International Trade committee  I couldn't tell you whether they're fairly supported. However, I'd like to point out one thing that hasn't been mentioned. According to the figures on battery production, in 2020, most of the large battery factories were located in China. Right now, we're involved in a geopolitic

International Trade committee  Can you hear me?

International Trade committee  Good afternoon, everyone. We want to thank the members of the Standing Committee on International Trade for taking the time to study how the United States' build back better plan may affect the electric vehicle, or EV, industry and its related sectors in Canada. Founded in 2006

International Trade committee  As I mentioned earlier, we have a document that we put together called “Public Procurement of Electric Vehicles, Recharging Infrastructures and Related Products/Services in Canada: An Analysis under the Rules of International Trade”. I think we'll find that very informative in th

International Trade committee  The plan is for companies to work with manufacturers to recycle batteries. There are two very important companies. One, in Ontario, is called Li-Cycle, and the other is Lithion, in Quebec. They work on recycling batteries for electric vehicles. They can recycle up to 95% of the

International Trade committee  Once we have a policy, we need a “strategy” or an “action plan”, call it what you will. We have to decide on the steps we need to take, to choose projects to tackle in a certain timeframe, and to allocate money to those projects. That is how we proceeded in the Government of Queb

International Trade committee  I wrote a book on electric vehicles. It was published two weeks ago, on the occasion of Earth Day. It is my sixth book. The reality is that electric vehicles emit fewer greenhouse gases and pollute less, wherever they are made and however the electricity needed to make them is p

International Trade committee  Actually, electric vehicles pollute less and less because the ways in which electricity is produced are greener and greener. To give you an idea, in 2009, in about half the states of the USA, 48% of Americans believed that an electric vehicle polluted less than a gas-powered vehi

International Trade committee  Thank you for talking about that. To me, it's very important. I have said it many times over the past years. Regarding critical minerals and metals, I remember the first people I heard talk about that came from the Pentagon, from the U.S. government. They said that, for national

International Trade committee  Just to make sure I understand, are you talking about the fact that because of COVID there are some problems going from the U.S. to Canada and vice versa?

International Trade committee  We have seen a bit of that. Hopefully that's just something that will be resolved over the next few months. We're all crossing our fingers, but things are starting to look better. I'm not sure I have seen or heard much of that so far, honestly. I've talked to people who build ele

International Trade committee  I think that, honestly, because of the fact that we have a lot of knowledge in Canada regarding electric mobility, whether it's for light or heavy-duty.... We have research centres. We also have the minerals and materials that the Americans need. A lot of the stuff that goes into

International Trade committee  It will absolutely help. We are already seeing the results from EMC member companies. Electric mobility is all about innovation, so to have people who are working in clean tech getting a 50% reduction in taxes will make a difference. We are seeing more and more companies being a

International Trade committee  We think the Canada Infrastructure Bank could play a role in funding some of those projects. We've seen that in Quebec with Investissement Québec. That's something we could be working on. We think Canadian banks could offer some incentives for investing in Canadian clean tech. We

International Trade committee  Yes, by turning to renewable energy and greener transportation, we are indeed talking about a major change in our approach to energy and transportation. Let me remind you that 26% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions come from oil and gas, and 25% come from transportation. Togeth