Evidence of meeting #116 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buildings.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I know, Ms. Leach, I stick you with the very statistical questions. Do you know where we could get the information, some hard numbers, to help rationalize the decision?
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses. Your presentations have been very interesting and informative.
I wasn't making too big a deal about Mr. Whalen asking questions, because I wanted to know the answers. However, I do have a few questions—
Liberal
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
It seemed as though he was trying to share my time, yes. I'm not quite that generous.
Mr. Bradley, you talked about a lot of different energy saving programs and initiatives. Which one of those programs has saved the most energy or produced the most efficiencies?
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Electricity Association
That's an excellent question. The ones that have the most bang for the buck—
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
That's my next question, and we're going to get there, thank you. I want to know which ones have saved the most energy or been most efficient?
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Electricity Association
The industrial programs for specific initiatives result in the greatest energy savings for individual actions that are taken, because you're talking about the largest loads around, on the one hand.
On the other hand, if the second question is where are you going to get the most bang for your buck—
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Electricity Association
I don't have numbers on it, but my guess, based on talking to our members, is that it's likely in the consumer space. It means reaching out to a greater number of people, but the ability to get people on board is also an additional benefit.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
That's good.
Ms. Leach and Ms. Wicks, I'd like you to answer the same question. Where do you think we've been able to realize the biggest energy savings or efficiencies? Then there's the follow-up question—and you know what it is: what has been the biggest cost benefit? It may not be the biggest overall saver, but the most bang for the buck.
Ericka Wicks Director, Projects and Advisory Services, Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow
I would echo what we already heard from Francis. In the industrial sector those savings tend to be large on a one-off project basis. The return on investment or cost benefit is fairly strong. I've worked with industrials before. They like to see things in two years or less, so there's a good business case to be made for investment there.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Would it make any sense that exactly those industrial emitters are getting the biggest break when it comes to the carbon tax?
Executive Director, Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow
I don't know if we have the answer to that question.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
That's a smart answer. Thank you.
Mr. Mueller, I would like to ask you the same question. From your observations, where do you see programs that have been generating the most energy efficiencies?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Green Building Council
I think where we see the biggest benefit is for larger buildings, of over 25,000 square feet. We have about 100,000 buildings like that in Canada, and there are huge gains to be made in terms of energy efficiency with those buildings.
There are three sectors: the real estate sector, the transportation sector, and the industrial sector. Typically the transportation sector makes changes, and there's a cost. It's the same in the industrial sector as well. The good thing is that in the real estate sector, there is not only a cost but a real return on the investment.
The real estate sector is starting to think a bit longer term, because these assets last for a long time so they are not for two years; they are more like for five to seven, and some of them are thinking about 10 and over 10 years now in terms of investing in their real estate portfolios, both from a carbon perspective and from an energy-efficiency perspective.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
All three of you are pretty much on the same page that the biggest energy savings can be found in the industrial sector, and it seems as though there's also quite a bit of cost benefit in looking for savings in those sectors. Okay. Good.
Now I would like to apologize to all of our witnesses, because I'm going to steal a little bit of your time here at committee, and to you, Richard.
I presented the clerk with a notice of motion on October 19. I feel it's important that I move forward with making that motion today, for lots of good reasons.
Right now we know that Bill C-69, which is an environmental bill that will impact far more than our environment, is before the Senate, and it's finding its way into committee there. This particular bill will have very long-term negative consequences for our natural resource and energy development sectors.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I'm sorry, Ted. Can I interrupt for one second so everybody has it in front of them and so we know which one it is?
Conservative
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The motion will deal with Bill C-69 and how it's going to affect specifically the Trans Mountain Expansion Project.
As I think we all know, Mr. Chair, our current government has committed Canadians to buying a project from Kinder Morgan, to buying an existing pipeline that Kinder Morgan owned here in Canada and also buying the opportunity to expand its existing pipeline from a Texas-based company known as Kinder Morgan. The project is the Trans Mountain Expansion Project otherwise known as the TMX.
The government bought that thing for $4.5 billion. We have concluded from the data we've collected that the existing pipeline, depending on which resources you reference, is 50 years old. It's worth somewhere between $800 million and $1.6 billion, which means that there's over $2 billion worth of opportunity cost fixed into that deal that the Liberal government made with Kinder Morgan.
For whatever reason, the Liberal government was under the impression that they didn't have to follow their own rules, and they would be able to proceed with the expansion of that pipeline without the proper due diligence. The courts have since determined that they failed with regard to environmental considerations and also in their consultations with indigenous communities.
That particular project is on hold right now, and we don't know how long it will be on hold. We know that Bill C-69 is currently in the Senate. It's finding its way into committee, or has found its way into committee. We don't know how long it will be there, but if that bill receives royal assent prior to the expansion project being approved, it will create other very strong and significant roadblocks to completing this project.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Chair, on a point of order, since we have witnesses here who have prepared testimonies and travelled to come here, is this motion going to take long, so that we could ask questions of the witnesses? How long will this continue?
Conservative