Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 18th, 2023

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

For facilities, yes.

[Miodrag Jovanovic]

It depends on the project as a whole. You can have a water electrolysis project to generate green hydrogen that requires a very large investment in wind turbines, for example, or in creating a road system to access all of that. It really depends on the type of investment.

Basically, what determines eligibility for the credit is the equipment directly related to the electrolyzer, in the case of green hydrogen, or the equipment—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Will you be able to table the three levels you mentioned to the committee?

[Miodrag Jovanovic]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We need to end it there.

We'll go to Mr. Angus, who will have his last two and a half minutes in this round.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, “Mr. Green”.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'll take it. Thank you, Charlie.

I'll start with something that we can all agree with, which is that we need to go much faster in this energy transition and we're going to need more investment to do that.

Now, for some facts, last year in the oil and gas industry the profits for the five largest companies alone were $38 billion. In the price at the pump for Canadians across the country, the carbon tax went up by two cents last year, and those profits went up 18¢. We know that this government has already put in place a windfall tax on excess profits. They call it the Canada recovery dividend. They did that for banks and insurance companies. The PBO has costed it out. We could raise $4.4 billion to reinvest in proven climate solutions.

I'd like to turn to you, Mr. Jovanovic, for your reflections on what could be done if we were to use that $4.4 billion and invest that in proven climate solutions, whether that's retrofitting homes or transit. Could you reflect on how much quicker we could go if we had a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies in this country?

[Miodrag Jovanovic]

Thank you for your question.

I'm not in a position to talk about or speculate on the considerations around introducing a windfall tax on—

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Sure. I'm not looking for that. What I'm putting forward is that the PBO has told us that the political decision would raise $4.4 billion.

I'm wondering if others from the finance department could share. If you had another $4.4 billion, where would you invest it to get the lowest-cost emissions reductions right now?

[Miodrag Jovanovic]

I'm not sure I have an answer to that question. The government has made substantial investments, as I said, just looking at the five various ITCs covering different aspects of clean technology, but I'm going to turn to you....

[Greg Reade]

I'll just mention that the Canada Growth Fund is on the cusp of announcing some deals. It is that arm's-length institution whose job is to do exactly that: to work with the market to find the most cost-effective ways to reduce emissions in the country with the private sector. They are doing that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

That's the end of our time.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses today for coming in and spending the time with us.

We are now going to leave this part of the meeting to move in camera. We'll ask anybody who's not going to be in the in camera portion of the meeting to bid their adieus, gather their papers and make their exits, so that we can conclude our committee business shortly.

We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]