Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak on this topic.
As mentioned, I'm the executive director of Indigenous Clean Energy. We represent over 1,000 program alumni, mentors and team members who are clean-energy leaders and professionals in indigenous communities and businesses. We've been providing capacity building and training programs over the past eight years. We've been expanding to now include youth programs, efficiency, transportation and an energy and climate team with a national and global focus.
We've been a central partner of Natural Resources Canada's indigenous off-diesel initiative. Our educational and global programs began as initiatives under the clean energy for rural and remote communities program. We've had other successful partnerships, including zero-emission vehicle programs in the science and technology internship program, which we deliver to indigenous youth.
One topic I want to touch on is that indigenous communities over the past 10 years have become major asset holders in clean energy in Canada. Today almost 20% of the total generation infrastructure in Canada has some economic participation from indigenous communities and businesses. We've seen a large shift since the year 2000, when almost all medium to large indigenous clean-energy projects were hydroelectric. Today, only 12% of those are hydroelectric, and we see a mix across renewables. It varies by province. For example, in Ontario it's fairly even between solar, wind and hydro, with some bioenergy and storage emerging. In other provinces, indigenous participation is prominent in dominant clean-energy industries.
As we see the demand for energy increase—a need to double or, by some estimates, triple energy generation over the next 15 years—we'll see the number of projects that have indigenous participation increase as well. This really speaks to a need for continuing to invest in the capacity-building programs like those under Natural Resources Canada.
We're also seeing that the work in rural and remote communities has the potential to create a critical knowledge exchange and the skilled labour that will be needed in the modernization of the grid at large. Readiness is an issue, and we've seen some success through capacity-building programs, some of which we've delivered with Natural Resources Canada.
As we've supported remote grids, the off-diesel initiative and similar programs, there is an opportunity to learn from these microgrids and to apply that to the larger modernization that's needed. As we race to attract technology investment from across the world, modernization of the grid will become a larger and larger issue, as we've seen in other jurisdictions, like China.
Some key challenges are that the regulatory and utility processes haven't changed much since the 1950s, and those remote communities are facing inflexibility of rate structures and other factors that are placing greater risk and demands on those local initiatives.
We are calling upon federal investment in crosscutting programs, including CERRC, IODI and the strategic partnerships initiative under Indigenous Services to evolve and respond to these needs.
We also see some challenges in grid penetration by renewables within many of these projects, with diesel continuing to be the generation technology of choice. There is an opportunity to take what we've learned from microgrids and off-grid projects and apply them to the need for smart grid technology as we look at modernization and investment for the grid.
In addition, the indigenous population is the fastest-growing youth population in Canada, and as we see more indigenous people upskilling and becoming part of the clean-energy labour pool, we could be well positioned to unlock a competitive advantage in the energy transition, both domestically and globally.
Finally, in terms of the larger grid expansion, indigenous nations are increasingly becoming leaders. There are supply chain opportunities in places like the Ring of Fire, where first nations are in a position to lead control centres, transfer stations and other key infrastructure points. We see the Wataynikaneyap Power project in northern Ontario, with 17 remote communities leading that transmission project, and Hydro One announcing 50% equity in all transmission lines.
Other jurisdictions, such as Quebec and many parts of Canada, are going along on the same policy trajectory. We will continue to see indigenous leadership in the transmission infrastructure at large.
Thanks very much.