Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2024

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Can you tell me what the industry is doing from an educational perspective with community colleges that actually train up people in your industry? That's for both the practical aspect of the electricity generation industry and for management.

Are you funding research chairs in universities? Are you providing scholarships? Are people in your industry doing that? What are you doing to attract people and create awareness of the opportunities in electricity?

[Mark Chapeskie]

One of the examples I mentioned earlier is the map. Obviously, we've done a lot on the youth camps piece of it from an attraction perspective. We're working on a high school curriculum specific to the industry that would respond to the science needs in the sector. We've partnered with both post-secondary institutions and with industry on creating more work-integrated learning opportunities through the federal government's student work placement program, which is an excellent program.

Also, I think we're starting to see more industry collaboration with local colleges on industry-specific needs. One example would be Ontario Power Generation's partnership with Durham College, which created more boilermakers in order to respond to nuclear refurbishment requirements.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Schiefke for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Schiefke. The floor is yours.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm really glad, colleagues, that we are embarking on this study. It's important for all of us. I'm representing a riding, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, that is feeling the impacts of climate change. I've shared with this committee on numerous occasions how bad it actually is. We had record flooding in my riding in 2017 and again in 2019. We had an ice storm last year that saw tens of thousands in my community without power for days.

Just this past month, Mr. Chair, we had a record rainfall in my riding, when 153 millimetres fell in 24 hours. To give you an idea of how crazy that was, the previous record was 96 millimetres. Because of that, thousands of homes had basements flooded. The average cost is anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 per basement. Also, right now our chamber of commerce is saying that this is going to cost us tens of millions of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for these homeowners, but also in insurance costs, and the insurance rates are going to go up.

We need to be talking about this, right? We need to be talking about solutions. One of those solutions is building that modern, clean, affordable and resilient grid. Unfortunately, we don't have agreement from all members and all parties on this. The Conservative Party still to this day refuses to acknowledge that climate change is real and every year for the last nine years has blocked all of the initiatives we've put forward to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and create those incredible well-paid union jobs of the economy of tomorrow.

My question is for Mr. Callahan.

I want to begin here. I'm going to give you an opportunity, because the Conservatives have blocked debate and blocked bringing in witnesses to testify on this. I'm going to give you an opportunity to comment on Bill C-50, the Sustainable Jobs Act, and how you believe those measures to support sustainable jobs will impact workers—the workers you represent.

[Alex Callahan]

Thanks for the question.

The Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act is a very important step forward. I would encourage committee members to look at the definition of sustainable jobs, which talks not only about being on a track to a net-zero economy, but also about job quality measures. In particular, it talks about unionized jobs. This is setting a goal for creating unionized jobs in a net-zero sector. That's the two halves here—the two parts of the equation.

It does a couple of important things for unionized workers across the country. The most important thing is having workers' voices at the table. There's the partnership council, which will put workers' voices together with employers, with experts and with indigenous representatives to talk about how we build that economy. I think giving workers a voice in their future in terms of what's coming down the pike at them is incredibly important.

Of course, the other part of this that is going to be important and that I'm looking for all the members of this committee to be behind is the action plans.

For those who may not recall, there are three things that the legislation does. It sets up a secretariat. That's great. It sets up the partnership council that I just referred to, which is giving workers a voice. Then it creates these five-year action plans. It's going to be up to government to come to the table to fund the action plans.

This is exactly the question that I was talking about with Mr. Angus a moment ago, which is making sure that there is money with conditions to train workers to ensure that when they're working in whatever these projects are going to be, they're protected by a union card, their work is safe, their work is fairly compensated and that they have a voice in their work through bargaining, through social dialogue and that sort of thing.

As far as Bill C-50 is concerned, this is a very important piece of legislation in terms of setting what the future can look like. It is ultimately going to be up to the government to make sure that it comes to the table with the kinds of financial and policy supports that will be needed to actually see training and real investments in what that economy is going to look like.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Callahan.

I'm moving on to a somewhat related topic.

We know that carbon pricing, including industrial pricing, is responsible for huge amounts of investment in electricity transmission and industrial decarbonization. Can you clarify the Canadian Labour Congress's position on industrial pricing?

What message would you have for any parties or any MPs that would not support that?

[Alex Callahan]

I wish I had added this comment when your colleague from the Bloc asked earlier.

It is important that polluters pay for what they produce. That is a fundamental piece of this. However, I think the most important thing is making sure that all of the suite of policies are making sure that we meet our Paris targets. I cannot be more effusive, I suppose, that this end point has to be the key.

The policy tools we are using, including the principle of polluter pay, are ensuring that we meet our targets and that as we meet our targets we are making sure that our economy is supporting the kind of good work that's going to power middle-class families. It's going to keep communities intact and do all the things that I mentioned earlier, and make sure that if your kid needs braces, you won't have to figure out how you make the mortgage that month.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Callahan.

Thank you very much again for your appearance here today.

[Alex Callahan]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I listened to my colleague Mr. Schiefke's plea about the tough steps we will have to take to make the necessary energy transition. I am always a bit dumbfounded by the naïveté of my Liberal colleagues.

Between 2018 and 2024, the Liberal government invested $34 billion, that's right, $34 billion, in a single oil and gas project, a pipeline. As for the ambitious plan that's been tabled for electrification in general, it calls for an investment of $40 billion by 2035. Let's imagine that an extraterrestrial has just landed here and is told that we support the energy transition, but that we invested $34 billion over six years from 2018 to 2024 in a single oil and gas initiative, whereas the project that's being touted as ambitious calls for a $40 billion investment by 2035. Moreover, this so-called ambitious project has money to fund carbon capture strategies in the oil and gas sector. I don't want to be rude to Mr. Schiefke, but if I were him, I wouldn't be lecturing anybody.

I'll wrap up with a quick remark. In the short term, what can we do to strengthen and solidify our electrical grid?

I would ask each of you to give a brief answer.

[Alex Callahan]

On short-term measures, I think I'd rather talk about some of the longer, more systemic issues that need to be dealt with. I'm just going back to when we submitted on the clean electricity regulations to the Canada Electricity Advisory Council. There's obviously a need for investment in generation and transmission. Many parts of our grid are aging. There's a lot of work needed to bring our grid up to a good state of repair, so that people can, in fact, electrify. Residents often need to upgrade the service in their homes to electrify parts of their homes. That means we need to have a grid that's in a good state of repair.

I'm reading your face here. I'm guessing you're looking for a couple of short-term things. I would say investments in the grid, making sure that workers are trained—as I talked about earlier, we do have a shortfall of electricians—and making sure we have a good state of repair across the system.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Callahan.

We'll now go to Mr. Angus for two and a half minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Jenkins, I'll focus my questions to you.

In another life, before I became a member of Parliament, I worked for the Algonquin Nation in northern Quebec. One of my main jobs was organizing blockades, because nobody ever came to the table. The hydro companies didn't come. The mining and forestry companies didn't come. The only way to get attention in those days was to stop a project.

I've seen an incredible transformation. I've seen amazing leadership emerging, especially in the young generations that are coming up. However, I'm also seeing that projects that should be moving ahead are not moving fast enough, because, particularly on clean-energy hydro projects, there's still a labyrinth of issues at the federal and provincial levels, and free trade deals impede the ability for local procurement.

How do you see the situation now for first nation involvement in clean energy, and being able to not just benefit to transform energy on the reserve, but also in the traditional territories, so that they could build into a larger grid and make sustainable wages and have jobs for community members?

[James Jenkins]

I would agree with you that when we see the number of indigenous-owned and co-owned projects across the country and how quickly they're growing today, we can see that there is some alignment when it comes to indigenous communities and businesses, and a desire to be involved in co-ownership of these large clean-energy projects.

We're tracking over 250 medium to large generation projects. Those are over one megawatt, and many of them are 100 megawatts and more. They're growing at a rate of almost 30% a year over the last three years, in addition to large transmission projects with ownership.

In terms of the possibilities, they are very high. Much of our programming has shifted to youth programming components, because youth are seeing this as a viable career opportunity. The very young in the communities see that indigenous-owned businesses and businesses owned by communities are investing heavily in these industries.

From where I sit, it's a major economic development opportunity that's available to indigenous communities in every jurisdiction in Canada, and one of the biggest that we've seen in a long time. I do see that the potential is very high.

Some of the challenges that have already been mentioned are things like stability over regulations. I'll just touch on one. Many indigenous partnerships are still waiting for the ITC rules to be released, which will help in terms of stability and security, because they're ready to move forward on these projects.

That's just one example where there is a real need to recognize the high level of indigenous investment that currently exists in the sector and the potential to bring a new skilled labour force, so we need to really prioritize the setting of those parameters.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

We'll now proceed to Mrs. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Again, so that we can get back to our witnesses and proceed with the meeting, I want to move the following motion. I did give notice of it on September 19. I move:

That the committee invite the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to appear before the committee, separately, for no less than two hours each, within 15 days of the adoption of this motion, in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament and their mandates.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

Can we just dismiss the witnesses now? They don't need to be here for this part of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We will pause there.

Do we have consent to release the witnesses?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We do. Very good.

Witnesses, thank you for your testimony today. You can also still provide a brief to the committee if there's anything you missed. I encourage you to do so. Thank you for spending time with us and providing us with insights. You are released from today's meeting as we move forward with the motion we have on the floor.

Colleagues, I will give us a moment. I will suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you. We are back from our suspension.

Mrs. Stubbs, you had the floor, so I'm going to go back to you. You had just moved a motion, and if you're good with moving that motion, if there was anything else....

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, since you've indulged me—thank you—I'll reiterate the motion that I've moved.

Again, I would just like to move the following motion that I gave notice of on September 19:

That the committee invite the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to appear before the committee, separately, for no less than two hours each, within 15 days of the adoption of this motion, in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament and their mandates.

Of course, I urge all members on this committee to vote in favour of this motion so that those ministers can answer all these crucial questions that Canadians have about natural resources, which is the sector that underpins the entire Canadian economy.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mrs. Stubbs.

We have a motion on the floor, and I have a speaking order.

I'm going to you next, Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I actually agree that it's important to have both those ministers appear to answer questions on the topic as outlined in the motion. My only suggestion is that I'm going to seek to amend it. I'm moving to remove “within 15 days” and to replace it with “as soon as reasonably possible”.

The reason is that we have to work with the ministers' schedules as well as the schedule for this committee, so we would like to have them here just “as soon as reasonably possible” to speak to the issues as stated in the motion.