Natural Resources Committee on May 23rd, 2024

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Jowhari, I'll ask you to hold for one second. We have a point of order from Mr. Angus.

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

I love the concept of vertical farming as much as anybody, but let's just be honest. Was Mr. Jowhari sent in as the ringer for the Liberals so that he can run the filibuster? I don't mind doing emails. I'll sit here as long as it takes to get this study done. Mr. Jowhari can talk about everything under the sun. I would just like him to be honest with us as to why he's wasting our time talking about farming.

Is he going to filibuster? Be honest. Is that what the Liberals have sent him here to do?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus, for your point of order.

I'll remind members not to use points of order for debate.

Mr. Jowhari has advised members that he is a full-time member of our committee and he's deeply passionate about the electricity study. That is why he wanted to be here and why, I believe, he was continuing to tell us why that study is important.

I'll let him continue on with his rationale. Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Why is it important? Vertical farming is just one aspect of food security. All I'm trying to make the point on here is that, if we even talk about the intersection of food and energy security and about food and energy sustainability, the amount of energy we are going to need is not going to be two to three times. It's going to be four to six times. If we don't act today and focus on exploring ways to generate, transmit, distribute, store, manage, optimize and exchange energy now; make the investments of nearly $80 billion a year; find incentives; look at social impact and policies; and start working with provinces on how, through interprovincial agreements, we can ensure that security, which comes with reliability and access, and make it affordable and adequate, we'll miss the boat.

One of my colleagues across the way talked about the fact that we did a study in 2017, and, “Well, nothing happened, so let's not do anything about it.” Well, it's not 2017 anymore. It's 2024. I believe that, when we talked about it in 2022 and 2023, and now in 2024, the world is moving in a very different direction and is focusing on generating clean electricity. Each one of these industries is flourishing: High-capacity storage, transmission, modelling and management are all flourishing. Why? It's because everybody feels that sense of urgency, and it is that sense of urgency that I think the amendment is really ignoring.

I believe that was already said when we agreed with the concept of doing the study, but superseding this, when we have only a short runway of 25 years, $80 billion and all of those elements—

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

I'm sorry, but I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Jowhari, I ask you to hold for a second. We have a point of order from Mr. Angus.

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

I don't want to wait until the blues. I thought the little runway we have is 25 years. Did he say our little runway is 45 years? I just want to know how little the runway is—that's a clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Let's let Mr. Jowhari continue with his rationale. Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

First of all, I'm glad that Mr. Angus is actually listening to what I'm saying. If I said it's 45 years, that was a mistake. I have iterated a number of times that it is 25 years. It's good.

[An hon. member]

That's quite a long runway.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'm sorry. I ask you to hold again, Mr. Jowhari.

Mr. Patzer, go ahead on a point of order.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I just want you to get a chance to catch your breath here, Mr. Jowhari, but also this is the whole point of why I said the report was done in 2017. You guys have been in government ever since then and nothing's been done on this. If it were that important, you'd think that you guys would have acted on the recommendations of the report in 2017, but the witnesses say nothing has been done. That's why I made the comment, so maybe, you know—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I remind members again to not use points of order to debate, but if you would like—

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Let me just finish this, and then I'll let you go ahead, Mr. Angus.

Do not use points of order for debate but for procedural matters. If you do want to add your insights, raise your hand. I'll put you on the list, and you can debate away.

Mr. Angus, I go to you on a point of order.

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

Thank you, Chair. This is just on a point of order. I really respect your work, and I'm very glad you made that.... I think that was an outrageous comment by Mr. Patzer. It wasn't a point of order, and I think he should know that it wasn't a point of order.

I just want to say that, if we're going to do points of order, we should make sure that we're giving our poor friend there a chance to catch his breath. He has to look up some other stuff on Google, so I'm more than willing to let him go back. We'll spend as much time as we take.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Jowhari, please continue where you left off.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That wasn't a Google lookup. That was a picture I received of my granddaughter, who's four months and 27 days old today. She rolled over, so everybody's excited in our household. Her name is Arianna, and I love her very much. I'll gladly show you her picture.

Why is there urgency? Let me tell you. “We need to move very quickly, and probably with a different approach, you know, no hurdles, no timeouts”, that's what Mr. Greenspon said.

There are significant unanswered questions about the new power mix and the speed of switching away from fossil fuel power in one of the biggest political battles brewing in our country. I believe that MP Dreeshen went through a lengthy commentary on that.

Let me give you some stats. Six provinces, including the three largest, get more than 90% of their power from clean sources. That includes hydro, nuclear and wind. Four provinces—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Saskatchewan—still rely heavily on coal or natural gas for their electricity. The premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan have declared the 2035 clean air regulation too costly and have said they simply won't meet them, so there are challenges. However, we know we have to move in this direction. We have to make an investment. We have a very short runway of 25 years, and here we go. It took us over a century to get here, and now we have to work faster, and we have to work smarter.

All of those elements I talked to you about are things that we really need to hear from witnesses. I personally don't think that four sessions is enough, but if we can get all those answers in four sessions, I'm all for it. The sooner we start on this thing, the better it is. The federal government is quite flexible. We are ready to work with the provinces. We are ready to work with generators. We work with entities that are in charge of transmission. They need to come in and work together to create that think tank on how we can move.

We already know the questions. Now we have to find the answers. It's 25 years and $80 billion a year in my estimate. We know the sources of generation. We need to look at different ways. We need to be innovative, we need to be agile, and we need to make sure that the end solution means that we have adequate, reliable, affordable and accessible sources of green electricity.

Mr. Chair, I'll end by saying once again that I believe the urgency, and I hope I have demonstrated, over the last whatever minutes that I talked about this, the urgency that's needed for us to deal with all of those elements. The urgency is today, but I don't think that study should supersede the study we are in.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, MP Jowhari, for your comments and for joining us on this committee. It's great to have you, and I look forward to hearing more from you in the days ahead.

We'll now proceed to Ms. Lapointe, who's online.

Ms. Lapointe, I'll turn the floor over to you.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do want to start by saying that I am supportive of the study that is being proposed, but I can't support the notion that we would stop the work that we've already started on the electricity study.

I think we're at a threshold of a pivotal era in Canada's journey towards a sustainable future, and it's crucial to acknowledge the indispensable role of our electricity grid in realizing our net-zero emission goals. Our electricity grid isn't just wires and poles. It's the lifeblood of our economy. It's the linchpin of our environmental ambitions. It powers our homes. It fuels our industries. It sustains our way of life, yet its significance extends far beyond mere convenience. It's the backbone of our transition to a greener, cleaner tomorrow.

A robust electricity grid is essential for integrating renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power into our energy mix. It provides the infrastructure needed to efficiently transmit electricity from remote regions that are abundant in clean energy to urban centres where it's most needed. Without a strong grid, we know that we risk stalling our transition to renewables and hindering our efforts to reduce the carbon to meet the goals that we have all established for ourselves.

What happens if we delay strong action on climate change? We all know the answer to that question. We're going to have a continued increase in the frequency and severity of extreme and devastating weather events.

Just today in Ottawa, the area is under a severe weather and tornado watch, and it's May. We're seeing tornado warnings in Canada, something almost unheard of 20 years ago. Environment and Climate Change Canada's meteorologists continue to predict weather conditions for spring and summer 2024 that could lead to greater wildfire risks.

More than 4,500 residents of Fort Nelson and the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation have just recently been allowed to return home since an evacuation on May 10 due to the out-of-control Parker Lake wildfire just west of the town.

On May 14, close to 7,000 residents from the southern part of Fort McMurray were ordered to leave their homes and to evacuate from the Fort McMurray area. All of us were watching that news closely, and we saw the impact it had on those families who had to evacuate. Luckily, the fire risk dissipated, but the trauma from the 2016 wildfire can't be ignored. What people went through in 2016 was horrific, and I believe that, as legislators, we need to do everything we can to ensure we don't continue down this climate emergency path.

We also can't afford increasing climate emergencies. We know that Public Safety's Canadian disaster database shows that the Fort McMurray 2016 fire cost over $4 billion with an additional $3.6 billion in insurance claims. I know I've talked to many families who were worried about even being able to insure their homes, and the increased insurance costs to their household budgets and the impact that puts on them in terms of affordability. In total, the Fort McMurray fires burned approximately 580,000 hectares of land, and it caused the evacuation of over 90,000 people and destroyed 2,400 homes and businesses.

Even communities far from active fires were and will be affected by air pollution created by wildfire smoke. These conditions are often compounded by extreme heat.

A few weeks ago, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness said, “Last year, Canadians experienced the most destructive forest fire season in our nation's history, and we know that climate change has been a root cause of their increased frequency and intensity”.

I think it's important for us, as committee members, to also acknowledge the physical and mental health impacts that result from these wildfires. The Minister of Health said that wildfires can have significant negative impacts on our physical and mental well-being, even when they are burning thousands of kilometres away from us.

We certainly saw that last year. We all saw that first-hand, with cities across the country blanketed in hazardous smoke. I know that my colleague MP Angus and I certainly saw that in northern Ontario and the fact of how hazardous that smoke was, especially for people with fragile lungs.

With the 2024 wildfire season approaching, our government is ensuring that people in Canada have the tools and the information they need to understand and manage the health risks that are associated with the wildfires.

I think it's imperative that we decarbonize our electricity grid. It's not only dangerous to continue on the path of fossil fuel energy, it's frankly irresponsible.

However, the consequences of neglecting our electricity grid extend beyond environmental and climate issues. A weak grid—and we've heard witnesses tell us this—leaves us vulnerable to power outages, grid instability and energy insecurity. It threatens the reliability of our energy supply. It jeopardizes the functioning of essential services, and it's disrupting everyday life. This means we need to do the work now, and we need to continue with our electricity study to hear from witnesses, who can guide our actions in building resilience into our electricity grid.

The witnesses we have heard to date, because the study is currently under way, have all talked about the need to act on an urgent basis in addressing our electricity grid. Witnesses have told this committee about the need to increase energy storage capacity and to ensure grid efficiency, and we know battery energy storage is a major part of this.

I can tell you that in Sudbury we are actively working to produce the materials needed to support battery storage for our grid. The demand for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel are all essential for battery storage and also for the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries, and that demand is soaring.

Canada, with its abundant mineral resources particularly in regions like Sudbury and northern Ontario, holds tremendous potential to become a global leader in the EV economy. However, realizing this potential hinges on developing a robust EV supply chain from mining and processing to battery manufacturing and recycling.

When MP Angus spoke earlier today, he talked about meeting with mining leaders. All of them have talked about the need to build that supply chain and the importance of that in conjunction with the critical minerals that we have.

We often hear from our colleagues across the way that jobs are at risk in Canada's clean economy, but nothing could be further from the truth. I can tell you that in Sudbury we're seeing an unprecedented demand for labour in the mining industry and an increased availability of jobs in the related value chain sector.

Electricity is the future of mining. Our mining companies are transitioning from diesel-powered trucks, loaders and drills towards electric alternatives. This is making mining safer, and it's also less polluting. Innovation in mining, such as moving to electrification, is part of how Sudbury's story went from being a mining town to being a mindful town. Our regreening efforts are globally respected, and electrification continues to help us lead the way. I attended PDAC this year and last year where—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Lapointe, we have a point of order. I'll ask you to just pause for a moment.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I've been listening really carefully, and she's talking about mining and electricity. That really has nothing to do with the amendment that we're debating.

I'm wondering whether perhaps she could rein it in. I know we allow for a lot of latitude, and I think that's useful and helpful, but she may as well talk about plastic straws and milkshakes as far as I'm concerned.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, and I'll let you view that as you like.

I'm going to let Ms. Lapointe keep providing her rationale, Mr. Falk, because she's talking about the importance of the previous study. I'll let Ms. Lapointe continue on the rationale and why that's important to her.

Go ahead, Ms. Lapointe.