Natural Resources committee  Really quickly, I'd have a look at New Zealand. In the property tax system, they virtually don't tax buildings in New Zealand. They tax land and they have unit charges for services. There is huge incentive to retrofit your building, to build it as high as you can. The federal government and Natural Resources Canada--your staff in this department are very good.

Natural Resources committee  I think we have a couple of crises. The elephant in the room that we're not talking about is the fact that we're about to lose 35% of the species on this planet between now and 2050. I would love to hear what the Government of Canada is going to do about that. Of the 20 most common bird species in North America, for example, we've lost 50% of the population within the last few years, which is way ahead of any of the estimates.

Natural Resources committee  You are very kind. Thank you.

Natural Resources committee  The Canadian Urban Institute does a lot of work in Africa, in Ethiopia and Somaliland, some with the federal government as a partner and some on our own. Those are very critical issues. The other thing I want to say--and it might be a bit controversial--is that we have existing energy architecture in this country.

Natural Resources committee  That is an excellent question. Very difficult to answer but I will try.

Natural Resources committee  Well....

Natural Resources committee  The best answer I could give you is Calgary. I think that's the best model. If the federal government told the Government of Alberta that they would fund matching dollars, but Alberta would have to follow the energy plan that they have now approved with the City of Calgary, and get the right technologies and follow the plan through to all of the savings, that would do it.

Natural Resources committee  I would agree with everything that Andrew said. The other challenge, both in the public sector and in the private sector, is that the technologies that are the most energy efficient tend to be the most expensive upfront, and one of the problems for municipal governments, which are very constrained, is that their capital budgets and their operating budgets are separate.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's asking if they've done their homework before they get the money. Do you know what I mean?

Natural Resources committee  Then I don't think you should call it an economic stimulus. A bridge across the Red River in Manitoba, which I can watch one car go across in an hour, was part of a political stimulus package. Mirabel International Airport, which does not get too many flights these days, was part of a political stimulus package.

Natural Resources committee  The intention in what people do and the results are not always the same thing. I'll give you an example from when I was mayor, because I know that best. In Winnipeg, every time there was a federal infrastructure program.... And they're not bad things. Thank God the federal government got involved in them.

Natural Resources committee  Thanks. I think when you've been mayor of a large city—I was the mayor of Winnipeg—you look at the federal government's spending capacity and you just get overwhelmed. In the last term of Parliament, federal spending increased by nearly $40 billion. That's more money than all the major municipalities in Canada have to spend annually.

Natural Resources committee  Coming back to that, if you take that model going forward, you understand the natural environment. You can do different things in Montreal or Toronto. You obviously couldn't do deep lake cooling in Edmonton, but its unique geography, the unique resource space, the population growth rates, the nature of what the industry is in a community, and the configuration of the built form--how you co-locate where people live compared to where they work--are the things that really allow you to reduce demand and to derive more efficient supply.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to participate in this on behalf of the Canadian Urban Institute. Very briefly, we are a national urban policy and research institute. We receive no direct funding from any government in Canada. We generate and raise all of our money ourselves through services and membership, and we have worked for 20 years now in the area of energy sustainability.