Environment committee  That is the challenge of everybody in the electric vehicle space right now: ensuring that we have that infrastructure. So far it's been a combination of private players, commercial operators, the utilities themselves, and governments and municipalities that are building out infrastructure.

Environment committee  We have clarity in some areas. We have clarity, for example, with respect to the price of carbon. That's one piece of the plank. What we are lacking, really, is clarity in some other specific areas. One area where we would like to see some clarity is.... We would very much like to see an articulated national strategy for electrification.

Environment committee  Thank you for your questions. The membership of the association has been engaged in those conversations about the mandates since the very beginning. We continue to engage. The process has certainly not come to a landing. There are a great many challenges as we move forward to the future.

Environment committee  Most of the challenges I'm talking about are not specific to the mandates themselves. The challenges we're attempting to address are more technical challenges that we have with the timing of upgrades to the distribution system, so from a system's standpoint, and increasingly working with customers to ensure that the kind of service the individual customers have is appropriate for what they will require.

Environment committee  I thank the member for the question. As I noted in my comments, if we're going to meet our 2050 targets and if we're going to double or triple the electricity system in this country, we will need an “all of the above” approach. Transmission, and greater regional transmission, will absolutely be required for the future, but it is not the sole solution.

Environment committee  Absolutely. It's a priority right now. Today we're having challenges with ensuring that we have a sufficient workforce for the electricity system that we have currently. The skill sets are going to change in the future. It is something that the industry is very much seized with and conscious of.

Environment committee  So it will be a bit of a slower rollout, but it is a rollout, at least with respect to the electricity system, that needs to be managed at the individual company level and within what effectively are 13 different electricity systems in this country.

Environment committee  Absolutely—

Environment committee  Thank you for that. It is about the individual consumer. When people say that it's the government paying for it or industry paying for it, what we're saying is that it's either the ratepayer or the taxpayer who is paying for it. It's not clear where all of these costs are ultimately going to fall.

Environment committee  Well, I guess the question is that the costs need to go somewhere. They will go either to the ratepayer or to the taxpayer or a combination of those two. There isn't a third pocket from which one can draw. Our principal concern at this stage with respect to the energy transition is the speed with which it's taking place, and there is an important role that the Government of Canada can play.

Environment committee  The number of days before the end of 2035—when the government has committed us to be net zero—is 4,851. It's not a lot of time. To meet the needs of tomorrow, Canada needs to start building today.

Environment committee  I thank the member for the question. It is indeed a challenging future that we're facing. There have been a number of studies that have attempted to give a sense of the scope and scale—anywhere between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion. When we're looking at doubling or tripling the electricity output in this country, that's huge, but doubling it between now and 2050 means having a 3% to 4% increase each year.

Environment committee  Yes, the challenge to meet the electrification of transportation is certainly one that will be enormous over the long term. Have there been plans that have been articulated at a national level? Not with respect to the grid itself, but certainly there have been with respect to what we understand will be the pace with which electric vehicles will be coming out.

Environment committee  Hello, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Francis Bradley and I am the president and chief executive officer of Electricity Canada. Electricity Canada is the national voice for electricity in Canada. Our members produce, transport and distribute electricity to industry, commercial and residential clients from sea to sea.

Science and Research committee  There are a lot of different projections of what the specific pathways will look like as we go out to 2050. We don't subscribe to a specific pathway as we look to the future. What we know is that the math just does not work if you take any one of them—in this instance, nuclear—off the table with respect to what the future's going to require.