Evidence of meeting #8 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transition.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Adler, in one of your responses to my committee colleague Mr. Angus, you talked about wanting to see Canada as a leader and the requirement for clear policy direction. Could you share with us what, in your opinion, the top key elements to that clarity in policy direction would be?
Executive Director, Student Energy
One of the top key elements is definitely moving quickly on the creation of a cap around the oil and gas sector. Along with that is also looking at other sectors that are heavy emitters and creating plans with, potentially, caps for those sectors as well.
I think another key piece is to basically not be afraid to take a leadership position globally, as we saw at COP26, on what it will take to meet our nationally determined contribution, which we've committed to through the Paris Agreement.
Finally, we have a lot of questions about whose oil resources are the best in the world. Ultimately, we know, as has been pointed out, that oil production has to decline, and so leadership really looks not like trying to be the last barrel standing but rather like trying to be an economy that shows how we can cohesively transition in partnership with indigenous communities and other underserved communities in Canada and shows that we can work together across the country to be one of the success stories of the transition.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Earlier this week when this committee met, we heard from Merran Smith, who's the executive director at Clean Energy Canada. At our committee meeting, she stated that the battery is going to be the central part of the new energy system.
Can you tell us about any of the work Student Energy has engaged in around shifting from a fossil fuel energy system to cleaner energy systems like batteries to power vehicles?
Executive Director, Student Energy
The majority of our work happens at a global level. What we've looked at is what the intent is of young people and, really, that is going towards the net-zero future. I think it is clear that battery technology will be a big part of that, but there are a lot of other technologies that exist as well and have been pointed out in other reports here. What I think young people are really looking for, though, is the opportunity to be part of the transition, and the key issue right now is that there are not clear pathways into green jobs and into becoming clean-energy entrepreneurs, if you will.
There's a huge other piece of the just transition, and that is working with workers who are currently in the oil and gas sector and other heavy emitting sectors to provide for their future.
Another piece is really making sure that Canada is stepping up on the training and capacity building, especially when it comes to experiential learning. We have great R and D capabilities in this country, and we have good universities, but unfortunately right now it's not meeting the mark to prepare people for these jobs. We really need to look at the opportunity to be preparing people for this future and to be bolstering our talent pool to be leading in the future.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you. That's a really good point about our universities.
My next question is for Ms. Carter.
Earlier this week, I asked a witness this question and, given your expertise, I'd like to hear your perspective on the question as well.
Can you tell me your thoughts on the different scenarios between a cap on emissions only versus a cap on emissions and a simultaneous cap on production in the oil and gas sector, and what that would look like in terms of environmental impacts coupled with impacts on jobs in the sector?
Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
That's a huge set of questions.
First of all, I would say that we are a good and long distance from a cap on production. As you know, I'm sure, this is really quite a difficult conversation to have in our current landscape.
At a minimum, what we need to do in Canada is to model, to plot, how it will look to have climate aligned production. Right now, we have the Canada Energy Regulator showing a continuing upward movement. That, of course, is not climate safe. That is not possible and, for all the economic risks, that's leaving open workers in communities to not a good path. We don't know what that curve looks like for us and we need to figure that out. We have to get that done quickly.
We don't have very much time, but that's what I would say. We're only starting on that journey. We have to at least model it and let industry know that it's coming.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
I'm sorry, Ms. Lapointe. We're out of time.
For our panel, we're at the end of the second round, and this takes us to 5:30. I'm going to suggest that we end at this point.
Witnesses, I want to thank all of you for being here and for the excellent insights you've provided on a very important topic. As I mentioned, I invite you to submit anything additional that you would like to provide in response to the questions or the good conversations we've had today.
By way of what's up next for the committee members, we have a constituency week next week, so we won't be here. The next meeting will be on Monday, February 28, when we'll continue our study. So far, we have five witnesses appearing. The notice of meeting will be posted for that very soon. The clerk is also looking at scheduling a subcommittee meeting following the February 28 meeting to discuss committee business. That's to be confirmed, so watch your emails.
With that, thank you so much to the witnesses and thank you to the committee members.
Ms. Rempel Garner, I'll turn it over to you for a minute.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
This is not moving a motion or anything, Chair. It's just to say that in an attempt to try to get more feedback into the study, I would leave it to you and the clerk and would say that if you wanted to put out a press release asking for written submissions on the study, we would support you in doing that as well. I know there are a lot of witnesses who either haven't been able to appear or who have requested to appear but we won't be able to get to them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
That's an excellent suggestion. I will work with the clerk on that.
I am hoping to have a report, for the week that we're back, on where we are so far. This would include which witnesses for each of the parties we've been able to get and which ones we're having problems with. If we need to put a call out for some additional witnesses, we'll do that. We're getting that information together over the constituency week.
With that, thanks, everyone.
The meeting is adjourned.