Evidence of meeting #97 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 statistics.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Theresa McClenaghan  Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
Pierre-Olivier Pineau  Professor, Energy Sector Management, HEC Montréal, As an Individual

8:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal James Maloney

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome back. I hope everybody had a good constituency week and a good long weekend.

We only have one witness in the first hour. We were supposed to have Monica Gattinger but she's had some flooding in her basement, apparently, so she's unable to join us today. We do have Theresa McClenaghan.

Ms. McClenaghan, you will be given the floor for 10 minutes to do a presentation, and then I'll open the floor to members around the table to ask questions. You're free to deliver your remarks or answer questions in either official language. Hopefully you have a translation device if you need it.

On that note, the floor is yours. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

8:50 a.m.

Theresa McClenaghan Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting the Canadian Environmental Law Association to speak to you this morning.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association is a 48-year-old national, environmental, non-governmental organization, and also an Ontario legal aid specialty clinic dealing with environmental issues. We provide services to clients as well as undertake law reform and public legal education.

One of our primary lenses in analyzing environmental and energy issues is that of impact on vulnerable and low-income residents. We are also a co-founder and continue to oversee the Low-Income Energy Network, along with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. I mention that specifically because my comments today are going to focus primarily on the question of national energy data regarding low-income Canadian residents. I expect this is a perspective that other witnesses wouldn't bring to you, and I felt it's the one of most value for us to offer.

First of all, dealing with national energy data needs regarding low-income energy consumers, we do need more data about low-income energy consumers in Canada to design appropriate policies and programs that are effective and meet the basic energy needs of this sector. There is inequity and inconsistency in how each province and territory deals with their low-income energy consumers and keeps their consumers connected to their utility services if they're in utility areas. For the purpose of analyzing impacts of energy policies on low-income consumers, we need to know their housing tenure and housing type. As well, if they're tenants, policy-makers need to know how many of them pay for their energy directly on their bill and not in their rent. It would also be valuable, and has proven to be in the past, for policy-makers to have demographic profiles of the low-income households facing energy poverty, such as how many are single-parent-led families, racialized, first nations, seniors, disabled, rural, or northern residents. I should add, because I used the term “energy poverty”, that the Low-Income Energy Network defines energy poverty as a household spending more than 6% of its income on energy needs.

An example of the type of information that would prove to be very useful would be Canada-wide information emulating the short report—and I presented a link in the remarks that I sent to the clerk. I wasn't able to send them in advance because I have been away for the last two weeks, but I assume you'll get them afterwards. The report was prepared by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario in 2016, with a bit of a caveat that some of the programs mentioned in that report have since been modified or enhanced. To give you an example of the kinds of things that the Financial Accountability Office looked at, the title of this short report is “Home Energy Spending in Ontario: Regional and Income Distribution Perspectives”.

They looked at home energy spending by region and found, not surprisingly that, in the Ontario context, the highest spending was in northern Ontario, and also, perhaps not surprisingly, that for Hamilton, Niagara, and Toronto, fuels other than natural gas and electricity were trivial. But for eastern, northern, and western Ontario, as would be the case in many other parts of Canada, other fuels were a significant portion of the energy costs of the families. That could include heating oil, wood, and other fuels.

They also analyzed home energy spending by income level, and again, this would be useful on a national basis as well. For example, they found that, while low-income households spend a smaller total amount on energy, the percentage of their household income was much higher at an average of 5.9% compared with the highest income quintile they analyzed, where it was only 1.7%. Quite a considerable difference in percentage of household income is going to energy, and that's useful for policy-makers to know, as I'll describe this morning. Then they analyzed what government programs existed at the time to offset the burden of energy costs by region and income level.

Again, that would be very useful to know on a Canadian basis, in order to understand whether different residents in different parts of the country are facing differential burdens and/or have help with those differential burdens.

We also need analysis and evaluation of how well the various energy poverty mitigation programs are doing across the country in addressing energy poverty. This would help to reveal best practices and help jurisdictions to learn from each other, inform federal policy, and understand what needs to change to eliminate inappropriate barriers to energy security.

I also wish to speak to low-income consumers and climate change policy, and highlight in particular the need for national energy data that analyzes and reports on potential differential impacts on low-income consumers of policies directed to the mitigation of, and response to, climate change.

For example, is there a difference in the percentage of income directed to climate change-specific policies for a household, depending on its income profile or other demographic factors? I had noted the finding with respect to energy-related costs by the FAO in Ontario. Similarly, as different climate change programs roll out across the country, this analysis is necessary for those programs. As a result, low-income consumers without alleviating programs may be spending a much higher percentage of their resources on the programs that alleviate climate change or be unable to participate in the programs that alleviate climate change.

A related question would be whether those differential impacts are imperilling access to necessary energy services, or diverting scarce resources in those families from food, shelter, medication, and other basic needs. In the Ontario context, prior to explicit analysis of these factors—which has happened to some degree—these differential impacts had not been widely understood by policy-makers. Having delved into those impacts, we now have specific programs for access to energy conservation by low-income families, better terms of service for the utilities so they aren't as likely to have their services disconnected, and rate support programs, to name a few.

Similarly, it has not been obvious to all policy-makers in Canada that climate policies may have these differential impacts on low-income consumers. As a result, there's been a mixed response in terms of alleviating undue impacts from those climate policies for those consumers.

California is one notable jurisdiction that we point to that's done good work on this to identify those issues and solutions. We've called for emulation of a study it undertook called the SB 350 low-income barriers study. Again, in the written submission I included a footnote to the study. The latest version is a draft staff report from December 2016. It's very useful.

Some of the things they were studying in looking at barriers, for example, included whether there were barriers to accessing energy efficiency and weatherization programs, whether there were barriers to low-income access to solar energy generation, whether small businesses in disadvantaged communities had extra barriers, and whether there were barriers to accessing zero-emission transportation options. They specifically looked at some of the structural barriers—which I would note, based on our work here in Canada, are similar—which are low-income consumers with low home ownership rates, complex needs, difficulties accessing financial arrangements for these kinds of enhanced climate participation, like solar photovoltaic, and insufficient access to capital, as well as the age of the buildings they live in, and living in remote and underserved communities.

In the written submission, I also pointed to a recent submission my organization did on this topic in an Ontario consultation on climate change adaptation. I would repeat some of those recommendations, such as emulating the California study, taking into account the differential impacts on low-income consumers, and the possible inequities from rolling out the programs without paying attention to those differential impacts.

In conclusion, I want to acknowledge the input of my colleague Mary Todorow of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, another Ontario specialty clinic here in Toronto, for her input to these remarks.

I thank you for your attention. I look forward to questions and discussion with you this morning.

As I understand that I'm the only witness, I will do my best to answer the questions you have and maybe the hour will be shorter than usual.

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal James Maloney

Thank you and that's entirely possible.

Mr. Whalen, I believe you're going to start us off.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

Thank you very much for joining us this morning. I guess energy poverty and measuring energy poverty is a slightly different topic than those of the previous witnesses, so thank you for bringing this new perspective to us.

You spoke about the California study and emulating that, and that there's some statistical information that was prepared in Ontario. Can you speak to what you perceive to be some of the challenges associated with collecting this intersectional data, whether or not a national energy information agency would be the appropriate place to collect both the energy data and the other income-specific information or whether or not an agency like StatsCan would be better positioned for those types of cross-correlated datasets?

9 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

Absolutely, Statistics Canada is and has been an extremely important venue for collecting that data. What I think the national energy data collection perspective would bring to the table would be the identification of missing data for Stats Canada to collect. More importantly, it would provide specific analysis, evaluation, and collating of that data to look at some of the questions that I identified from an energy-specific perspective.

Therefore, no, I don't think we need to repeat and duplicate what Statistics Canada does already, but at the same time and at the moment, we don't have the good cross-country comparison of energy poverty issues and it really needs a highlight. In addition, since I assume that an energy data organization will be focusing on things like energy costs, climate change, effectiveness, and policies, it's very important to include energy poverty in that analysis, in my opinion.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

You spoke about how trying to identify end-user costs would depend on whether their energy use is incorporated into their rent or not and whether they are actually homeowners or not.

In the California study or in the Ontario study, how did they go about getting that deeper data and how would you expect that a national agency should go about trying to get that deeper data?

9 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

The Ontario study did refer to available Statistics Canada data, as well as data from the Ontario Energy Board's, for example, so they accessed that kind of data. The California study was interesting because, in addition to the usual statistical venues, they also conducted outreach and quite intensive workshops in a number of identified low-income demographic communities. Then they also convened expert input in round tables to make sure that they were digging deep enough, as compared to what they could assess.

Sometimes it's difficult to be sure that the Statistics Canada data or the national statistics data are reaching all of these varied communities, particularly if we're talking about people whose tenure and homelessness may be impacted by high energy costs, maybe changing addresses quickly could be missed in this type of data collection and other sorts of challenges. This kind of targeted effort seemed to be able to give them some pretty interesting results in California.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

I could certainly see how this energy information would help public policy-makers make more informed decisions. Different types of the energy data products that we've been talking about in your study would be required at different frequencies. If you look at the U.S., they provide detailed petroleum information on a weekly basis and they do monthly studies and then they have annual reports. For the energy poverty information, what do you see as a benchmark for studying this particular topic and with what frequency would such a data product be made available to the public?

9 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

Due to the very fluid nature of policy-making right now around energy and climate change in particular, I would recommend that it start at a frequency of annual, and then after things have perhaps settled down in the policy world, it could stretch out to every couple of years or so, or line up eventually with the Statistics Canada deep census.

Right now, I'm quite involved in Ontario and we know that things are changing radically from one year to the other, so I would say annual to start.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

I have some standard questions that I normally ask, but I think you've captured some of them.

In terms of the standard for this type of data, you mentioned the California model. Would you recommend that to us as the standard by which we evaluate energy poverty?

9 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

I would. It's the best one we've been able to find.

9:05 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

In terms of regulatory changes—again, it wasn't a topic I'd turned my head to previously—do you see any regulatory changes that would be required to allow a new energy agency to capture the detailed poverty information of end-users coupled with their energy data usage? Is this something you're confident StatsCan already has the right...? Perhaps you don't know the answer to this question.

9:05 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

I think Stats Canada probably has the ability to get at much of this data, yes.

9:05 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

Okay, perfect.

There are different models for pricing carbon that our government has put forward that the provinces would, hopefully, be able to implement. One suggestion is that the tax be refunded to end-users based on the number of people in the population. It seems to me that would provide a net benefit and a net income transfer to lower-income people, who are spending less money on energy overall, even though it's a greater percentage of their personal income. They would actually receive a greater refund, because they're purchasing less energy.

Does your organization have any view on the different models for carbon pricing and how it could benefit the poor?

9:05 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

In the past we've said to this committee and others, in many other years, that we just wanted government to take action on climate change and take a broad tool kit of regulatory and pricing models. We weren't specifically advocating whether it should be cap and trade, or carbon taxation, or other pricing models on that side of the ledger.

That being said, we do have some concerns in terms of cap and trade—at least as rolling out in Ontario and as part of the western climate initiative—in that the low-income impact is not being sufficiently recognized in that model. But it could be. In California it was recognized with a specific program. In many other jurisdictions it was recognized. There are some programs in the Ontario model that are directed at low-income sectors, such as having some of the funds that are collected be directed to social housing retrofits and so on. The alleviation of the impact itself is not provided for in the model as set up here in Ontario, and we think it should be.

We do think that some kind of specific recognition of the undue impact on low-income consumers, and an offset of that impact, should be provided for in any model going forward.

9:05 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

Thank you so much.

9:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal James Maloney

Thank you.

Mr. Falk.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. McClenaghan, for presenting at committee this morning. It's a pleasure to have you here. Your presentation was very interesting.

I just want to key in on a few things that you've talked about in your presentation here before committee. You said that you've been getting your information primarily from Stats Canada. Are there other sources that provide you with information on energy consumption by low-income folks?

9:05 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

Again, most of our direct work is here in Ontario. The Ontario Energy Board does collect important information on the programs that are being rolled out here. In addition, on broader energy issues the past reports of the National Energy Board and the Ontario Energy Board have been quite important. I know the NEB reports in the past around overall big-picture energy generation have been quite useful. In addition, here in Ontario, of course, the Ministry of Energy is pretty important around things like generation statistics.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Thank you.

You indicated that you consider people to be living in the energy poverty sector if their energy expenses are in excess of 6% of their income.

9:05 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

What kind of energy data is used to compute that figure? You talked about electricity and natural gas, but are other sources of energy also calculated?

9:05 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

That's for electricity and heating, so the household use, not the transportation use, is within this figure. If a family is somewhere in Ontario where they don't have access to natural gas and they have, if not electricity, other fuels for heating, that would be included. It could be fuel oil. It could be wood. Of course, it could be renewable—less commonly, in those families. It's the cost of maintaining their households on the energy side of the ledger.

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Do you have any data on what their consumption would be from a transportation perspective, or how that would play into it?

9:10 a.m.

Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Theresa McClenaghan

No, I don't have that data. That would be an important question. It is something I noticed that the California study did look at when they were looking at access to zero-emission transportation, for example. That's important for sure.