Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Habib, what is your reaction to what the government may do precisely to improve the level of dialogue between industry and first nations and ensure talks can lead to a satisfactory outcome for both sides?

Do you have any comments or suggestions in that regard?

[Dr. Magdi Habib]

I certainly support the suggestion made earlier.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you.

My last question is for Mr. St. Louis. It pertains to infrastructure, specifically, green infrastructure.

We know that mining is infrastructure-intensive, especially in regard to roads, rail, and power. Does the infrastructure situation right now—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm going to have to interrupt you. Sorry, we're over time.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Over time, okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First to Mr. St. Louis on the mineral tax credit and flow-through shares that we had talked about under the previous government. It had expired, so we extended it one year.

[Brian St. Louis]

Yes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

You're in favour of us continuing with that. Is that your assessment?

[Brian St. Louis]

Yes, that would be safe to say. I'm sure you guys have heard it from the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada already, and ultimately, generally their interests are aligned with ours.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Okay.

Also, Mr. St. Louis, you mentioned in your presentation that yesterday's announcement on prices on carbon was a large initiative...incentives that will use clean tech and help the economy and also be a benefit to the environment. I want you to expand on that.

[Brian St. Louis]

Absolutely. I think, ultimately, a lot of the details on the announcement will flow, and we haven't seen those yet, so getting into intricate details would be challenging for me.

Ultimately, our business is supplying the clean tech/green tech high technology sector with commodities they need. So for us, growth in energy storage needs in Canada or North America, or globally, is good for our business, and I think it can help us as a country economically. If we're coming back to the committee topic, leverage those opportunities.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Also, you mentioned the lithium battery.

[Brian St. Louis]

Yes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

You're kind of five years away, but there's a company in Sudbury that is producing batteries for heavy equipment machines; they're selling actually to companies in Russia. Are you aware of that, or are you working with them?

[Brian St. Louis]

I am sorry. I meant the five years was for raw materials production for Avalon specifically. There's another project in Canada that might be on a little more of an advanced timeline. I can't speak to that, though.

Yes, we are aware there are some smaller players in Canada versus, let's say, the powerhouses in the battery sector, the LG Cam, Samsung, Tesla, etc. There are some smaller players, and what I think you'll see is some of these smaller players growing or partnering. Ultimately, it's going to be economic for a lot of these battery companies to have operations in North America to supply the North American market as it grows. We're pretty optimistic that some of this can be done in Canada. What we're hoping is that instead of, say, producing the raw materials and then buying an electric vehicle from another jurisdiction, that we capture that entire supply chain, the raw materials, the processing, the chemical, the cathodes, etc.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

My question is for Natural Resources.

The last time Ms Campbell Jarvis was here, I asked the question related to ecosystems and clusters, and my colleague, Mr. Barlow, also alluded to clusters.

When we look at clusters and R and D, that is, mineral exploration, operations, innovation, and commercialization, even our own Library of Parliament notes indicate that we have 37 clusters in Canada. However, they're essentially just mine sites, they're not necessarily clusters. What I've heard a lot from the private sector is that a lot of the innovation and exploration, R and D, is not necessarily linked enough with the commercialization, the private sector. COSIA does that a lot, but in the mining sector, we don't really have a COSIA that will look at the overall.

What is your role with the private sector, and how can you get closer to the private sector? I know you have some minimal staff in Val-d'Or and Sudbury, but other than that, how can we get closer?

In your priorities, you don't necessarily mention the private sector and the commercialization that is needed to expand that.

[Dr. Magdi Habib]

As I mentioned in my presentations, we are connected with different players or stakeholders along the innovation ecosystem. That includes the private sector and the suppliers of equipment. We are connected to the ecosystem in terms of the innovation players along the innovation system with CIMIC, CAMIRO, MIRARCO, and CEMI.

In the past two years, we've seen significant progress in terms of communication between the different innovators or innovation centres. We have a common goal on how we can take our technology from the lab to the market. In the years to come we hope that we can communicate even better to make sure that the R and D and the work that we're conducting in our laboratories will move quickly from the lab to the market. We are connected with different organizations, and we now have a common purpose for commercialization of our innovative technologies.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I'm happy to say that you're right. In the last two years, there's been an improvement on the commercialization. What I'm hoping from the industry perspective is that we set something up like COSIA to look at more on the industry side, because that's what industry is saying. That's kind of missing, and it's because we're in silos right now. It needs that overall.

Mr. Chair, I'll ask Mr. Tan to ask questions.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Mark.

I have one question for Mr. Habib.

From your slides, I can see you have a wide collaboration with the universities, research centres, and other stakeholders. I wonder if you have a policy in place to encourage your staff or scientists to go to workshops and conferences and to give lectures at universities in order to share your knowledge with other Canadians or stakeholders.

[Dr. Magdi Habib]

This is one of our priorities in an R and D environment like CanmetMINING, which employs different scientists and engineers. Our role is that we participate in events and conferences, present our work, interact with different organizations, and bring new ideas that we can undertake in the lab. One of our expenditures at CanmetMINING is focused on sending our technical scientists and engineers to conferences and meetings.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Your researchers are in different streams. I used to be a scientist, so I know a little bit about NRCan. There could be a computer scientist, physical scientist, research scientist, or engineer. I want to make sure they're all encouraged and supported in that sense.

[Dr. Magdi Habib]

I agree. We don't really differentiate between the different categories of computer scientists or engineers as long as the work they're doing is innovative. We disseminate that knowledge and expertise to the outside world.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

They're all encouraged to go outside to share their knowledge.

You are senior management in a government department. In your capacity, do you believe that other government departments have the same policies?

[Dr. Magdi Habib]

As I mentioned in my presentation, we have what we call the GMI IGWG, an intergovernmental working group that is basically composed of provinces and territories. We work together with the GMI IGWG members to address all the issues on innovation, barriers to innovation, and commercialization of technologies. We've done many studies in the past where we've collectively worked with provinces and territories to address the issues. We have a common goal and common objective toward innovation and commercialization.