Evidence of meeting #23 for Natural Resources in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nuclear.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
Colleagues, you've heard the amendment and you've heard the motion, so we will vote on the amendment.
Mr. Clerk.
The Clerk of the Committee Jean-Luc Plourde
Do I need to read the amendment of Mr. Hogan, or is everybody—
Bloc
The Clerk
Given that the request was made in French, I'll do it in French.
The amendment is to replace the word “summons”, in the main paragraph, with the word “invite”, and to remove the last paragraph, that is, “That a report on this study be prepared and presented to the House and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a complete response to the report”, and replace it with “That this testimony be included in the committee’s report on the forestry sector study.”
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I would like to clarify something before we go to the vote.
We want to replace “summons” with “invite” because we haven't invited Mr. Wijaya. We'll give Mr. Wijaya a chance to accept our invitation. If he were to refuse, the committee could then summon him.
I just wanted to make that clear to everyone.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0)
Liberal
John-Paul Danko Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
I have a quick question on the jurisdiction of this committee to summon or invite witnesses.
I'm not sure where this individual lives. I think he's overseas. Just so I'm clear on what I'm voting on, while it's the jurisdiction of this committee to invite and summon witnesses, can it be anyone in the world? How does that work?
Liberal
The Clerk
The witness needs to be on Canadian soil to be summoned, but he can be invited from anywhere around the world.
Liberal
John-Paul Danko Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
As a follow-up to that, what are the repercussions if they choose not to attend?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
That's a rule issue.
We'll have Mr. Clerk, and then we'll go to Monsieur Simard.
Go ahead.
The Clerk
If the witness is summoned, refuses to attend and is on Canadian soil, then the committee can raise a question of privilege and table a report to the House. Then the House can be seized with the question.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I just want to let Mr. Danko know that we did that in 2024. We didn't go the whole way because Domtar gave us explanations that we were satisfied with at the time. However, Mr. Wijaya declined our invitation. If he had set foot on Canadian soil, we could have compelled him to testify before the committee.
It's not unusual to invite people who live outside of Canada. The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development does that all the time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
I welcome Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe as an observer today.
Mr. Clerk, I think we're ready for the vote on the amended motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
Thank you, colleagues. We will now go back to our delegation.
Monsieur Simard, you have three minutes and 20 seconds left in your time.
Colleagues, we may have to condense the time a bit at the end, because we've taken up some time.
Mr. Simard, you have the floor.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I'm sorry for the delay. It's not out of disrespect for the witnesses; their expertise is very important to us.
Mr. Thiele, you spoke with my colleague Mr. Guay about the tax benefits provided for clean electricity. My understanding was that storage technologies were ineligible for the tax credit. Is that what you said to Mr. Guay?
Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Energy Storage Canada
Some storage technologies are included. Specifically, thermal energy storage, which is the same principle but just a different application, primarily for industrial heat and power, is not included in the current suite of tax credits. I could get into all of the digging we've done for how we got there, but it seems that at the time when the tax credits were initially designed, the technology was maybe not at the readiness level to be included and therefore was excluded.
Although we've worked through the process to get these passed and implemented into legislation, it hasn't yet gotten to the point where they're now included. We've been advocating and doing our due diligence with ministries for the past number of years to hopefully push that change forward.
My colleague Robert can speak to specifically how the technology is utilized. It has a strong business case in Alberta, so I'll turn it over to him.
Policy Manager, Energy Storage Canada
Thank you, Andrew.
Thermal energy storage is very similar to batteries or the kind of electrical energy storage you would think of, except that it takes in electricity and then outputs the energy back onto the grid as useful heat instead of electricity.
The gap we're seeing in the clean economy ITC is that, in the explanatory notes to the Income Tax Act, the definition of energy storage specifically categorizes energy storage as electricity in, electricity out. This is in contrast to other technologies, such as biomass, nuclear, concentrated solar thermal, and carbon capture and storage, which all allow for electricity or heat out.
The change we're seeking is for energy storage to be given the same treatment, allowing it to be electricity or heat out. Thermal energy storage is predominantly used to provide electricity based as heat in industrial systems or district heating systems.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
If you're able to send the committee additional information, that could be very interesting to us when we draft our report on the subject.
In closing, if you have any information on the elements needed for developing the critical minerals sector and for storage—we're dependent on China, among others, in that regard—I would like you to send us the information in document form, since I believe that would be relevant and interesting for us. The information would perhaps be used to develop a specific component on the value chain and, above all, on the short-term reality of the world of storage, which you talked about.
Thank you.
Liberal