Environment committee  One of the things I would point to—and again, it's one of those things where there are several different formulas that renewable fuels regulations around the world have taken—is that we have asked the federal government, as Ms. Leslie pointed out, to increase the renewable diesel mandate from 2% to 5%, but there are also the threshold approaches for GHG reductions, which is what the Province of Alberta has implemented for its renewable fuel standard.

Environment committee  I actually think it smells kind of good—

Environment committee  It smells kind of like beer, to be honest. Also, certainly from more than 10 feet away, you couldn't smell it.

Environment committee  I'll go backwards on those. As a fuel, it is designed to work with gasoline in order to combust to create momentum in a vehicle. That's its design. It is very different from crude oil, however, in that it is biogenic. It will evaporate. It will degrade naturally. It's alcohol, so it does not have the same flammability characteristics that crude oil would have.

Environment committee  Yes, it is ridiculous, the number of things I have heard, but let me be really clear. We are partners with farmers, and farmers will feed people first. That has always been the role they have taken upon themselves as the stewards of our breadbasket. We contribute to the agricultural economy by providing them business risk management solutions for extra crops as our yields increase, and they will continue to increase, as they have consistently over the last 10 years.

Environment committee  I'm far too polite to interject. I would say to the critics of our industry, who complain about the price of food going up as a result of biofuels production, there is absolutely no evidence that supports that claim. Our industry has made note of the fact that the primary driver for food prices has always been the price of energy.

Environment committee  For waste biofuels and biochemicals, it's the first on a commercial scale.

Environment committee  I would just add one very simple point to that. As I said in my response to a previous question, these are lending mechanisms. These are providing surety to financial institutional lenders that this is going to be able to get up off the ground, and then, at a certain end point, it will absolutely be viable on its own.

Environment committee  I'll defer to Marie-Hélène because it's her innovative global leading company that made those investments and put themselves out there as the first company to do this. But you're right, and one of the reasons I am so proud to work in the industry is that we're willing to make these strategic investments for the good of both the environment and the economy.

Environment committee  Home heating oil has been exempted from the federal renewable fuel standard—

Environment committee  We vociferously disagreed with that approach. The City of New York has a 3% home heating requirement for renewable content, and their heating oil market in the City of New York is bigger than Canada's, period. We don't agree with a lot of the underpinning assumptions that went into the decision to remove home heating oil from the market, but ultimately it is a very small percentage.

Environment committee  There are some exceptions, but it really comes down to the individual obligated parties. There are some that will choose to use home heating oil because they sell a lot of it into a very specific area, and there are some that won't. That flexibility is important. We support that flexibility, but we disagreed with the exclusion.

Environment committee  But understand, if Edmonton wasn't doing this with Enerkem, they would be filling up landfill number one and then landfill number two, and on and on.

Environment committee  First of all, thank you for the question. Other jurisdictions are starting to pull away from Canada as it relates to what renewable content is required in the diesel pool. Starting on July 1 in Minnesota, in the summer months they'll be blending at 10%.

Environment committee  Yes, at 10%. Now, that has a lot to do with the soybean industry in Minnesota, but the reality is that today's automotive vehicles that are taking diesel fuel can run in the summer months on higher-content blends. In the winter, Minnesota runs at 5% all the time and has never had an issue with operability.