Thanks, and good afternoon.
My name is Mike Powell. I'm vice-president of government relations at Electricity Canada. We're the national voice of Canada's electricity sector. Our members make, move and deliver electrical energy in every province and territory.
I want to start with four numbers for Canada's electricity story.
One is 2%. That is the percentage of Canada's GDP that comes from the electricity sector, but it's also the first 2%. All the rest is powered by electrical energy in one way or another.
The second is more than 80%. That is the percentage of Canada's electricity system that is non-emitting. Most of that is hydro. Some is nuclear. That puts us among the best and cleanest systems in the world.
Third is 100%. That is how much the electricity system is going to have to grow in the next 25 years to meet demand from new technology and population growth.
The last is $2 trillion, which is what it's going to cost to meet that between now and 2050.
That's the scale of the task before us. We'll have to do it across multiple electricity systems with different resource mixes, market structures and regulatory environments. There will be no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all approach to meeting this growth. There is a need to act with urgency and precision.
We were very excited when the government recently announced its new electricity strategy, “Powering Canada Strong”, which comes at an important time, as did regulatory reform proposals, which were announced just before. These are major steps forward in reducing obstacles to building and supporting electricity system expansion.
The test now is to match ambition with execution. Electricity will be central to how we grow our economy. In a changing world, we have to get it right.
I'd like to highlight four items to support this.
First, Canada needs to develop a regulatory and approval system that supports investment and growth. We've seen substantial commitments to improving approval timelines and simplifying processes for major projects. We also need to ensure that the same is true for all electricity projects, not just the largest ones. We cannot build at scale if smaller but equally essential projects are stuck in regulatory delays.
We hope that recent commitments to single-approval authorities, federal economic zones and more flexible permitting processes will help with this. We also hope that these lessons can help improve permitting for existing infrastructure, whose operations can be saddled with red tape and regulatory delays.
We were also pleased to see the government's intention to amend the clean electricity regulations. As we've said at this committee before, the CERs need to work in every jurisdiction in Canada. Provincial system operators are best placed to make operational and system design decisions and to allocate electricity resources. Allowing appropriate flexibility and allowing existing assets to operate longer will help keep energy on the grid, support customer affordability and ensure system reliability.
Second, we need to work toward an integrated Canadian electricity system. As shown in a recent report we did with Deloitte on interties, there are real opportunities to improve interconnections between jurisdictions, to improve reliability and to help our system grow. The federal government can partner with provincial actors to advance inter-regional planning and apply a benefit accrual framework to build and optimize our east-west and north interconnections.
Third, we have to keep an eye on cost and affordability for Canadians. The investment needed to expand the grid is on a national scale, and we must be mindful of the impact on customer bills. We do an annual customer survey, and we found that 84% of respondents said that an increase in bills would have an impact on their finances.
This is an area where the federal government must play a role. The clean electricity and clean technology ITCs offer support already. We are encouraged that the new strategy commits to extending these ITCs to cover certain intraprovincial transmission projects. Other programs, such as SREPs, the smart renewables and electrification pathways program—we are an acronyms business—the CIB, the indigenous loan guarantee program and others also play important roles. We believe there is a need to extend and optimize these programs, including by ensuring that they are designed to be as simple to use as possible and are supporting the whole system, including distribution.
There's also going to be more to do. The electricity strategy rightly acknowledges that large and long-lasting projects offer a unique challenge, and we'll need to think about different approaches. We look forward to those conversations.
Finally, resiliency must be fundamental in government action. Our grid is operating in an increasingly challenging environment, be it more extreme weather or cyber-threats. We are facing growing labour shortages and supply chain constraints. The electricity strategy makes important contributions and asks important questions on these fronts.
We need continued action on workforce development, supply chain security and grid hardening. We need to develop an electricity supply chain road map that reduces trade risks and builds resilient supply chains in Canada. We need to implement policies for skill development and attraction in our sector, and provide targeted funding to make our grids more weather-resilient. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this right. We have to seize the opportunity.
We look forward to working with the committee, the government and all Canadians to build the electricity system that makes our country an energy superpower.
Thank you.