Evidence of meeting #29 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 communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
For the SMRs, sir, where would that refined uranium come from?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Association
SMRs require a slightly enriched fuel, and that is partly dependent on the relationship with the United States vis-à-vis accessing that enriched fuel.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Association
Right now it's not. Right now there's enough co-operation between Canada and the United States in that space, but there are other suppliers as well, including the U.K. and France, for example. There's an ecosystem of supply.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
Thank you both.
Mr. Hogan, you will have the last word. You have four minutes.
Liberal
Corey Hogan Liberal Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you.
I very much appreciate hearing from all of our witnesses today. I sincerely feel like I've learned a lot, and it is always a good hour spent when we can learn from the experts who came to testify today.
Mr. O'Connell, I want to talk a little more about hydrogen. In particular, when we talk about export opportunities and the integration of federal and provincial supports, obviously, our purview is federal, but we want to make sure the right hand and the left hand are working together. Can you talk a bit about the overall environment—regulatory, tax credits, grants and all of those things that are available or not—and where the gaps might be in particular between federal and provincial supports?
Vice President, Business Development, Hydrogen Canada Corp.
We would have relied very heavily on federal support—again, the tax credits. We looked at a number of hydrogen plants that were constructed in Alberta. Air Products received funding from the strategic innovation fund, and we counted on getting similar funding for our project. We believe we had the federal support we needed to move forward. The challenge was the rail piece, which was shelved earlier this year, so that's just not getting resolved.
Provincially, we would have relied on the APIP and some other programs in Alberta. We wanted to do more work with the Government of Alberta on that. The government informed us that they were willing to work on the rail challenge, on some of the costs associated with rail, specifically the indemnity, but the Government of Alberta took a back seat, in our opinion, to the federal policy. Because we were all waiting for a decision on the rail support, the Government of Alberta backed away. We would have liked to see more support provincially. We didn't really see it, but part of it was that they had a wait-and-see approach.
A second thing I will mention, and I think it's topical for this panel, is that we were looking to do some aboriginal engagement because we would have been running this product through B.C., through traditional territories. We were looking for guidance from the federal government to lead us through the process on that. It's something that we don't get that involved in as a project developer in Alberta per se. That was step four, and we were on step one. We never got that far.
Does that answer your question?
Liberal
Corey Hogan Liberal Calgary Confederation, AB
That's very helpful. Thank you.
It's a good reminder that as we think about expanding these opportunities, we're also asking the entrepreneurs and the companies, such as the one you represent, to do things they may not have previously done, and we need to assist them through all of that in terms of capacity.
Do you want to use the last minute I have to say anything the committee has not addressed that you were hoping would be addressed? Is there anything you'd like to say? You get the last word on this one, literally.
Vice President, Business Development, Hydrogen Canada Corp.
Thank you for that, because there is a point I'd like to make.
A lot of the conversations we're having in Canada these days are about exporting raw product. We continue to be a commodity producer. We export natural gas, We export oil. Hopefully, we'll export more uranium. We export a lot of agricultural products, but we don't do a lot of value added in Canada. I think the focus of the Government of Canada and every government in this country is to do value added in Canada.
Both Bryan and I are engineers. Bryan has his Ph.D. and I have an M.B.A. For us, the value of this is doing value added and doing more technology-related projects in Canada so that we're not exporting just oil or natural gas, but actually doing something with them here and selling the world upgraded products. It creates a more stable economy and it's a huge benefit to all the technologists and engineers in this country to put them to work. We like the idea of exporting uranium and oil and gas, obviously, but we really think there needs to be a stronger focus on doing the value added in Canada.
Thank you for the opportunity to say that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
Thank you.
Before I thank the witnesses, Mr. Rowe has raised his hand.
Go ahead, Mr. Rowe.
Conservative
Jonathan Rowe Conservative Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'm wondering if I can submit some questions to the witnesses for a written response to go into the report.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Duguid
—yes, and vice versa. We welcome briefs from our witnesses.
On behalf of the committee, thank you for a really good exchange. There have been good questions and good responses. It's good to hear from our hydrogen and nuclear sectors, which we haven't heard enough from, in my view.
Thank you for your global perspective and your geopolitical insights, Professor Doran.
Colleagues, with that, I am going to gavel us out.
The meeting is adjourned.