Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2012

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

Mr. Chrapko, do you have any comments, to be fair?

[Evan Chrapko]

Number one would be immigration that's a little more responsive to the knowledge worker or the needs of knowledge industries. We've had our struggles in that respect.

Number two, which is already being done and which we're grateful for, would be that the trade missions or the overseas efforts by DFAIT and others are of immeasurable value to companies, especially small ones that don't have the billions of dollars behind them to go out and spread their message to customers around the world.

Number three would be tightening up the environmental regulations. There's a signal or a market and pricing consequence one way or another, depending on whether you make it easier or harder to put carbon into the atmosphere. You don't have to get into cap and trade or taxes or anything like that with some sensible signals to the marketplace, the domestic marketplace. You end up motivating local players and encouraging alternatives.

The last one might be a money savings issue, although I don't have the data or know the specifics, so I'm giving you some money here. The IEA reports that globally—I don't know Canada's portion—the direct and indirect subsidies on the hydrocarbon side are at somewhere over $500 billion per year. If there's any amount of that that doesn't make sense anymore, then maybe taking a look at carving back on those things would be of some use in this respect, not only for the renewable sector, but also directly, I think, incenting more of the Laricina kinds of success stories that are out there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We go now to the official opposition, to Mr. Julian for seven minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses.

I'd like to start with Mr. Gorman and Mr. MacLellan.

Thank you very much for being here today.

A report released today from the Blue Green Canada alliance of leading environmental and economic organizations says the following about the job creation potential right now of the $1.3 billion that is currently invested in subsidies to the oil and gas industry. We have $1.3 billion invested in oil and gas, and they've done a calculation that this has resulted in 2,860 jobs. That's $1.3 billion: 2,860 jobs.

They then did a study of where a similar investment would lead to far more jobs. An investment in energy efficiency—again, it's $1.3 billion—would actually lead to 18,296 jobs in energy efficiency, and investments in solar, as you've mentioned, and a number of other green energy alternatives, would actually result in nearly 10 times more jobs—over 20,113. That's the estimate from the study that was released today.

So we're spending $1.3 billion with the oil and gas industry to actually give us the least bang for the buck. In a sense, we're getting 10% of the return that as Canadians we could expect from investments in renewable energy.

I'd like you to comment on that. Do you think the current federal government's approach of investing in the oil and gas industry, where you get a 10% return, rather than investing in renewables or energy efficiency, where you get a 100% return, makes sense?

[Ian MacLellan]

Let me start off by saying that in my opinion what is driving solar energy worldwide is all about job creation. That's what's driving it. There have been about a million jobs created in China in the last decade in solar.

On May 10, 2006, I was at a solar conference and was approached by the German government. They had heard about our innovative technology, in which my previous company had invested several million dollars at the University of Toronto. They said they'd like us to build our solar factory in Germany. I said that was really nice, but Germany was a bit of a distance. They said, “No, you don't understand: we'll give you half the money”. I asked how much half the money was. They said that up to 50 million euros they'd give me half the money, and after that they'd back it off a bit. I said, “You mean you're going to give a little Canadian company, with 10 employees, 25 million euros to come over to Germany and create 200 jobs?” Yes, they said.

Guess what we did. We did that. I created 200 jobs in Germany and raised over $100 million on the stock market. One of the big problems that I had is that I didn't think big enough, because this industry is going faster than even the experts believe. For example, in 2005, I was at a solar conference, and the consensus in 2005 was that the market in 2010 would be 3.3 to 3.9 gigawatts of power installed, in 2010. One of the big analysts said, “No, I think it's 6 gigawatts”. In the Q and A, Winfried Hoffmann, who I know—I know both these people—got into a big argument with Mike Rogol, saying: “How could you say that? That's not credible. The politicians won't believe us. We have to be conservative. We think we should be in the 3 to 4 gigawatts”. So they had a big argument.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

We never believe you should be conservative, Mr. MacLellan.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Ian MacLellan]

Well, they're actually just being really liberal with the environment, but that's beside the point.

The answer in 2010 was 16.7 gigawatts, so this is growing faster. The reason it's growing so much faster is that the German government, the Chinese government, and the U.S. government have discovered an elegant off-balance-sheet job creation machine, and they're creating millions of jobs.

Now, I know a little bit about job creation, because as an entrepreneur I have created several hundred jobs. It's about job creation. Now, that happens to be great for the environment, it happens to be a great source of distributed energy, we're using the largest form of energy on the planet, and it's also going to be the lowest cost, and it's about job creation—

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes. I'm sorry, but I'm going to cut you off.

[Ian MacLellan]

Sure.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

It's very interesting. I appreciate it, but I just wanted to give Mr. Gorman a chance to respond as well.

Very briefly, if you could, Mr. Gorman.

[John Gorman]

If I could, I'll just take a little bit of a separate tack to that, not having the same direct industry experience but having spent a fair bit of time in Alberta over these last three months. We just came from holding our Solar West conference and trade show on November 1, which turned out to be the largest conference and trade show of its kind in western Canada. It was attended by 400 Albertans—many MLAs—and there was great participation by the provincial government.

In my time in Alberta, I'm discovering the amount of misunderstanding there is about all energy sources, be they oil, gas, solar, or any sort of renewable. I guess my point here regarding your question is that it's hard to compare. First of all, solar demonstrably creates the most jobs per dollar invested.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Absolutely.

[John Gorman]

That's important, but oil does not compete with solar. Oil is primarily about transportation, and solar is about electricity. Of course you know that, but Canadians don't know that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I understand and I appreciate your point. At the same time, of course, when you have $1 billion to invest, why would you invest it and create fewer jobs than you can if you invest in solar power?

I'd like to come back to that, because we do lamentably poorly. In terms of the International Energy Agency's latest report, public investment in solar power—PV—places us 16th of the 17 IEA reporting nations. We're the second to last. We're the cellar-dwellers of the world in terms of solar power, which doesn't make any sense when we see the government spending a whole bunch of money that has very little impact.

I'm wondering if, in the couple of minutes I have left, you could talk very specifically to the importance of investing in renewable green energies. It's not just the job creation benefits, of course; it's the environment. Could you address Canada trailing the world in renewables? Whether we talk about geothermal, tidal, or solar, we're cellar-dwellers. We're last or second-to-last, and the government provides virtually no support. How do we change that situation so that Canada can actually be a green energy leader in the world rather than a green energy laggard?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Could we have a 30-second response, please?

[Ian MacLellan]

I think it's about the solar future and about changing the mindset. John touched a bit on that. In the U.S. we're seeing that over 90% of the population supports solar as being by far the....They're keen in Germany, where there's very strong public support, especially in the agricultural area with farmers. When solar took off in 2004 in Germany, 50% of the new installations were on farmers' barns.

Just think about it: farmers take sunlight and water and turn them into money. Well, we just turn it into electricity, which is money.

I think the government can lead by changing the mindset. I think the reason why Canada is number 16 is that we're slow to catch up to where the world is going—mindset.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Now we go to the five-minute round, starting with Mr. Anderson for up to five minutes.

Please go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me.

Welcome to our committee, Ms. Bennett. I apologize for that. Please go ahead with questions and comments for up to seven minutes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I'm pleased to be here, and I wish I could spend more time here, because I am the critic for aboriginal affairs and this is a very important area.

In that vein, I want to introduce to the committee our job-shadow from McGill Women in House program today, Tanya Gill, who is actually from Alberta and is from the Buffalo Lake Métis community. We are very pleased to have her with us in her job-shadowing today.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You should have introduced her to Mr. McGuinty earlier.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I knew that I'd left an opening.

I would like to focus on the partnerships that are possible with first nations, Inuit, and Métis, particularly on solar, in terms of jobs without people and people without jobs and how we go forward. Maybe the panellists could tell us about any activity or partnerships they participate in or about how they see that going forward in the future. I know that when Mr. Etcheverry from the Suzuki Foundation came and spoke in our riding, he talked about some of the policies in Germany around solar; you can't build a school unless it has solar panels on the roof.

The government makes a lot of decisions about how they build things, and obviously we build schools on reserves. There are a lot of things that are in the provincial system. We build a lot of government buildings. I wonder if you would tell me a bit about the partnerships and just a little about how innovation in energy can help close the gap for first peoples of Canada.

[John Gorman]

I'd like Ian to talk about the innovation aspect, but I will say that a truly remarkable thing about solar is its ability to be distributed. We're seeing partnerships and applications in these northern communities in particular. They have so much difficulty connecting to the larger grids and often need to fly in diesel at very high costs. They are the earliest adopters of distributed generation through solar. It's a solution for them.

Ian.

[Ian MacLellan]

Also, I think, because you're dealing with natural elements, our aboriginal people I think are more sensitive to nature and to using it, and this is a very elegant way to get energy from the sun. But also, I think, they typically are in more remote areas. When I lived in West Vancouver, there was a reserve right by Lions Gate. That's not exactly remote, but there are many places that are remote. We could be providing energy at point of use, and solar is an elegant way of doing it.

Interestingly enough, a common misconception about solar is that the farther north you get, the less solar energy you get. You do get less sunlight, but with solar cells, we aim them at the sun, and the colder it is, the more efficient it is. You actually harvest more solar energy in Iqaluit than you do in Vancouver. So there's some innovation in how we can use that. Canada could really contribute to using solar in northern climates, because we're in a northern climate.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

We saw the solar greenhouse in Iqaluit. You can grow a zucchini in seven days there when it's 24-hour daylight.