44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/23/23 12:10:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I must admit that when I first came here today, I did not realize that we would be discussing such an important topic, but I am glad we are. There are a number of recommendations in this report from the finance committee being concurred in at this point. I am looking forward to talking about some of the recommendations in here.
I am going to focus my conversations on two areas that I have great interest in and that are referenced in this report. The first would be with respect to electric vehicles and electrifying our grid. The second is with respect to fossil fuel subsidies and a recommendation in here that references those specifically.
In a prelude to my conversation around electric vehicles and the incentives and recommendations that are in this report, I think it is important to reflect on how far this country and developed nations have come in terms of electric vehicles and zero-emission vehicles more generally speaking.
It is worth noting that in 2017, only 1% of vehicles that were registered in Canada were considered electric vehicles. By 2019, this was at 2.9%. By 2022, in the first quarter, it was at 7.7%, and it is said to be as high as 10% now. This means that 10% of the vehicles currently being registered right now are electric vehicles.
This is very important, and I will attempt to explain why. If people are familiar with the five stages of technology adoption, they are probably familiar with the bell curve that talks about the diffusion of new technology.
Basically, the first 2.5% of people are at the front end of that bell curve. These are the innovators, the people who go out and buy things because they genuinely believe in them. They are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money, because they can often do so, to be the first people to have these new technologies.
After that, the next 13.5% are the early adopters. These are the people who buy things for the purpose of believing in the cause. They are starting to see a price point that works for their budget, so they go out and buy it.
After that, we have the early majority, at 34%. These are people who are basically buying because they have seen other people do it, and now they want to do it.
We then have the late majority. These are the people buying because they have to at this point.
At the very end, the last 15% or 16% are the laggards. These are the people who have to buy it because they have no choice other than to buy the technology that everybody else has adopted.
I bring this up because, at 10%, we are past the halfway point through the early adopters. Once we hit 15%, the threshold between the early adopters and the early majority, that is the tipping point. Once we hit that point in terms of market penetration, we will see everything start to move very quickly.
If we can say that 10% of the vehicles that are being registered in Canada right now are electric vehicles, we are only 5% away from that tipping point. Once we hit it, things will move very quickly. I think it is incumbent upon government to be prepared for this. It is coming, and it is going to happen.
We know there is an EV revolution. We know we need to revolutionize the way we produce, store and transmit electricity. That is why I was glad to see a number of recommendations in this report that specifically speak to this.
Anybody who has heard me speak in the House around this subject knows that I am very passionate about electric vehicles. I will speak to it almost any opportunity I have. It is important because we have the ability to tackle a very important problem. We have the ability, on an individual level, to tackle a very important issue, and that is climate change.
I am very proud of the fact that there are industries setting up right around my community of Kingston and the Islands. The first would be Umicore, which is actually in a neighbouring riding represented by a Conservative member in the House, the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.
Umicore is a European-based company that has chosen to come to Ontario. Great credit is due to the folks in the member's riding who were able to do the incredible work to attract this multi-billion dollar company to Hastings—Lennox and Addington. It is going to be building the largest battery-manufacturing facility for electric vehicles in North America.
It is going to be building the largest battery-manufacturing facility for electric vehicles in North America, something like $5 billion, in Hastings—Lennox and Addington just outside my riding, to the west of me.
I think this is incredible because, as we see these new technologies developing and see more and more people being interested in electric vehicles, Canada has the opportunity to be at the forefront of this. We have the opportunity to be ahead of this. We have the opportunity to export the technology once it is being developed here. It is very important. It is very important for our area, but it is also very important for the country.
There is another aspect to this. Quite often the argument about electric vehicles, when I get into discussions with people, whether through social media or in person, is, “Well, what about the mining and the lithium and all of the negative environmental impacts that go into the production of the required elements in order to make these batteries?” The ongoing narrative is that it is extremely harmful to the environment.
I am not going to stand here and try to dismiss that. I think those are valid concerns, but what I can say is that there is another industry starting to emerge in our country, another industry, located in my riding, that has one of the first plants to do this.
If we can believe this, in the northern part of Kingston, which we call, in Kingston, “north of Princess” because Princess Street is the dividing line, pretty much, for our city, there is an old industrial area. I mean “old” as in going back to the 1940s and 1950s. It was the original industrial area in Kingston, outside of the Shipyards building, which was more along the water. In this area, there is a company called Li-Cycle, which has started to recycle lithium batteries. It receives lithium batteries from throughout the country. These are end-of-life batteries for electric vehicles or batteries from vehicles that have been in accidents and have been written off.
There are actually only two facilities in Canada doing this right now, using different technologies. One is in my riding and one is on the west coast. They take these batteries and can recycle up to 97% or 98% of each battery. They can break them down into the elements in order to create brand new EV batteries.
With fossil fuels, we extract oil out of the ground, refine it and produce gasoline with which we fill up our tanks. Once they are burned, they are gone and they have created CO2, which is in the atmosphere. By contrast, once an EV battery hits its end-of-life stage, it can be transferred and broken down into the original elements to make a new battery, using 97% of that original battery. I think that is very telling about what the technologies have to offer as we move into the future.
Li-Cycle is a great success story. It is actually where the Prime Minister chose to bring the President of the European Commission when she came to visit a couple of weeks ago, to this facility in my riding, which, I should note, is now expanding because the current location is too small. The company is building a new facility, 10 times the size, still in my riding, just more on the west side of the city. I am very excited about that.
I will come to the recommendations in this report, given the prelude I have made to this point.
Recommendation 41 specifically talks about zero-emission vehicles and rebates for low- and modest-income individuals and families. This is a program, according to the report, that was based on another program from California, and I think it has great potential.
Of course, one of the barriers, especially when one goes back to the bell curve I talked about earlier, is that if someone is an innovator or an early adopter, they are paying more than the average person can for these technologies. If we can try to assist individuals to access the technology sooner, we will hit that tipping point sooner. Therefore, I am very glad to see that a recommendation is put in here that specifically tries to encourage and give access to individuals of lower or modest income, in terms of rebates, when they are looking to purchase zero-emission vehicles.
Also within recommendation 41 is a reference to “green cash for clunkers”, which I can only assume is to provide people with money that goes toward green technologies if they trade in old vehicles, which are notorious for being large emitters.
There is also a rebate suggestion, in recommendation number 41, for taxis and car-sharing services. The important thing about that is that the recommendation specifically states that these rebates should be stackable so people do not have to choose between one and the other. Again, it is really trying to help individuals and business owners, as it relates to taxis or car sharing, to penetrate into this market.
Of course, there are the educational programs, also referenced in recommendation number 41, about educating the public on zero-emission vehicles, including how to access them, what they are actually like to drive and what benefits they have for the environment.
I also noticed in here that recommendation number 178 talks about a goal of one million EV parking stalls to be installed in apartments and condos throughout Canada, which is, again, another great recommendation.
I asked my Bloc colleague earlier about Quebec's success, and the reality is that Quebec has had tremendous success in this. Quebec entered into an agreement in 2006, I believe, with California and Ontario to develop the cap-and-trade model. This incentivized electrifying the grid, put incentives into transitioning away from fossil fuels. Ontario, when Doug Ford came along, decided to get out of it. In that short period of time, since Doug Ford has been premier, the difference between Ontario and Quebec, with respect to electrifying the grid and providing car-charging stations, is like night and day.
Last summer, I drove with my wife through Quebec. It is almost impossible not to find an electric vehicle charging station once one enters the province of Quebec, because the province has been so aggressive when it comes to ensuring the infrastructure is there. The federal government needs to take the lead and tell other provinces they need to start being more like Quebec when it comes to the capacity to charge electric vehicles, because it is absolutely key if we are just about at that tipping point.
Doug Ford and the rest of the premiers are going to find themselves in a lot of trouble very shortly, once we hit that tipping point and suddenly they realize they do not have the capacity. I do not want to have to say “I told you so”, but I would like to warn them in advance that this was all foreseeable years ago. Quebec saw it and Ontario saw it; Ontario bailed and Quebec did not. Quebec is now ready for it and will be even more ready as we get toward that tipping point.
I also saw that recommendation number 179 specifically talks about EV requirements and putting them into the national building code. Why is this important? Most provinces in Canada rely on the national building code as their building codes. Some provinces, like Ontario and Quebec, have their own building codes, but they are very heavily influenced by the national building code. The recommendation would ensure that, within the national building code, we would tell contractors that, when they are building a new house, they have to put in the hard-wiring for an EV station even if it is not going to be installed now. Running a 10-gauge or eight-gauge wire, or whatever is required for that, at the construction stage is a lot cheaper than asking a homeowner to do it retroactively after their house has been built.
I live in a condo in Ottawa, which was brand new when I moved into it in 2015. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw that it did not have some capacity for electric vehicle charging within that building, as is the case in the vast majority of buildings in the downtown area of Ottawa and in other municipalities throughout this province, for that matter. We need to put it into the building code, to say that, when building a new building, builders have to at least have the infrastructure and the hardwiring in place to ensure we can deal with this when the time comes.
I also noticed that recommendation number 181 is, “Include EV charger installation or EV-readiness as part of energy efficiency programs...in older houses.” A lot of older homes in this country, especially those 40 years and older, have only 60-amp service running into them, and this cannot realistically handle what is required. Therefore, putting incentives in place to help people with older homes upgrade to 100- or 200-amp service would be beneficial in the long run when it comes to EVs.
I am very glad to see all this very important work in there regarding EVs.
I really hope that the government picks up on some of these recommendations, because I think they are very meaningful. I do not know how the committee came to them. I do not know if it was the Liberals or the Bloc or the NDP that pushed these through. My sense is that the Conservatives probably did not have a ton to do with it, with all due respect. However, I am very glad to see these in there. I certainly will reference this when I am talking to my government about these recommendations.
Finally, in the last few minutes that I have, I want to talk about recommendation 6, regarding fossil fuel subsidies, which states, “Divert subsidies from the fossil fuel sector towards the development of renewable and efficient energy sources, while supporting those most impacted by this transition.”
This is absolutely key. There is one criticism I have of my government, despite the fact that many people in the House think I am just here to be the mouthpiece of my government in the House.
Do not nod your head, Mr. Speaker; you are not supposed to have an opinion on this.
If there is one thing I am critical of, it is the speed at which we have been removing fossil fuel subsidies. I know we have been doing it. We have been doing a lot of work on it and have slowly been getting there. I understand there are always circumstances that create scenarios that make things harder to do with great haste.
However, I believe we should not be subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, full stop. That is my position on it. That has been my position on it for a number of years. That is my own personal position. I continue to make that known to those in charge on this side of the House.
Having said that, the NDP will quite often say that we have actually increased fossil fuel subsidies. I might even get a question on this. I would like to say that where we have increased money is by helping certain regions of the country deal with orphan oil wells. I know, and I do not disagree, that those who created the wells should have been responsible for dealing with them at the end of life. However, in many cases they did not.
It falls on somebody to be responsible, and in this case that somebody has to be the federal and the provincial government working together. I do not consider money being used to deal with orphan wells that have been completely abandoned to be a fossil fuel subsidy, when there is no ability to create recourse with those responsible. I consider that the right societal thing to do, regardless of who has to pay for it. If there is any way to go back and get the proper funding from those responsible for paying for it, I would be completely supportive of that. However, I will not just stand by and watch an orphan oil well sit there, and not insist we do something about it. I do not include dealing with orphan oil wells as part of a fossil fuel subsidy.
To that end, we have been moving in the right direction. I want to move faster in that direction. I see that this recommendation specifically talks about moving there quickly. It talks about using those funds specifically to support those most impacted in this transition. There are a ton of new opportunities and new technologies out there. I think the government could do very well by helping those transitioning into working in these new clean technologies. There are tremendous opportunities in the future.
I am not here to advocate, in any way, that we abandon the sectors of our country that have supported this country for so long. Rather, I am here to say we should do our part in helping them transition. This recommendation is a very good one in that regard, and it points us in the right direction.
I thank the movers of this motion for allowing me to join this very important discussion today. The good news is that I do plan to stay here for the next 10 minutes to answer any questions my colleagues have.
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Madam Speaker, I have a bit of a technical question for my hon. colleague. We are wondering how such legislation would apply, for example, to Hydro-Québec, the public utility in Quebec that generates electricity, since the legislation designates interprovincial power lines as a vital service and a vital system.
Does my hon. colleague have any idea what this could mean for Hydro-Québec, a public utility?
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