Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 5th, 2026

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

That is so interesting. I also thought it was an interesting question and answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Well, you will have an opportunity in just a few minutes, Ms. Stubbs, to have a follow-up.

We're going to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Indeed, it's quite informative.

Earlier this week, Mr. Mousseau was here. He clearly explained the dynamics of the electricity sector where peak hours must be managed. He also explained how a Hydro‑Québec reservoir can be used as a huge battery to manage these flows. The interesting part is the technical advances that Mr. Mousseau described. The current progress made in wind and solar energy, with new storage methods such as iron‑air batteries, gives us much greater predictability with regard to these technologies.

According to Mr. Mousseau, the major issue lies in the fact that Canada invests very little in these technologies and that it isn't at the forefront of storage strategies. Mr. Mousseau gave the example of heat pumps.

I would appreciate your comments on this topic. I think that this is a fairly significant factor. We need to invest in these technologies that will help us roll out a greater volume of clean electricity.

[Francis Bradley]

Yes. I completely agree with the professor.

That's where I was about to go on the other question: To what degree can we develop technologies here in Canada? To what degree can we build and have supply chains that we can count on in this country?

I would absolutely agree that we are not spending enough on research, but because of the basics of our electricity system, we have the opportunity to be, once again, the global leaders. A generation ago, we were absolutely the leaders in long-distance transmission and major hydroelectric developments. We built with ambition in the 1960s and 1970s.

The other thing we did, though—and that's where I was about to head before—is we built an incredible supply chain with respect to nuclear. Our CANDU technology is a Canadian technology that continues to deliver. The supply chain is within this country, so as we hopefully look to the next generation of ambition, as we build forward and as we try to figure out how we're going to take advantage of the new storage opportunities we have, we're building the technology in this country and have a supply chain in this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Quickly, without making you commit—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Be very quick. You have 10 seconds.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

—I have a question that ties in with the spirit of our report. The government is proposing financial support for clean electricity, which is good. However, would you agree that this measure's shortcoming lies precisely in the development and the support for the development of these supply chains? Maybe that's the government's shortcoming.

I would like a brief answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Please answer with a yes or no.

[Francis Bradley]

With respect to supply chains, absolutely. This is something we absolutely have to address, and it's in our report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

You can pick that up with another questioner if you want to add to that answer.

Ms. Stubbs, it is back to you for five minutes, please.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

You can also submit it in writing so the committee can use it.

I believe that all three of you—correct me if I am wrong—appeared in front of the transport committee for the debates on Bill C-5. I just want to let you all know that I tried to make an amendment to Bill C-5 to give teeth to the two-year concrete timeline that the Liberals keep talking about. That amendment was rejected, but you can count on me to continue to push for the concrete timeline that all proponents require.

Given that I think all three of you participated, and Ms. Baiton, I'm pretty sure you were there too, or maybe you weren't, but you'll correct me.... Either way, I know you'll have important things to say. I am deeply concerned because I also asked the government to define for all Canadians what they mean by “the national interest”. Just a couple of months ago, you may know that they refused to define “the national interest”.

To give everybody an update, so far the minister has announced 11 projects for referral to the Major Projects Office, but only the Crawford nickel-cobalt mine is actually in the process of undergoing federal regulatory review.

Given that we're talking about ensuring that Canada can compete, and we know we want private sector proponents to be building infrastructure and creating jobs, not neo-Marxist government politicians picking PONIs, I wonder if the three of you have comments to make about how Canada can possibly turn itself into an energy superpower and build at speeds never seen before, when there are more than 60 projects with real private sector proponents in every single sector of natural resources stuck right now in front of the Impact Assessment Agency, the Canada Energy Regulator and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Bill C-5 does nothing about any of that, so I wonder if you have recommendations and calls to action to make to the government, which has all the power on what to do to ensure the private sector can build big infrastructure, provide jobs for Canadians and provide all the revenue that goes to all governments of all three levels to provide programs and services that every Canadian values.

I'll just leave that to the three of you.

Chair, maybe you can help here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

That seems like it was a question for all of you, so why don't we go around the table. There are two minutes and 45 seconds to do that.

Ms. Baiton.

[Lisa Baiton]

We definitely support work to advance major projects with alacrity. We have tangible examples around the globe where other countries were able to build major projects with speed. Germany built three new LNG import facilities in a year, and the average time to build a project in Canada is somewhere between nine and 16 years.

If we want to be ready for the current new normal before us, we have to have a profound policy reset to ensure that not only more projects get built but more projects get built with speed.

For us on the producer side, again, we'll need pipelines to build pipelines, but we're concerned about what we'll need to do to scale up, fill and keep filled any new LNG export facility or any new oil or gas pipeline. For us, that is the policy reset, and right now, number 1(a) and number 1(b) are the industrial carbon pricing system and the new federal methane regs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Ms. Swift.

[Catherine Swift]

I agree with what Lisa said there, but also, we've had an awful lot of talk and very little action. Approvals are one thing, but until we see some very tangible signs....

There are a number of problems with Bill C-5, but one of the main ones is subjectivity. How can an investor say, “Well, if so-and-so likes this project one day, then that's going to be the determinant as to whether or not it actually gets done”?

I would say, unfortunately, Canada now has a long-term record, over the last decade, of not getting things done and being a country that can't get things done. The question arose earlier about how Canada can become an energy superpower. Other countries have done it. They've done it with private sector investment. There's nothing wrong with us that we can't do it, except for roadblocks that the government puts in the way.

It reinforces that action is needed. Why do we need a Major Projects Office? It's another level of bureaucracy to do stuff that we did just fine before without these new levels of bureaucracy. Why couldn't we do it that way? We seem to have done it for years, but not anymore.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Ms. Swift.

I want to give Mr. Bradley a chance, since the question was directed to all three of you.

Mr. Bradley.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Chair, I want to thank you for your generosity with the time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

It's not a problem.

[Francis Bradley]

There are a couple of things.

Number one, on project reviews, there have been over the years commitments to have a “one project, one assessment” approach. A two-year timeline on the projects would be very much in order, as well as addressing some of the other regulatory and legislative issues, including, as we did talk about, the Fisheries Act. It continues to be one that we chip away at.

Once projects actually move through the process and get approved, are we going to have the supply chains to address this? One of the recommendations we put in our state of the industry report is looking at the development of a Canadian electricity supply chain road map and the degree to which that might assist: Even once we get to the projects, how do we roll them out and how do we see if we can actually build supply chains in this country?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Mr. Clark, you're wrapping up this round. You have five minutes.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Bradley, I want to ask you a few questions about the things you touched on.

I'm from Nova Scotia and I represent a Halifax-area riding. You correctly identified that Nova Scotia has a high-carbon generation system. Unfortunately, we're still burning a lot of coal, and it is very expensive to generate and consume electricity in Nova Scotia. We have the country's highest rates of energy poverty in our province and in our region generally as well.

You talked about the fact that electricity demand is going to double over the next 25 years or so, and I think the biggest question we have to address as a country when it comes to energy is, how do we meet that demand? I know you touched on that a bit in previous answers, but how do we meet that challenge? It is a profound challenge to double production, whether it's export or import, and hopefully we're generating it ourselves over a relatively short period of time. What's the best, most efficient way we can make that happen?

[Francis Bradley]

I thank the member for the question. It is certainly very relevant for the jurisdiction that you come from. As you noted, coal is still being used. For those who are not aware of the circumstances in your region, it's not by choice: It was the resource available at the time and the technology that was built.

What is that future going to look like in Atlantic Canada? It's going to require a move to new technologies. We're absolutely going to need more transmission to interconnect the area, but that will give us, hopefully, the opportunity to open up to new projects like Wind West. I mentioned offshore wind off the shore of the United States, but that's not moving very quickly these days because of decisions that have been made there.

We have opportunities to build here and to build in this country, but it is going to require a number of things coming together. One of them is a greater collaboration within the Atlantic Canada region, and I know there are active discussions taking place there. To move that, it's going to require infrastructure to be built, and that infrastructure is going to allow new types of generation technology to come online.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

I'm glad that you mentioned Wind West. It's a major project and concept that evidently I'm very much supportive of, and I know that our region is too, in general. As my colleague mentioned, the premier is actively working with governors in the northeastern U.S. on potential agreements when that comes online.

Could you give me your views, whether on that project in particular or the potential of offshore wind in general, on meeting the huge demand ask we talked about?

[Francis Bradley]

I think offshore wind is going to be one of the critical pieces for Atlantic Canada. We've seen a shift over the last decade, frankly, that's changing Nova Scotia's place in the North American electricity system. A decade ago, that was the end of the line—the lines would end in Nova Scotia. Now Nova Scotia is interconnected with Newfoundland. Sometime in the future, it is also going to be interconnected with offshore. That's going to move it—to take Nova Scotia as an example—from being at the very end of the line to being in the middle of the action. When we talk about what the prospects are for economic development in the region, this is, again, going to be critically important for that.

One other thing that was said earlier was that we'll have to build twice as much. I don't think we are. I think we'll also have new technology coming online, which is going to mean that we won't have to double what we build because we're going to use the system more efficiently.

Here's the example I like to use. The technology hasn't yet been implemented, but I drive an electric vehicle. Basically, I have an 82-kilowatt-hour battery that just happens to be bolted onto four wheels. It spends 95% of its time sitting in front of my house, plugged in, and we have hundreds of thousands of these on the road. Soon we're going to have millions of these on the road. We can tap into them. Again, it is about how we can more effectively and efficiently use the technology we have. There are Canadians who are working on developing those types of technologies.