Science and Research Committee on June 18th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We have a motion that has been moved by Mr. Ho. I hope that everyone has looked at that motion.

Is there any debate on the motion moved by Mr. Ho?

Mr. Ho.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Referring back to what was said on the debate of the other motion, I find it ironic that the Liberal members of this committee are talking about jurisdiction when they just asserted federal jurisdiction yesterday through a vote in the House of Commons. I find it kind of rich that they're talking about EV mandates in British Columbia and Quebec, when they just imposed one yesterday, one that's pretty drastic and will require hundreds of billions of dollars of investment to support the grid and the infrastructure. We understand that it will require working with multiple levels of government to deliver and that it's one that would add $20,000 to the cost of a new vehicle for everyday consumers. We know how out of touch the Liberals are, but $20,000 is a lot of money to the average family. It would risk 40,000 good-paying, Canadian auto sector jobs. Many of them are in the ridings of members of this committee. Those are jobs that we will never get back.

We want to understand more about the effects of this EV mandate, and we want to see if there's additional research that could uncover whether this Liberal government has implemented on Canadians a mandate that Canadians did not ask for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Ho.

Next we have Mr. Noormohamed and then Ms. Jaczek.

Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You can go ahead. I'll go after.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

MP Jaczek.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is the science and research committee. What I'm hearing from the members opposite relates much more to government policy rather than an intense investigation of the research on which that policy is potentially based. It is, in my view, not appropriate for study in this particular committee. It potentially could go to another committee that looks more broadly at industry or something like that.

This committee has, to date—and I speak advisedly because I've been on it for a number of years.... We ask for witnesses who are experts in scientific research to come in front of this committee to give us their findings. We create recommendations in relation to those findings. The way this motion has been presented, in my view, it simply does not fit within the mandate of this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of things.

My friend opposite may be surprised to know that his home province of Ontario also has a 100% EV mandate by 2035, so he may also want to have this discussion with, arguably, the most popular Conservative in the country: Doug Ford.

I know there's a lot of grasping at straws, on the other side, for meaning. One area of meaning might be to reflect on why Canadians from coast to coast to coast elected a Liberal government.

He's using words like “out of touch”. The reality is that the party that is out of touch is the party that has no interest in dealing with climate change. It's the party that has clearly proven it has no understanding of where the will of the voters actually is in terms of the agenda to build a stronger country with investments in the type of infrastructure this country requires and needs, in partnership with provinces run by Conservatives like Doug Ford, who have an eye on building a strong economy and helping to deal with climate change; New Democrats like David Eby in British Columbia; and the Premier of Quebec and his government.

One of the key elements of federal laws and federal rules is to reflect what is actually happening in provinces. We're going to talk about jurisdiction. Power grids in this country are supplied by provincial power suppliers. If we're going to be talking about research in that area—and that seems to be what the member opposite wants to do—I would encourage him to talk to the Doug Ford government, given that he represents a riding from Ontario. If he has concerns about what Quebec is doing, work with his Bloc colleague to interrogate what the Government of Quebec is doing.

The reality is, as Madam Jaczek pointed out, that this committee is not where we need to be having this discussion, first of all.

Second of all, if we're going to have a thoughtful, intelligent discussion about electric vehicles in this country, why don't we actually think about the way in which Canadians have overwhelmingly chosen to make these moves? Why has battery production become something this country has begun to lead on?

What Conservatives are trying to use this committee to do, Madam Chair, is to play gotcha politics with science. The reality of the way the world is moving is that electric vehicles—electrification—are not, or should not, be a partisan issue. If Conservatives in Ontario, New Democrats in British Columbia, the Government of Quebec, the Government of the United Kingdom under both Conservatives and Labour, and the European Union, where you have a wide range of political views represented.... My goodness, even India and China are talking about moving aggressively towards electrification and electric vehicles and putting in mandates that are far more aggressive than the provinces and this country have done. I think the real question we need to be asking is why Conservatives don't see this as an important move forward.

Again, we're talking about the motion yesterday—the gotcha policy. The motion was defeated by members of Parliament who represent every single province and territory of this country. If we're calling all of those folks out of touch, that's remarkable.

We're at a place right now in this committee where we have the choice to decide whether we want to entertain motions that are going to be gotcha politics or we actually deal with the types of science and research questions that this committee has done in the past, which I know the Bloc member is very interested in conducting, which we are certainly interested in doing and which members of the Conservative Party who are not ideologues would also like to see being done.

Madam Chair, in the first instance, this motion shouldn't be in this committee by the very nature of the way it has been presented. There's also a philosophical question about why we're trying to avoid a jurisdictional conversation when, in fact, the reality of this motion presents us with the requirement to interrogate Hydro-Québec, Ontario hydro and BC Hydro, and to call into question the policies of the Government of Quebec and the Government of Ontario. I suspect a whole lot of Conservatives aren't super happy with doing that.

If that's what they want to do, Madam Chair, that's great, but I certainly don't think that's the will of this committee. I don't think it's the mandate of this committee, and I'm fairly certain it doesn't reflect the overwhelming majority of where Canadians placed their votes in the last election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Noormohamed.

Mr. Mahal.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to touch upon two issues.

First is the jurisdictional issue that my friend on the other side of the table keeps referring to. My difference is that, when the Liberals proposed this change, pushing Canadians into an EV mandate, it's not a black and white thing. You cannot push everything on the provinces and also say that this jurisdiction belongs to the provinces so we cannot talk about these issues in this committee.

Yes, we can talk about anything in this committee if it has any ancillary effects on.... The federal government announced that it is going to go strong on an EV mandate. It is going to penalize normal Canadians with $20,000 per vehicle if they make their choice and they don't want to go for EVs.

We want to make sure that the provincial grids are strong enough, or what agreements the federal government is going to make to ensure that the provinces are ready for it. That is my difference from the member opposite. It's not a black and white issue, per se, that this is provincial jurisdiction and we should not be talking about it at this committee.

Second, it's not clearly an industrial thing. The Liberals are pushing to take the combustion engine out of the market. It is a science issue. The technology—the innovation of battery cells—is a science issue. It's not an industry thing, in my opinion. We should also be mindful of that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We have Mr. Ho.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There is a lot of research conducted on EVs, and this committee wants to understand more about it. Many Canadian universities have begun to study this. The research could be quite broad. It could perhaps be about understanding whether EVs are appropriate in rural areas in this country. It could study whether there are the charging stations and networks that support having that many EVs on the road in urban areas in the country.

This looks like a case of Liberal hypocrisy, time and again, and this is just a prime example of it. The Liberals just voted for a federal EV mandate yesterday, and now they want to shut down this committee's call to conduct additional research on it. That's just hypocrisy. This is one day later—24 hours later. They then raise issues. If I'm not mistaken, there are Liberal members of this committee saying it's not the right committee.

Does that mean that if it were a different committee, you would vote in favour of it?

They're starting to talk about jurisdiction. Again, we're not encroaching on the jurisdiction of the provinces. Unlike the Liberals, we respect the Constitution. If there's a party against research, it sounds like it's the Liberals, because they're voting against conducting research on a mandate that they just imposed on Canadians—one that they're not calling for.

We're not against EVs. I know a Liberal member wants to sling mud at us and say that Conservatives don't support EVs. We support consumer choice. We're simply against the mandate that taxes Canadians, that restricts consumer choice and that kills potentially tens of thousands of jobs permanently. We want to have an honest discussion—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Ho.

Can you move your mike a little further, please? It's creating problems.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I'm almost done.

We just want to conduct—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

It's creating a popping sound.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Thank you.

Again, to impose a mandate that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars for Canadians and for the economy, it's fair and reasonable to call for additional research to see whether it's even realistic. I find it's just another classic example of Liberal hypocrisy, where they voted for something yesterday and, 24 hours later, they want to shut it down. Which one is it?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Ho.

We go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to clarify the Bloc Québécois' position.

First, Quebec didn't wait for the federal government to have a zero‑emission policy for electric vehicles. That's one thing.

I'm also open to the idea of conducting a wide‑ranging study on electric vehicle research. However, from our perspective, we can't conduct a study that falls under a federal government mandate that already encroaches on Quebec's jurisdictions. I would like my Conservative and Liberal colleagues to understand this position.

I'm open to the idea of talking about research and innovation regarding topics such as electric vehicles. However, the Bloc Québécois won't support the idea of conducting a study that falls under a mandate already assigned to Quebec within its territory. I hope that this is clear to my colleagues. We won't support an initiative to conduct a study on the electrical infrastructure capacity of Hydro‑Québec, a jewel of the Quebec government.

I'm open to discussion, but that's the Bloc Québécois' position.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We have Mr. Ho.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I would like to go back to one point that one of the Liberal members of this committee mentioned about it being in a different committee.

I'm going to read from the mandate of this committee. It says that one of the committee mandates is to review the “reports of the Chief Science Advisor”. One of the things that the chief science adviser does is study EVs.

Again, this is fully within the mandate. We understand that perhaps other aspects of it could be studied in a different committee and then could be overlapped, but this is certainly something that falls within the purview of this mandate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Ho.

Seeing no further debate, we will have a vote.

Ms. DeRidder.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I wanted to mention that this is a broad view of a study that could be completed on all electric vehicle components. For example, in my region alone, VW has launched a research centre for electric vehicle batteries, so the battery research as a component to this would be helpful to understand and know.

I would like to reiterate that this is a broad view of EV research, all components. I agree with Vincent on the fact that it could be a study on the range of what's required in order to support the EV move and the technology.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, MP DeRidder.

Seeing no further debate, I'll call for the vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

Ms. Jaczek.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Madam Chair, there was another motion which we did vote on in the previous Parliament, and we were going to study at this committee. It's regarding antimicrobial resistance. There was certainly in the previous Parliament some enthusiasm to go ahead with that, so I have a motion to propose. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i), the committee study antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including (i) resistant organisms, (ii) what is driving an increase in AMR, (iii) clinical and economic impacts of AMR in Canada, and (iv) what is needed to support research for new antimicrobial agents, nonpharmacological strategies to eliminate or modify AMR bacteria, new methods of antibacterial drug identification and strategies that neutralize virulence factors, and that the committee allocate a minimum of 6 meetings to this study, and that the committee report its findings to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Jaczek.

We will have the motion distributed to all members.

I'll suspend the meeting for two minutes so that members can get the motion in both official languages.

The meeting is suspended.