the financing piece in the context of your comments on P3, and how that might work?

[Eamonn Horan-Lunney]

I was just looking at the various announcements made in the Building Canada plan, as well as the economic stimulus plan, and going through these to see what envelopes of currently available cash would lend themselves to these types of projects. It was just one example.

I know that the P3 office is not really operating yet, so this is something they might want to look at. I know these types of projects do require financing, and that's an office that will be looking at finding financing and projects.

The big challenge that municipalities have is that for every tax dollar collected, they only get 8¢, so they are looking for partners on some of these projects to make sure they can provide the service to their constituents and have sustainable development in their area.

[Andrew Cowan]

A model to apply, if that scenario needs to be explored more, is the Green Municipal Fund, where we do have private sector partners involved in some of the projects that we fund. Again, it's a matter of lining up these programs to see what each of them is funding and then to see if there's a possibility of adding in the green component, or that additional incremental environmental aspect, to the program.

[Eamonn Horan-Lunney]

It is project by project. I can't give you a blanket statement. It depends on what is going on, the local requirements, and the local need.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Are your municipalities now actually thinking so long term, saying, I'm going to build my community energy plan or my community energy savings plans looking ahead 10 to 15 years? Then they can look at the sequence of projects, because they would have to line up their infrastructure funding over a period of time. And how do they make sure they do something that keeps integrating as they go forward?

[Andrew Cowan]

Some have, yes, and there are leaders out there. Calgary is one, and there are others. Through our funding, we would encourage that type of long-term approach to take place. It is tied to your capital estimates around infrastructure projects and so on. How that's actually applied still remains to be seen.

I also wanted to comment on the length of doing something.

Thomas, I think you will agree.

For example, with green buildings or integrated energy systems, we have been applying these types of projects for some time. That time becomes shorter and shorter the more we do these things. Part of getting this out is to replicate the experience of others. And we've evolved over time. So, for example, if you start the considerations of that project at the beginning, you can shorten the length of time required. So there is an additional length of time to do that type of project, but it's becoming shorter and shorter as we build the capacity internally to deliver.

[Thomas Mueller]

I would agree with that.

You can use the Enwave project in the city of Toronto as an example. As I understand the latest on it, I heard they were oversubscribed. All the office buildings and new developments want to sign on to the deep lake water cooling.

These are some of the community systems that I think we can put into Canadian communities. If developers are given the chance, they will hook up to those systems. Knowing some of these developers who have done these projects, they do it because they obviously want to make money, but they also think it's the right thing to do.

We put an extreme burden on them in terms of the length of time it takes to do the development. Essentially, they are pioneers. Once they figure it out, of course, it becomes a template, but we do put a burden on them because there are more barriers than there are solutions for them. It creates a certain determination, I guess, to see those projects through.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, sir, very briefly. Mr. Allen's time is finished.

[Eamonn Horan-Lunney]

To go back to your first point, one of the biggest challenges municipalities have, as you said, is that they have to plan things over the long term, but they do not have long-term funding. All the funding they have is short-term and project-specific funding, especially if it comes from federal or provincial sources, so they spend most of their own revenue on just maintenance. If you want to have long-term planning, we need to have long-term, sustainable funding from other orders of government, because we only get 8¢ out of every dollar.