moved that Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present for second reading Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology. I will begin with some context.
We live in an era in which the economic, social and environmental well-being of Canadians, and indeed of all the world's people and nations, hinges on our capacity to innovate, to respond to new challenges and new opportunities in new ways.
The bill is all about technological innovation in support of sustainable development, a clear and compelling priority that was identified in our Speech from the Throne.
Sustainable development is a complex balancing act among economic, social and environmental values and goals. Furthermore, it is a balance that constantly changes, influenced by such variables as science, population growth, economic circumstances and environmental requirements.
The optimism that we can stay on top of all the challenges, that is keep our balance, assumes that as we move down the road our ability to respond to those challenges will also evolve and develop, that we be refreshed and re-equipped with new knowledge, ideas and technologies to keep the equation balanced in our favour and that we redefine the limits of what is possible. All of that is fundamental to our future.
New technology by itself is not a silver bullet that will slay every dragon that we will face but it is indispensable to our success.
Leadership in developing and deploying new generations of sustainable development technology will bring economic, social and environmental rewards.
Canada is in a worldwide race to reap those rewards. The United States, the European Union, Japan and others are committing major amounts of money to support new technology for sustainable development, and Canada must keep pace.
That is why the principle of sustainable development is written right into the legislative mandate of my department, Natural Resources Canada. That is why our government tabled a whole series of departmental sustainable development strategies just last week. For the same reason, significant new dollars for sustainable development activities were committed in both last February's federal budget and in the economic statement last October; over $1 billion worth all together. That is why we have this new legislation before us today.
In budget 2000 we first announced the government's intention to establish a foundation with initial funding of $100 million to stimulate the development and demonstration of new environmental technologies, in particular climate change and clean air technologies. Bill C-4 delivers on that commitment from budget 2000. It creates the organizational structure, the legal status and the modus operandi of the foundation.
I will talk for a moment about goals and points of focus for this new foundation. The proposed foundation gives funding support for development and demonstration of new and promising sustainable development technologies. It will also support measures to get these new tools into use as quickly and as widely as possible. A bright new idea is only an idea as long as it remains in the laboratory or in some academic institution. We need to get it into the field where it can really make a difference.
The foundation will focus in particular on the funding of new and emerging climate change and clean air technologies, including some in which Canada has already established an early international lead and in which further investment is very likely to produce new breakthroughs and new benefits.
Many hon. members in the House will be familiar with certain projects of this kind in their own regions, provinces, some even in their own constituencies. They will be familiar with the environmental and economic benefits that these initiatives have brought to Canadians.
I think, for example, of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source before they enter the atmosphere. I think of technologies, such as carbon sequestration, that allows us to capture and store greenhouse gases underground. I think of the development of new and alternative fuel sources, including ethanol, solar energy and wind power.
I think of energy efficiency technologies to conserve our resources and reduce emissions at the same time. I think of technologies in the field of enhanced oil recovery that reinforce our energy independence by squeezing new oil from old wells and, at the same time, reduce the environmental footprint. I think also of technologies that reduce particulate matter in the air.
Within these areas and others, the foundation will concentrate support by mobilizing collaboration among partners, partners in industry, government, the universities, academic institutions and not for profit organizations. Let me expand on that point for just a moment.
When we analyze various strategies for spurring technology innovation throughout the world, we find that a common characteristic of those that truly work is support for collaborative effort, people working together. The sum of these combined efforts is much more than their individual parts. Synergy succeeds.
In effect, the bill is about supporting synergy, about putting money into the pooling of skills, resources and expertise, bringing people and their talents together. It will help to finance projects that bring together Canadian experts from industry, from universities, from a variety of associations and many others.
It will pull together team members from the whole spectrum of technology innovation, each bringing a specific competence to the table. In doing these things, the legislation will fulfil another vital need. It will use the leverage of the foundation's funding to bring other money, new money, private sector money, into the development and demonstration of new technologies.
None of these objectives are unique, nor are the strategies for achieving them. They are similar to those of several other federal programs that occupy a specific niche in support of technology development. This foundation will complement and will reinforce these other efforts through its emphasis on collaboration and specifically its emphasis on sustainable development technologies, in particular climate change and clean air. It will also bring new money into the system.
The achievement of these goals requires attention to several complex issues: administrative, technical quality and otherwise. As hon. members will note, the legislation takes these issues very much into account, for example, the question of intellectual property rights: who owns and who can access the fruits of all of this co-operative, publicly funded labour.
There are issues related to funding. The bill requires recipients to conform to certain principles that the foundation would set on funding issues, for example, the question of who qualifies for funding. The legislation defines these qualifications and requires that they be addressed. Details on these matters will be spelled out in the specific funding agreement to be entered into between the government and the foundation.
Ultimately the benefit of this funding to the Canadian environment and to the Canadian economy depends on the quality of targeting and team building. This requires careful design of the machinery of governance for the foundation. The legislation outlines this machinery. It calls for the creation of a board of directors. The board would operate at arm's length from government. It would report annually to parliament.
The second component in the governance structure is a committee representing stakeholders and potential clients of the foundation. We call the people on this broader body the members of the foundation. The board would consist of 15 directors, all of them drawn from outside government. The first seven, that is six directors and the chairperson, would be appointed by the Government of Canada. The other eight would be appointed by that broader group known as the members of the foundation.
The board would be an executive group. It would supervise the management and services of the foundation and, subject to the foundation's bylaws, it would exercise all of its powers.
The board would need to be balanced in a number of ways. First, it would need to be balanced in terms of expertise. It would comprise directors who collectively represent the whole spectrum of sustainable technology development in Canada, public, private, academic and not for profit. Last but not least of course, the board would have balance in the geographic sense with members drawn from all regions of Canada.
The legislation requires the board to establish financial and management controls to ensure efficient execution of the foundation's business. It calls for the board to appoint an auditor and it outlines the qualifications for that role. It requires the annual report, that I mentioned earlier, to include an evaluation of results achieved by the funding of projects year by year and also cumulatively since the start of the foundation, so that we in the House, and Canadians generally, will be able to know and to track the progress that is being made. Here again the funding agreement between the government and the foundation will spell out these requirements in detail.
One last thought that I will leave with the House before I close is about the relationship between knowledge and technology on the one hand and our national well-being on the other.
In the knowledge based world in which we live, we are now well across the threshold of an era in which the winners are not only the swift and the strong but also the smart and the innovative. Nowhere is this more true than in Canada's natural resources sector, a sector in which economic and environmental imperatives converge, a sector in which the cause and effect relationship between innovation and success is clearly demonstrated.
In Canada today our resource companies are among the biggest of the big spenders on innovation. They account for 22% of all new capital investment in Canada. Of the ten most innovative Canadian industries, five are resource based. Collectively the companies in this sector are in the first ranks of being the creators and the consumers of new technology. The results are there for all to see.
The new Dow Jones sustainability group index, which was introduced about a year ago, rates major corporations around the world on their success at integrating economic, environmental and social performance. That Dow Jones sustainability group index ranks four Canadian companies at the very top of the index. Significantly, all four are resource based.
During the past two years, average productivity growth rates in our resource based industries have been two to three times higher than those of the Canadian economy overall. These are powerful facts, refuting the simplistic analysis of some, which tends to think that natural resources are only the mainstay of the so-called old economy, with a great past but little future in the new economy of tomorrow.
In Canada today, energy, mining, forestry and earth sciences account for more than 11% of our gross domestic product. That is close to $90 billion. Looking outward, they account for about $100 billion every year in Canadian exports, with a favourable trade surplus of $60 billion. Canadian resource knowledge and technology are being marketed and applied throughout the world.
In short, innovation is paying off for Canada. However, to meet challenges like climate change, to meet challenges like clean air, we must maintain and indeed accelerate our momentum in the field of science, knowledge and innovation. We must keep building our brain power and move rapidly to put new ideas into action. Our record of performance thus far is encouraging, but we need to do more, and that is what this bill is all about.
In the new millennium, Canada must become and must remain the world's smartest natural resources steward, developer, user and exporter. That means being the most high tech, the most environmentally friendly, the most socially responsible and the most productive and competitive, leading the world as a living model of sustainable development and successfully so. The legislation now before the House will help us to reach those goals, goals that I believe are worthy Canadian aspirations.
We have an enormous wealth and an enormous heritage of natural resources in our country. It is exceedingly important when it comes to developing and managing those resources, not just for the current generation but for generations of children and grandchildren yet to come, that we do so in a responsible manner, a manner that effectively balances our economic, social and environmental imperatives. The new fund proposed by the legislation will help us get there.
