Natural Resources Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Gregory Smith]

Thank you very much.

Yes, that is a key consideration in thinking about the kind of net GHG emissions associated with using wood. As mentioned before, provinces enact sustainable forest management practices that require forest regeneration. As a result, the emissions that are, as you say, no longer sequestered actually become sequestered through the circularity of the forest biogenic cycle.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Mr. Tourigny.

Thank you for coming to committee. I appreciate that. I hope you've had a good experience.

When you do your cost-benefit weighting on which product to use for building, repairs, maintenance and construction, how much weighting are you going to give to the greenhouse gas consideration over cost?

[Stéphan Déry]

Thank you for the question. That's one of our.... Is that for Jean-Rock?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

If you'd like to take it, go ahead, Monsieur Déry.

[Stéphan Déry]

Thank you.

I spoke about the rehabilitation of buildings. We have a lot of examples right here in Ottawa, including the Lester B. Pearson building, Place du Portage and within the parliamentary precinct, which we're renovating. These are all taking into account the GHG reductions through the materials we're using in those renovations. That's why we're using a significant amount of wood in the reconstruction or rehabilitation of all of these facilities.

I mentioned that in all of our large projects we use a shadow price of carbon of $300 a tonne, which was started at PSPC and is now endorsed by Treasury Board and applied to all major construction projects. Wood has lower GHG emissions than do other materials, so wood is going to be favoured.

I think analyzing this for a 40-year cycle, the life cycle of the building, makes having lower GHG-emitting material a lot more viable. It's not necessarily the price of the project. It's what we want to achieve, which is a reduction in GHG emissions. As my colleague said, we have made significant progress through our operations. I would say there's been a 57% reduction in GHG emissions based on the baseline of 2005, and now we're addressing the embedded carbon in the construction material.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time on that one. Thank you.

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

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the testimony you've provided today.

I have a few questions on the green construction program that's in place. Would you be able to provide some examples of the types of projects that have been funded and, also, why we aren't seeing a larger uptake by industry?

[Gregory Smith]

Absolutely. Thank you for the question.

In total, the green construction through wood program delivered $55 million over five years involving 16 large projects, but it supported many other activities including, as I mentioned, educational activities and information sharing. There is the Sir Matthew Begbie Elementary School in Vancouver, B.C. I could name off various low-rise buildings but I know your time is short. There's the KF Aerospace Centre of Excellence in Kelowna and many other examples across Canada.

Your second question was on why there has not been more uptake. I would say that, to date, part of our work has been spreading information about the potential for the use of wood in the construction sector, so there may be some impediments just with information in general.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

I am interested in some of those smaller projects as well to get further uptake within the building industry. In my region there's not as much uptake as we would like to see.

Is that because maybe architects designing the buildings and folks in the construction industry aren't aware or well equipped to bring this forward in their projects?

[Gregory Smith]

There's potentially an element of that. I think that in general it's about supporting the changes to building codes, which are being done through a number of different projects of the Government of Canada. It takes time to implement that and for that information to become more commonplace within the construction sector.

However, if you're considering the cost advantage in general, what we've seen through our demonstration projects is that wood projects can be cost-competitive compared to those involving more traditional materials.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thanks.

We're out of time on that one.

We'll now go to Monsieur Simard, who will have two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to say something to my friend Mr. Falk, who wondered whether the harvesting of the trees had been taken into account. After 55 or 60 years, a tree releases carbon, it doesn't sequester carbon. If we don't cut it down, it will release the carbon it contains by rotting, being eaten by insects or burning, so it's a win-win solution. I just wanted to reassure him on that point.

Mr. Smith, I would like to revisit the question I asked earlier. In your presentation, you said that the most relevant challenge was the lack of support for demonstrations and scale‑up funding, which are necessary to approve and commercialize innovative technologies and products. This is a discussion I had with the people from FPInnovations, and it brings to mind what they are requesting, which is an industrial-scale biorefinery that would allow for testing. However, there has never been any funding for that.

I mention this because I notice a double standard in terms of the support that may be given to carbon sequestration initiatives in the fossil fuel sector, which I'm sure you are familiar with, and the support that the forestry sector needs.

Earlier, you spoke about some of the smaller measures being implemented, but there is nothing that addresses the scaling up of new innovative products or the demonstrations being sought.

Is any concrete government action being taken in this regard? It's the IFIT program that everyone is talking about. It could be used to transform the pulp and paper sector, but it's underfunded.

Are there any government initiatives to address what you have presented as the most relevant challenge? I am not talking about small measures.

[Gregory Smith]

Thank you for the question.

Since 2017, I suppose, there have been a number of programs delivered by Natural Resources Canada, including the forest innovation program. There are also various R and D supports and technology promotion programs delivered through the Canadian forest service. These aim to support industry transformation, including the use of more renewable fuels at pulp and paper plants and other forest sector sites.

These programs have been to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, and there have been a number of areas specifically supported.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you. We're out of time.

We will go to Mr. Angus for his final two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will defer and allow us to get to other business. It's not that I don't want to hear the excellent witnesses, but I think we are all in agreement that this bill should be returned to the House as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thanks, Mr. Angus.

With that, I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today and for the testimony they provided to us. It has been very useful.

There were a couple of questions about additional information. If you have it, or if it can be supplied as quickly as possible to our clerk, that would be appreciated. We are having what should be our final hearing on this on Friday and then possibly reporting back to the House after that, so there's not a lot of time on this one. If we get the information afterwards, we are still happy to circulate it and share it with the committee, but if you can share information you were asked for at your earliest convenience, it would be appreciated.

With that, I'm happy to release our witnesses to carry on with their day and evening.

Again, thanks from the committee for being here.

Members, we must have our final travel submission in for this next intake. Ours is related to the Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Angus referred to a couple of times during his interventions today. I think it shows how important this will be—what the Americans are doing and what happens in Canada. We sent off a draft proposal with four cities. Mr. Angus also put in the suggestion of including Detroit.

To start, I'll turn it over to our clerk and then to our analysts, who have done some seeking of information and guidance over the last week on what's realistic for the five days we have. I will start with our clerk to give us a sense. The point is that five locations is probably over-ambitious for us—probably quite ambitious. Three is probably more realistic. I will give you the context, then see whether there's any one location you want to take off. Otherwise, I can ask for that in writing by tomorrow, so we can get the final costing done for our meeting on Friday morning, which then needs to be approved and transmitted to Liaison.

I will turn it over to the clerk to share some of the information she has gathered.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Geneviève Desjardins]

I'll just speak to the logistics of the travel.

As the chair mentioned, five cities would be a lot. Of course, we'll try to develop a program that works for what the committee wants to see. We did receive recommendations that two to three cities maximum would be the ideal for a trip of this length.

The second important thing to note is that the committee can only stay in and visit the cities that are listed on the detailed budget, so whatever the committee decides and submits to liaison is where it will need to travel.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We'll go to our analysts for a bit of input as well.

[Ross Linden-Fraser, Committee Researcher]

Perfect. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I can provide a quick summary of some of the context for the cities that are here. If the committee has follow-up questions, we're happy to speak about why certain cities are on the list or why some cities might make more sense than others.

Briefly, the committee is considering a visit to the United States at a time when Congress is not sitting in Washington. We were informed by some of our counterparts that the committee might have fewer meetings with its peers in Washington.

We were also informed that the committee might get more added value if it were to undertake site visits to, for example, clean energy production sites or sites that are experimenting with carbon capture and storage. Some of the cities that are on this proposal, like Houston and Denver, would include such site visits.

I'm happy to answer questions the committee might have about why these cities are on the list, but those are some of the considerations we had in mind when developing this proposal.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I think—to build on the comment about Washington, D.C.—originally we thought we could be there for two days. However, with Congress' not sitting that week, there are some non-profits and other organizations that could be included in a stop. Essentially, what it comes down to is that we wouldn't be meeting with our colleagues, given the timing we have with a very limited opportunity this spring.

That's kind of what we're up against. If we can come up with our top three right now, then we'll send that to the logistics team for costing. Otherwise, if we reach 5:30, which is in nine minutes, we'll have to pick it up by email.

I have Charlie and then Earl on my list.

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

Thank you.

I was hoping to be in Washington, but if they're not sitting, it may be problematic.

If it were possible to invite the U.S. IBEW as a witness in our hearings, that might help. I think it is very important because it is playing a big role in the whole commitment that Biden has made to the workers. I want to hear whether workers are buying in or not.

I would say that we could go to Houston, Denver and Sacramento and do the site visits. If we could maybe get the IBEW just to act as a witness virtually at our committee hearings, we would.... I'm not sure about meeting with NGOs in Washington. We could do that all virtually anyway if we wanted.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thanks, Charlie.

Next we have Earl and then Mario.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I'm in agreement with Charlie here. There's no sense in going to Washington, especially under those circumstances. Actually, I was going to question that at any rate if we could only pick three cities.

If we need to speak to non-profits or whatever, they're all over the country, so if we happen to find somebody in those other cities, I think that would fit into what the initial proposal was. Certainly the concept of site visits, I think, is the most important thing. There's no sense in just going and talking to somebody you could be just looking at across the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thanks, Earl.

Mario.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I was going to say the same thing as my colleagues about Washington.

I have a question for the analysts.

What interested me about Sacramento was the opportunity to take a closer look at the Quebec-California carbon exchange agreement.

I'm not sure whether they were giving any consideration to such possibilities.