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37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, May 3, 2004

1535

The Chair (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.))

Mr. Michael Atkinson (President, Canadian Construction Association)

1540

Mr. Jeff Morrison (Director, Environment, Canadian Construction Association)

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde (Board Member, Canada Green Building Council, Canadian Construction Association)

1545

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Mr. Michael Atkinson

1550

Mr. John Westeinde (Chair, Research and Innovation Task Force, Canadian Construction Association)

1555

Mr. Michael Atkinson

1600

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, CPC)

1605

Mr. Michael Atkinson

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

1610

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Jeff Morrison

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)

1615

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Charles Hubbard

1620

The Chair

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.)

Mr. John Westeinde

Mr. Michael Atkinson

1625

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

1630

The Chair

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, CPC)

Mr. Jeff Morrison

1635

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Michael Atkinson

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mrs. Carol Skelton

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

1640

Mr. Jeff Morrison

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

1645

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

1650

Mr. Jeff Morrison

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jeff Morrison

The Chair

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

The Chair

Mr. Jeff Morrison

The Chair

Mr. Michael Atkinson

1655

The Chair

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

1700

Mr. Julian Reed

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde

Mr. Julian Reed

The Chair

Hon. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois—Salaberry, Lib.)

1705

The Chair

Mr. Julian Reed

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

1710

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

The Chair

Hon. Serge Marcil

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

Hon. Serge Marcil

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

NUMBER 015

3rd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, May 3, 2004

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1535)

[English]

The Chair (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good afternoon, and welcome to our committee. We're pleased to have you today.

We have your summary, which is very comprehensive. We look forward to an elaboration.

Maybe you could introduce your very interesting delegation and then perhaps provide a 10-minute or 15-minute presentation, and then we can engage in a session of questions and answers.

Mr. Atkinson is the president of the Canadian Construction Association.

I welcome you on behalf of my colleagues. The floor is yours.

Mr. Michael Atkinson (President, Canadian Construction Association): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon, everyone.

First of all, it's our pleasure to be here. We certainly welcome the opportunity to engage in a frank and consultative discussion with the committee on how the construction industry is in fact working toward the implementation of the Kyoto accord on climate change.

I will quickly introduce my colleagues.

My name is Michael Atkinson. I'm the president of the Canadian Construction Association, which is the chief staff position with the organization.

With me is Jeff Morrison, our director of environment, who is also responsible for issues related to infrastructure and the national highway system.

Also, we have the father and son combination with us today: John Westeinde--and I would like to refrain from calling him “John Senior”, for obvious reasons--who is a long-time member of our board of directors and the chair of our research and innovation task force; and Jonathan Westeinde, our current representative on the Canada Green Building Council, who in his day-to-day business is heavily involved in environmental remediation.

We're hoping that as a result of our presentation today you'll see that in fact the construction industry is a leader in all forms of environmental stewardship. We represent, in fact, 20,000 firms in the non-residential construction sector in Canada. Our members build everything except perhaps single-family dwellings. We build bridges, highways, buildings, government buildings, and so on.

Our economic contribution on an annual basis in 2003 was $130 billion. Our workforce is almost 950,000 Canadian men and women. Construction is arguably Canada's largest industrial sector.

There is a stereotype that exists with respect to our industry that we would like to dispel right at the outset--that is, that the construction industry is anti-environment and that it's a heavy, polluting, dirty, anti-sustainable industry. That is far from the truth. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, hopefully at the end of our presentation today you will see that we are leaders in environmental stewardship and good practices.

Although the focus of the hearing is on climate change, we'd like to talk a bit about some of the examples of how our industry, on a voluntary basis, is getting into leading-edge areas with respect to environmental concerns, objectives, sustainability, and so on.

Despite how large our industry is, it might be interesting to note that direct construction activity is not a large emitter of greenhouse gases. In 2002, the construction industry's emissions of carbon dioxide amounted to only 3.4 megatonnes. This represents a reduction of some 19% from 1990 levels, a reduction of almost 2% per year.

Given that emissions from construction activity are almost exclusively linked to energy use, it's also important to note the trends--and I believe the handout you have in front of you shows this in graph 1--where despite strong GDP growth in our industry since 1996, the industry's overall energy use has declined. Graph 2 shows the sources of these declines. Clearly, the construction industry is doing its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it is true that the construction industry plays an indirect role in a number of other areas that are responsible for a greater share of overall emissions. For example, Environment Canada estimates that buildings themselves contribute some 10% of Canada's overall GHG emissions.

Therefore, how our industry designs and builds those buildings in response to client demands--which includes all of you in this room, since the federal government is a major client of our industry--is where, as one would say, the rubber meets the road in determining where we're going as a country and ensuring that our building stock, our physical infrastructure environment, is in fact in tune with our overall environmental objectives as a nation. And it does raise certain other issues such as sustainable cities, cleanup of polluted urban sites, remediation of sites, and so on.

In fact, the road-building sector of our industry also plays a major role in reducing vehicular emissions by the way in which we design and build more efficient road networks.

As owners of plants that manufacture building products, however, like cement and asphalt, we also have a primary direct role in putting our plants on a more sustainable footing, and certainly that's one area where we are very proactive.

Of course, none of this can happen if we don't collectively work together, both the client side of the industry--and I'm using the federal government as an example--and we as the providers of the construction services, if we're not willing to commit to the kind of research and innovation that is needed to ensure the technologies that will achieve the very environmental objectives that we seek--indeed, technologies then that can be hailed, can be held up as international icons, as leaders that we can export, and so on.

Given the broad range of activity, what we'd like to talk about today are some of the steps our industry has already taken, some of the steps we are currently taking, and some of the steps we are going to take in the future to address the challenges of climate change and other environmental policy objectives. A summary of these steps has been included in the presentation notes.

However, before talking about those steps, let me just say that although Kyoto has been a catalyst in some industry efforts, I do want to stress that our industry would have taken these initiatives regardless of whether Kyoto was ratified.

Why? First of all, as the industry that will be doing a great deal of the retrofit and renovation work, we see sustainable development as a great business opportunity. With the need to green our buildings, to green our cities, to make sure that our institutions and our highways are much more environmentally friendly, much more sustainable, and so on, obviously we're the industry that has to make that happen. But more important, the other reason we're being so proactive in this area is that we see the pursuit of sustainability as simply the right thing to do for all Canadians.

I'd now like my colleague Mr. Morrison to talk about some of the steps we have taken in the past.

¹ (1540)

[Translation]

Mr. Jeff Morrison (Director, Environment, Canadian Construction Association): I will now quickly go over the steps we have already gone through.

CCA was and has been an active participant in discussions related to climate change and sustainable development since the federal government stated taking an interest in these issues. The extensive media and public interest in these issues starting in 2002, however, focused the attention of our industry and of our board of directors, which led to a number of immediate actions.

In early 2002, for example, our association joined the Canadian Industrial Program for Energy Conservation.

[English]

CIPEC, the Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation,

[Translation]

which is an organization within Natural Resources Canada devoted to encouraging voluntary energy reduction strategies among industry. CIPEC has been a great resource for statistics, information, and funding to help industries and companies develop energy reduction strategies.

We hope this committee will learn more about their good work.

[English]

Furthermore, in 2003 our association joined forces with national associations representing engineers, architects, and building owners to form the industry task force on green buildings. Our aim was to persuade the federal government to allocate greater resources into existing green building incentive programs.

We were very happy when the former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, announced in August 2003 an investment of $129 million in new investments under the commercial building incentive program, the energy innovators initiative, and REDI, the renewable energy deployment initiative.

At the same time, CCA was actively supporting the creation of a new outside body called the Canada Green Building Council, an organization whose mandate it has been to promote green building practices and designs in Canada.

I'd like to ask Jonathan, as a board member, to update you a bit on this exciting new organization.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde (Board Member, Canada Green Building Council, Canadian Construction Association): The Canadian Green Building Council was formed in 2002 as a result of licensing the LEED rating system that was developed in the U.S. under the U.S. Green Building Council. So I'll start there and bring you to where we're at now.

The U.S. Green Building Council is a private sector, non-profit organization formed to create a rating system to determine what is a sustainable building, and what is green development. We've had various different rating systems isolated to energy, water, and those sorts of things, but nothing that was sort of all-encompassing to say how this really checks for the whole life cycle of a building to determine whether it's a green building.

LEED stands for “leadership in energy and environment design”. In the U.S., 4% of all new construction is LEED-certified. A LEED-certified building can be anywhere from LEED-certified to LEED bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. A platinum building would essentially be off-grid, and a certified building would be a better building that was a little more energy- and water-efficient than your typical building.

The things that are considered in providing a LEED rating are both site planning and site selection that incorporates urban sites, with brownfield sites being a key consideration in smart and sustainable design; safeguards in water and water efficiency; energy efficiency and renewable energy; and various conservation materials and resources. There is also as a big focus on indoor air quality, with the determination trying to be what are the true benefits of green buildings.

A number of studies have been done now at the USGBC level that essentially demonstrate there is an annual payoff of about 20% on any increased capital costs incurred in creating green buildings. Capital costs have also been demonstrated to be minimal, to the tune of 2% to 5%.

This is where again, in the U.S., we have a great deal of statistics. A great deal of support has come from the Department of Energy to fund the U.S. Green Building Council at the time to give it legs. It is now 3,000 members strong, and has one of the largest building expos in the U.S. called the Greenbuild Conference, which attracts thousands twice a year.

The Canadian Green Building Council licensed the LEED rating system from the USGBC. We just signed the licence agreements in the summer last year. We officially had our first board election in the last two months. We have an official board in place. We've gone from zero members to 330 members in the last year and a half, representing a whole diverse group of consultants, contractors, and developers who properly represent the industry and the movements that need to take place to deliver sustainable buildings and sustainable design.

So the program has been very successful thus far. At this point we are aware that the Canadian government is also looking to adopt the LEED rating system, potentially within Public Works, to deliver a green building system. We look forward to that.

That is effectively an update on where we're at now.

¹ (1545)

Mr. Jeff Morrison: These are just some of the actions our association and our industry have completed since the post-ratification period, but a number of other initiatives have been launched that are still ongoing.

For example, through the support of CIPEC, which I mentioned earlier, we are currently assembling an energy-reduction guide for the Canadian road building sector. Once work on that guide has been completed this summer, we hope it will lead to significant reductions in energy use by the road building industry. I

We've also had ongoing discussions with Natural Resources Canada and other private sector organizations about expanding labelling systems for energy-efficient products used in the construction industry, such as the energy star system, which I'm sure you're familiar with. This expanded program would include heavy machinery, equipment, and vehicles, so contractors would know which products had the fewest greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, we've discussed briefly with Minister Efford the notion of introducing incentive grants for the purchase of this kind of equipment. Such grants exist elsewhere in various jurisdictions. These discussions are continuing, and any support this committee could give to these efforts would be appreciated.

[Translation]

In a week or so, CCA will be releasing a guide document for asphalt plant owners on how to better maintain and upgrade their plants in order to reduce various emissions.

Recently, our association has been invited to sit on a new working group brought together by Environment Canada examining how to reduce various forms of particulate matter, including GHGs, in the broader construction and demolition sector.

We have taken note of the government's move to place Infrastructure Canada under the auspices of Environment Canada and I listened with interest two weeks ago as Minister Scott informed this committee of how his department was adjusting its focus to incorporate sustainability in project selection.

This approach of using federal infrastructure monies to achieve Kyoto and other environmental objectives will require adaptations on the part of our members in terms of how they build new infrastructure—but it is a challenge that our industry has, and will continue to support.

[English]

Mr. Michael Atkinson: Perhaps we could concentrate a bit on some of the new initiatives we'll be looking at over the next couple of months.

First of all, our industry very much wants to be involved in the development of the domestic emissions trading system that is currently being designed for large industrial emitters. It is our understanding that permits under this system will need to be held only by firms that are considered to be large emitters, which excludes construction companies.

We also understand that one proposal under consideration is that non-large emitting firms may be able to claim offsets or credits for demonstrable reductions in emissions. These offsets could then be sold through the trading system to companies needing extra permits.

We urge this committee to strongly endorse the idea of non-large emitting industries, such as the construction industry, being able to sell offsets into the emissions trading system. It would provide a valuable incentive for companies to voluntarily reduce emissions, and to be able to claim some compensation for doing so.

I'd now like to turn to Mr. John Westeinde to talk about our efforts in research that are key for us, as partners in the built environment, in trying to achieve some of these environmental objectives.

John.

¹ (1550)

Mr. John Westeinde (Chair, Research and Innovation Task Force, Canadian Construction Association): Thank you, Michael.

Mr. Chairman and members, as we all know, our construction sector has great potential. But the design and construction sectors that we presently have will never be able to improve the environmental record without proper levels of research and innovation, and that's what we're all about at the present time. There are a number of bodies that conduct construction-related research, but there is not a single coordinating body that links the various stakeholders in construction research innovation.

Our industry is very much ad hoc. We have some great innovators in our industry. We've come up with some great inventions. Let me pick a couple that you all know about. The first one is the paint roller. It's not a big deal, but think how much easier it has made painting. The Robertson screwdriver is another example. There's horizontal drilling, where you can drill underneath the road or river, rather than having to separate the whole thing. Those are all Canadian inventions utilizing existing equipment and materials.

We are doing this on an ad hoc basis, rather than as a coordinated industry effort. Therefore, the CCA, along with other partners, is in the process of forming a new body to be known as the Canadian Construction Innovation Council. This new body will bring together a range of stakeholders from industry, academia, and government--the whole industry approach, so to speak--and the federal government and all its contracting branches and Industry Canada in order to discuss the research innovation priorities of our sector.

At the top of the list of issues you want this new research body to address is climate change. It is our intention to look not only at how the whole industry can change its building practices and designs to account for sustainability, but also at the broader range of considerations that may have climate change impacts. For example, we need to look at how to reduce urban sprawl and increased densification. We need to look at how a city's infrastructure and its transportation, housing, and industrial areas can relate better to one another to lessen the environmental footprint. We want to look at specific public policy options and objectives that hinder or encourage these initiatives. In short, the research and innovation agenda is big, but it's well within our industry's capabilities.

Because we think of this construction initiative as such an important one, perhaps the most important one facing us today, I'd like to spend a few more minutes putting this in perspective in a general sense, both nationally and internationally. Although our industry is the largest economic sector, we all recognize that we can and must do better to deliver our services smarter and more efficiently. In fact, our productivity, relatively speaking, is dropping, both in Canada and in an international comparison. The construction sector in Canada is one of the lowest for funding in R and D. Internationally, it ranks second from the bottom amongst the G-8 countries.

This is not just a Canadian problem. It's an international problem with the construction industry and the way the whole thing operates. Other countries have already taken the initiative to do something about this, and we're just picking up on that as well. These include the U.K., the U.S.A., Holland, the Scandinavian countries, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For example, Holland has a program called HalfTime. Its goal is to improve productivity by 50%, improve health and safety by 50%, reduce the economic environmental footprint by 50%, and improve cost predictability by 50%. In the U.K. they have a program called Movement for Innovation, M for I. Other countries have similar things to try to measure great improvements in their productivity.

Canada is trying to pick up on that. A couple of years ago we started the National Steering Committee for Innovation in Construction. Out of that has come the Canadian Construction Innovation Council. It's going to be a whole industry program, including design professionals, contractors, owners, financiers, and regulatory bodies, so that we can have a discussion around the table of all the factors influencing the industry and how we can best improve it.

It's like an industry-wide coordinated and focused innovation strategy and culture. Strategy and culture are important, not just ad hoc improvements when we have to, such as when we're faced with something on a job site one day. It's a bit like our health and safety policy. Fifty years ago health and safety was an inconvenient nuisance. Today it's at the top of our list. When we start a project, we think health and safety. We want to make sure our industry starts to think innovation right from the start, not just because we have to fix something better.

It's like a self-improvement program to improve our productivity, the quality of our deliverables, and client satisfaction; to reduce our energy footprint and embodied energy; to improve public recognition and understanding of our industry; and at the same time improve our industry's investment potential in both financial and HR terms.

¹ (1555)

While the main focus of this committee is on energy issues and Kyoto targets, the Canadian Construction Innovation Council will be like a parent organization that focuses, directs, and coordinates all the various single-issue items, such as the Kyoto target, such as the reduction in gases, such as green building constructions, etc. It will be a sustainable basis parameter, and it won't be to duplicate, it will be to coordinate, to manage, and to improve the overall...together.

Interestingly enough, just after we started the steering committee and starting thinking about a construction innovation council, a couple of years ago the federal government came out with its innovation strategy for Canada through Industry Canada. We thought this was great, and it was at the same time as we were preparing our initiative, so we made a response to that very quickly.

I have to admit we were very disappointed. It took about a year to get a response. Of course, we were going through all the political changes at that time. The response we finally had was, at best, passive. We thought it would marry so well with the government's innovation strategy.

However, recently with the reorganization and a bit more stability in government and departmental sectors, both Industry Canada and the Prime Minister have reconfirmed their commitment to an innovation strategy for Canada. So we're hopeful that this time it will work and we'll have better participation from that.

We look at the federal government as our partner in this. The federal government is the largest national and most consistent single user of our industry. Not only does it use the services, it also sets policy for our industry, so we have to be partners in this.

As a partnership, we've already started the Canadian Construction Innovation Council. We've so far invested about $250,000 in kind and in actual direct contributions, such as from the Canadian Construction Association and the National Research Council.

We're looking to move forward with this. We need about two years' worth of interim funding and about $500,000 per year for the next two years, by which time we will have totally in place a sustainable funding program, and we will have our Canadian Construction Innovation Council in place working through our industry.

It's a bit like the HRDC has cooperated with the Canadian Construction Sector Council on the labour side, where they have supported the council with about $5 million--which is much more than we're now looking for--to get that kick-started, and they now have a very active program.

In the meantime, we are already moving forward with our incorporation, our business plan, and our governance model. Any help you can give us in this regard to assist us with this, or perhaps a recommendation to Industry Canada or to Public Works and Government Services Canada, would be gratefully received, because it's that industry interim funding we need.

After we have that in place, Canada is going to be the only country that I'm aware of that has said to government, in our plan so far, our sustainable funding to move forward with this is not asked from government. The industry itself will provide us with sustainable funding. No other country in the world, as far as we're aware of, that has certain issues like this has done that. They all depend on constant funding from government.

We require two years of interim funding. After that our industry is together already. The Canadian Construction Association has already made a motion to support an industry-wide basis funding for this program.

That's basically a bit of background about where we came from and where we're going. There's a great potential to do this. Canada has such great potential as a nation, and as an industry we just need to make sure we can coordinate and pull it together, so we need a little help with that and our industry is off and running. The government, being the largest user, will also be the largest beneficiary of the benefits of this.

Thank you.

Mr. Michael Atkinson: Mr. Chair, we have one final issue we'd like to address, one that has given us some concern in some of our recent discussions with Infrastructure Canada and others, particularly with respect to those new initiatives in getting infrastructure investment down to the municipalities. It's the perception that highways, investment in our highway networks, is somehow anti-Kyoto or anti-environment.

Mr. Chairman, we want to dispel that very quickly. Given the decrepit state of the highways in Canada, as identified by provincial ministries of highways right across this country, our association has long called upon the federal and provincial governments to invest in the national highway program. We're the only developed nation in the world that does not have a strategy for our key national highways.

However, we have a number of senior government officials telling us that highways are not on the radar screen, that they do not fit well with the Kyoto strategies, they do not fit well with environmental public policy objectives. The argument goes that more highways means more cars, which means more GHGs. Instead, we're told, government needs to place more emphasis on mass transit to move people and rail to move freight. However, this kind of argument flies in the face of reality.

It's important to note that highways are an economic engine in this country. They're certainly recognized that way by our neighbours to the south. They permit goods and services to move back and forth, and in an era of just-in-time deliverables, rail simply cannot meet the transportation requirements that highways do.

Second, despite greater awareness of mass transit, and even despite fairly sharp increases in fuel prices, Statistics Canada tells us that personal vehicle use remains the transportation mode of choice for Canadians. The 2001 census revealed that over 73% of commuters drove to work. A recent update to that number earlier this year confirmed that despite high gas prices over the past year, the proportion of commuters using personal vehicles continues to rise. So although we have no problem with encouraging mass transit, we know that social engineering campaigns aimed at getting people out of their cars simply do not work, nor will they work.

On the other hand, with respect to transportation of commodities, etc., certainly all of our goods to key markets continue to go rubber-tire as the method of choice.

In conclusion, on this particular issue we have to show more clearly the link between highway investment and GHG reduction, what efficient, state-of-the-art modern highway systems can contribute to a more environmentally sound environment.

Mr. Chairman, we've touched on a number of issues in our presentation. We thank you for your indulgence in listening to what we've said. We hope we've dispelled the rumour that the construction industry, the building environment, is anti-environment. If anything, we will continue to work with our partners, and the federal government being one of our major clients, one of the major parts of the construction industry, we will continue to work with you to find practical solutions that truly achieve the environmental objectives that we seek.

Once again, thank you for the invitation to appear here today. We look forward to a robust and frank discussion.

º (1600)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Atkinson.

We have Mr. Mills, Mr. Hubbard, and Mr. Reed, so far.

Mr. Mills, the floor is yours.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I welcome you gentlemen here to talk about a pretty interesting subject.

I have a couple of comments and then a question.

First of all, I had the privilege of speaking to a homebuilders awards banquet on the weekend, and I got to talk to a lot of your colleagues and hear where they're going and how they're thinking green about what they can do.

As well, I was at a UN conference on sustainable development last week where we talked about water sanitation and urbanization. And the fact that we increase our urban population every three months by one Los Angeles is pretty astounding, when you think in terms of the population becoming urbanized and the reality that creates.

As well, we talked about the conference in Buenos Aires in December, which will talk about after Kyoto. In other words, assuming Russia doesn't ratify, what are the choices and where should we go, with an emphasis on all countries and on technology. “Technology” is the key word, as well as “innovation”, which you used in your presentation. Forget about the carbon trading and all that bureaucracy and get on with doing something for the environment seems to be the message that may be carried to Buenos Aires.

Another comment I heard was that the price of utilities would at some point in the future be greater than the price of the mortgage. When you think about that statement, the impact that has on the construction business, really on all of us, are we going to be able to deal with that problem? Because all of us here, I'm sure...electricity bills, gas bills...higher, higher, higher.

Is that a realistic statement, and are we going to be able to deal with it?

º (1605)

Mr. Michael Atkinson: First of all, in responding for the non-residential construction sector—our members don't typically build single homes—one of our interests in moving forward on a voluntary basis in a number of these objectives is to recognize that there are certain cost pressures our clients face in the industrial sector with respect to public-sector clients and institutions, etc. If one of them is energy costs, which typically has been the case over a number of the last decades, we both have to sit down as partners to find a better way to achieve that factory or that particular building, so that for the sake of the bottom line our clients, who tend to be in the business of trying to make a profit, can be more competitive, and by being more competitive hopefully increase their market share and purchase more construction.

From that perspective, what drives us in looking at innovation, in looking at research, in looking at ways to reduce energy costs to our clients down the road is to try to make them more competitive and deal with the challenges that, as you've mentioned, they're facing with utility costs, etc.

I don't know if there's another comment.

Mr. Bob Mills: Go ahead.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: This is also a quick comment on utility costs. I think this is the century we're predicting we're going to run out of many of our fossil fuels—sometime in the century. It's not a maybe. The world gas organization themselves have admitted they see the year 2070 timeframe being when we run out of natural gas.

On the flip side of that, there's a flurry of innovation happening with alternatives to fossil fuels to be used in buildings.

The challenge is that the building industry, as we've identified here, is very fragmented. There are no distinct channels to bring new technology out, and it's very hard to foster innovation. It's unlike the situation if you're developing the latest, greatest wireless chip for a wireless phone, where you're building that chip for six months and it works or doesn't work; it's not a big deal. When you start dealing with buildings, you're building things in for 20 to 50 years. It's not something many building owners are willing to go out and “pilot”, per se, without some infrastructure to help, whether it be government support or other programs that allow this innovation to happen.

Innovation and sustainability go hand in hand, but it's the structure that allows innovation to occur with shared risk in the industry that needs to happen to move forward.

Mr. Bob Mills: You mentioned “brownfields” earlier. What do you need from government in order to develop those brownfields that are in every city across Canada or North America?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: It's been great for the federal government to look at cleaning up their own lands, but it doesn't do anything for the other levels of government and privately-owned brownfields. I would say, looking to the U.S. where they have some more mature programs in place, half the battle is just putting the tools in the hands of the level of government to provide incentives. Tax-incentive financing has been one that's been very successful in the U.S. at the municipal level where, for a brownfield that essentially sits there earning no money, if the right financing is put in place it's set off against future tax revenues. There's room for some incentive to see that site developing.

Mr. Bob Mills: Insurance--obviously if I were going to develop a brownfield, I would be concerned down the road about my inability to insure that property or get adequate insurance against a potential problem I might not even be able to foresee.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: The National Round Table on the Environment put forward some recommendations last year in their report—and the biggest issue is liability: insurance and liability go hand in hand—essentially coming up with a liability structure that allows some insurance programs to come into place.

Right now, with the liability in place, yes, the risk is inherent through the chain of all owners. As a result, people would rather just sit on it than bother to take the risk of putting something on that piece of land. As a result, you end up with a dormant piece of land generating no revenues and the revenue offset. It's obvious, if you do a projection, it's much better to put a liability program in place that can cap to a certain point or limit to a certain part of the chain who is responsible and move things on.

In the U.S. you've seen, through various funding mechanisms essentially at the municipal or state level, the handover of liability of property such that it becomes a government problem, but at the same time it stops the dysfunction of those properties and lets them go forward to be revenue-generating properties.

º (1610)

Mr. Bob Mills: I went to a presentation once in Vancouver about cement and the use of fly ash and so on, which could cut greenhouse gas emissions by—I forget the figure—50% or 60%. At that point it was pretty much a trial-and-error sort of thing. They had been trying different products. I wonder now how universal that is in building construction.

I should say concrete, not cement. Concrete is the term I should be using.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: There is a program that was put in place with the support of Industry Canada called EcoSmart, which was trying to essentially foster people to push the limits, to a certain degree, on the use of fly ash in concrete. There's no doubt: a number of case studies have demonstrated the reduction of GHGs by the use of concrete.

The problem you have—and I use as an example a building we're building as a developer, where we're trying our best to use as much fly ash as we can—is what's missing. There's not enough substantive data out there to know the consequences: it's weather-related; it's time-of-year related, as far as the curability of the concrete is concerned; it's the sourcing of fly ash.

As a result, you end up having to spend a fair bit of money testing and a fair bit of time finding the knowledge out there of people who can give you the right facts in determining whether fly ash is something that's practical for you or not.

So again I would say there's no reason why fly ash shouldn't become more abundantly used, but there's key data that's missing still for your general contractors or developers.

Mr. Bob Mills: It takes longer to set, I think, doesn't it, to get to a strength?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes, the cooler the temperature the longer it takes to set. As a result, on a project such as ours where we're looking at a 10-storey building, it would have added about two weeks to the schedule. That has a cost implication. At the same time, you end up with a more durable contract and, tests would demonstrate, a stronger concrete.

Whereas in Vancouver, for example, you see fly ash as a standard, with about 10% fly ash in concrete, in Ottawa we don't really see any. Part of that is due to a lack of source of fly ash, and secondly, lack of data related to our weather conditions and the various implications on the construction cycle of using fly ash.

Mr. Bob Mills: Do you think the cost of moving fly ash or tailings, sand, or whatever is inhibiting greater use?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes. You can say you're saving GHGs, but if you have to rail or truck fly ash in from a far-away place, you're just adding again. It's a question of getting that balance as well.

Mr. Bob Mills: The tar sands have mounds of it readily available, but you don't need the concrete there.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: That's right.

Mr. Jeff Morrison: There have also been studies done trying to compare asphalt with concrete cement for use in road-building. What a number of the studies have concluded is that in the life cycle of a road, a concrete cement road will in fact reduce vehicular greenhouse gas emissions; it's more efficient for cars to drive on a cement than on an asphalt road. However, the problem is, first of all, it's more expensive to build, and governments—primarily provincial—being the principal owners of roads are rarely willing to take on that additional up-front cost. But also, the recyclable content of asphalt is a bit higher than for cement; therefore, as Jonathan was pointing out, it's a life-cycle analysis that's needed when you're looking at the greenhouse gas emission, when you actually have to compare the amount of produced greenhouse gas going into the production of asphalt versus cement with having more recyclable content in asphalt, reducing the GHG emission there. It is a bit of a balancing act.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mills.

Mr. Hubbard, please.

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. We certainly have some experts in their fields.

I'm going to talk a little and ask you questions on municipalities and energy costs.

Mr. Chair, there is a group now in this country that looks at our large ice rinks in small communities. In the past, of course, we've used artificial ice. We've used the freon gas, the tubing, and so forth that goes with it. But there's a group now out of Quebec, I understand, who are working towards a concept where, instead of having an ice surface that's brought down to the temperature to freeze ice, they're lowering the temperature of the entire building by using special insulated products and creating a natural ice within a building that is acceptable to many of our small communities, especially in minor hockey, where people don't mind going in and standing to watch a game being played and having a natural atmosphere there at about 25 or 26 or 28 degrees—just below the old freezing point.

Have you encountered much of that, and is it a prospect? These municipalities are spending tremendous amounts of money now to maintaining freon systems or the old system of tubing, and secondly, in trying to use compressors to bring artificial ice to their communities.

I see Mr. Morrison. Does he have some experience with that?

º (1615)

Mr. Jeff Morrison: To be honest, this is the first I've heard of that particular system.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: So you've never heard of it.

Mr. Jeff Morrison: I've never heard of that system, but I'd ask my colleagues to comment on that further. I think what you're really getting across, what you're really demonstrating, is why a group such as the one John's proposing under an innovation and research council is so important. Innovations like the one you've just described should be shared across this country by all municipalities, and right now there are not a lot of mechanisms to demonstrate to community groups and to the owners of these buildings--and, in this example, hockey rinks--that this is a way they could be building their buildings, a way they could be saving on energy costs. We need to showcase those more often and provide a forum for those innovations.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: With that, I understand there is a group in Quebec...and in my own constituency, in a little place called Rogersville, they are redoing their rink and there is a study being done on that method. Apparently it is quite acceptable and there are good reports that it does work and it cuts energy costs by probably more than half.

The other topic I'd like to think about--and we're thinking probably ahead of the system a little bit, Mr. Chair--is water quality. We have it as one of our topics. It was one of our colleagues, Mr. Dion, who said that in most municipalities the single biggest use of electricity and energy is for the purification process that brings potable water to their people.

In terms of construction, we think they put in probably three systems of pipes--sewer pipes, storm pipes, and water pipes. Is there anywhere in Canada where they're bringing in potable water separately from water for all other uses, which is probably where the biggest consumption of the water product is in homes and villages? Have you any experience with that?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: The problem with water, particularly in our country, is that it is one of those things that uses up both a lot of electricity and a lot of infrastructure, but it's also one of the most heavily subsidized things as far as its true cost to the point of delivery. When you are looking to innovate and save water by creating water efficiency or using different sources of water, from a private sector point of view, for example, it's one thing that gives no payback whatsoever. It's something that requires a shared incentive.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if they have piped in potable water where it is needed and then recycled grey water, where it might be used for flushing toilets and that sort of thing. The challenge you have there again is related to the innovation cycle. There have been many efforts in a few small-scale pilots where they've recycled drain water or grey water, treated it on site, and reused it for circulating back through toilets or for irrigation in such a way that they're not necessarily bringing two sources of water but reducing the amount of potable water coming on site by basically recycling as much of the grey water as you can.

But there are plumbing code issues and cost issues that most people would not delve into because there's no payback in doing these things. The code issues are that they haven't caught up with the technology as it relates to filtering, treatment, and that sort of thing, to reuse grey water.

I'll speak specifically again. We have a couple of projects where we're looking to recycle grey water, treat it, reuse it for toilet water, and reduce potable water consumption by about 50%. The code doesn't allow us to do so at this point. There's no shared risk or cost-benefit in the sense that it would be reducing infrastructure and those sorts of things. It's a very tough business case to build.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Finally, Mr. Chair, I'll make a comment on the highways.

It would appear that we're still looking at transportation using fossil fuels and creating a great amount of pollution around cities and so forth, with big trucks with 400 horsepower, 500 horsepower engines and all of that. I can't see much progress. Most things have always been transported with the rubber tire and the asphalt road. That's been a growing pattern. I really think, in terms of what you are talking about on road-building, we can reduce fuel consumption greatly by having better roads with better turns and less stopping. The examples they give us here in terms of the border crossing at Windsor, where trucks are idling three, four, and five hours waiting to cross and there are a lot of stop signs and a lot of lights and so forth....

I wouldn't be in despair. But I guess, Mr. Atkinson, you are seeing some evidence of people saying that we should move things by other methods. I'm sure this committee, too, is looking at what is sustainable over a long period of time. How long can we maintain the costs we have right now for transportation?

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

º (1620)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Reed, followed by Madam Skelton.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

You brought up the subject of building codes. Codes can be changed. It seems to me that we are on the cusp of having to change codes.

I went through an experience with a developer—this was in the 1970s—who developed a house design that was very, very energy efficient and used heat exchangers, air exchange, and so on. But because there was not a six-inch hole in the basement on one side and on the other side, it didn't pass the building code. So he cut the holes out and it passed the building code. Then he glued them back in again, and away we went.

You bring up this question of codes. With the plumbing code, we're talking about recycling. I happen to be a champion of recycling of grey water and harvesting rainwater. On my farm, I harvest rainwater. Every farm harvested its rainwater 100, 150 years ago. So there is nothing.... This ain't rocket science.

The question is, how do we get these regulations changed? What can we do to help your industry?

Mr. John Westeinde: The examples we used so far, which every one of you heard, are all examples of initiatives that are starting. Things are starting to move. There's a difference between being on the leading edge against the bleeding edge, as we all know. This is like the fly ash cement. It is being used. It's not universally available yet, but it's starting to be used. We hear much more of it today than we did five years ago.

With respect to all of those initiatives, some may not necessarily come to fruition, but most of them will. They all need some further development, some further collaboration, and these things all happen, plus a dozen others that we haven't talked about here today, for example. That's part of this whole innovation strategy.

Getting back to codes, an interesting thing that has happened in the last couple of years is we're moving now from the hard-and-fast building descriptive codes to performance-based codes. In other words, it used to say that you have to have a one-hour fire-rated partition that shall be built of studs of such a thickness, drywall of such a thickness, etc. Now the performance-based code will say between different occupancies you need a one-hour fire-rated partition. There are different ways of doing this. You don't set it. You leave it to the developer, builder, designers to pick the most effective method for that particular project to provide the one-hour performance. That's a big movement in the building-based codes, for example.

There's a lot more to go, but that's an initiative that has happened. It's going to be in place already. We are now getting more used, as builders and designers, to being able to be objective and not rigidly stick to whatever they tell us we have to build it as.

Mr. Michael Atkinson: Part of the way you can help us as a public sector owner-client of our industry is to truly partner. Both Johns have spoken to the need for this to be a partnership.

Just think of this for a minute. If you're in a position as a public sector owner, or any owner, to say “I don't want any risk; I want you to build this, and boy, oh boy, you better build it exactly the way I said, and it better be old, true, tried, and tested, none of that new fancy stuff; and it better be as cheap as possible, because I have to go and face my constituents and tell them why this building cost so much; don't you dare have it run over, etc; and by the way, 25 to 30 years from now, when this building is still standing, I'm not here anyway, so I want to make sure that the initial capital cost is as low as possible, no risk on the part of the public, etc.” If we continue to work in that kind of an environment, we'll never see any innovation.

I think that's part of the reason why our clients, and the federal government is a major one, have to be part of this innovation solution we're looking for. We both collectively can sit down and say okay, how are we going to manage the introduction of this innovation? How are we going to ensure that the codes change to allow this to happen?

When you have the owner there pounding the table saying it shall happen, it will happen. Very much as an industry, if you bring it, we will build it. You're the client. You're the people whose specifications we are building to. We're meeting your objectives, and in essence you are saying this is what we need. We need this facility, this building, for the next 25 to 30 years, etc.

That's why you very much have to be part of that solution. We can't do it without the clients at the table. I think that's why we call for the need for a council, a coordinating body, that has the owners there as well. The federal government has a major role it can play as the leading edge on this. Certainly departments like Infrastructure Canada, while they aren't actually doing the projects, are going to quickly become probably the source for some needed resource material, research, etc., for municipal and other levels of government that are getting involved in those projects. So the federal government has a major role as a client and also as a best practice as people who couldn't get involved in doing this.

In answer to your question, the client very much has a major role to play in ensuring that the risk allocation on that project is proper; that the particular party who has the risk is in the best position to manage it, etc., and to look long-term at the life of a project, not just at the initial capital cost, which has always been a problem in trying to introduce innovations that give you the cost benefit down the road.

º (1625)

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: I'll just finish on that quickly.

I think the main thing missing right now is the allowance of measured exceptions to the rule to create new rules, and that can be at municipal, provincial, and federal levels. As an example, dual flush toilets, which make perfect sense, aren't allowed into commercial buildings because everything's too short right now. That makes no sense at all, and that's the code, as opposed to, okay, well let's make a measured exception to that rule in, for example, a government building to determine it's really not an issue and make a new rule. Otherwise we're stagnant, and we're waiting for a wide sweep of things to happen that don't happen overnight.

We've been dealing with this a lot at the municipal level, essentially creating a pilot team within the planning and development area to say okay, here's the direction we want to go in; let's do a few exceptions here and test them and change our rules that way.

Mr. Julian Reed: I don't know how much time I have left, Mr. Chairman, but I would just like to touch on a couple of other things.

One is the concern with urban sprawl that was mentioned. Boy, I'm it. I'm in the fastest-urbanizing area in Canada right now, out west of Toronto. If you want to see urban sprawl, I've got news for you: you drive down one road, and three days later you don't know where you are. But a lot of the planning done by municipalities, some of which was not bad, has been thwarted by the Ontario Municipal Board.

Where Halton had areas where industry and residential were together, where there wouldn't be this great migration every day into downtown Toronto....

I take public transit, incidentally. That's my little thing. But when I went out to catch my bus to come here this morning, in the little rural village of Norville, the road was plugged with traffic from 6 o'clock in the morning to about 9:30 in the morning, all the way down into the Credit River valley and up to the lights. I blame that on the thwarting of planning, the knife that was shoved into what was perhaps not the worst kind of planning you could imagine.

I suppose that maybe your industry has to tackle municipal councillors, and so on, or maybe lobby to have the Ontario Municipal Board's wings seriously clipped in this case.

Some of that started out with the best of intentions, but it has largely been destroyed. I would say the same thing for greenbelt preservation as well, out in our area.

I want to say how much I agree with the business of not limiting emission trading to large-emitting firms. If there's a way of formulating or getting the formula for what constitutes tonnage on emission savings, then emission trading should apply to every endeavour, in my view. It should not be limited to larger emitters. So that's something I'll keep active in my mind.

You talk about highways and the importance of highways and so on. I don't want to seem to be negative here, but I happen to be a strong supporter of rail and public transit, and there are cities in the United States now that have centred their industrial development around public transit, and they provide it free. I don't think we need to, because public transit is cheap, cheap, cheap. I don't like spending 20 bucks to park my car, if I go into Toronto.

But I can tell you that I do believe sincerely that there is a future for public transit, in spite of the fact that people have embraced and continued to embrace SUVs, etc., etc. There will be a tipping point, and we don't know where it will be, but we talked about gas availability. The gas industry has come to me and red-flagged supply as well. With the increases in Asian oil consumption, we know that the price of gas ain't going down, but it's going up.

You talk about just-in-time delivery and how difficult it is to do that without trucks. I can tell you that Daimler-Chrysler has figured it out, and they're using rail now for just-in-time delivery.

So if one puts one's innovative head into gear, some of these things can happen. In spite of the public desire for driving a nice car, etc., and getting into line in the village of Norville at six or seven o'clock in the morning, I believe there will come this tipping point when more and more people will decide that, “Hey, it's a pain in the neck to drive my car into Toronto five days a week and to pay twenty bucks when I get down to the end to park it”. I say that to try to put a little balance on the thing.

º (1630)

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Reed.

Madam Skelton, s'il vous plaît.

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, CPC): As a person who comes from rural Saskatchewan and needs the highway infrastructure, thank you, gentlemen.

We all have a different perception of our Canada. I would like to ask if the CCA was consulted on the climate change plan for Canada. Was your organization consulted?

Mr. Jeff Morrison: After the initial draft of the document in 1997, CCA was invited to several round-table sessions. We were asked for input in what I would call the immediate pre-ratification period, the year 2002. There was very little consultation in which we were asked to take part in what I would call the immediate post-ratification period.

I believe we've been seen as being more proactive, perhaps, than other associations, in that we've sought consultations and we've sought to have input with Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada on some of the specific measures vis-à-vis Kyoto.

For example, Mr. Reed alluded to the commission's domestic trading program, where we do see a role for our industry to play. In fact, having non-large-emitting industries within that system is, I think, very important for a number of reasons, one of which is that by having these companies and sectors take part, it reduces the need for sectors to go to foreign sources. If you have more permits to sell on a domestic basis, you don't need to go to Russia to buy hot air, as the saying goes.

We've had to do it on a very proactive basis. Therefore, no, we haven't been approached in a post-ratification period as much as we'd like.

º (1635)

Mrs. Carol Skelton: You said you've reduced your emissions by 2% or more a year?

Mr. Michael Atkinson: It's approximately 2%.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: It's approximately 2% per year. How does that compare to other industries?

Mr. Jeff Morrison: As members of CIPEC, the Canadian Industrial Program for Energy Conservation, they are the ones who put these stats together for us. For the mining, manufacturing, and construction sectors, the results are somewhat comparable. Those sectors have seen overall carbon dioxide and energy intensity reductions since 1990. However, in the energy production sector, upstream oil and gas, for example, there has not been a reduction. Various reasons have been determined for that.

However, the latest CIPEC report will be coming out in the next few weeks. It will go sector by sector to identify the trends and reasons for certain energy reductions or energy increases that have happened. I'd encourage you to look out for the report. You'll be sent a copy.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Are you happy with the 2% reduction?

Mr. Jeff Morrison: Five years ago, CIPEC set a goal for its various industry sectors of a 1% per year reduction. It was deemed that it could be done, but it was deemed that it would require work. With an almost 2% reduction as an industry, we are very pleased, and some of the other industries are very pleased, but I think the energy production sector has to go further.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Jonathan, you mentioned that the Canada Green Building Council has over 300 members. Are those members from right across Canada? What sectors are they from?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes. I'll pull up a chart that I have of the membership rate. Basically, it's a national organization with good representation across the country, and most sectors are represented very strongly. Primarily, architects, engineers, and that type of sector make up the largest part.

What's missing, I guess, and what is a critical element that really makes change happen, are financial sectors putting the financial mechanisms in place to finance these buildings differently and look at the actual operating costs of buildings, versus capital costs and life-cycle costs, to move things forward.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: How have the provincial governments reacted to this?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Across the country, you see much stronger support in B.C. and Alberta than we've seen here. The Province of B.C. has actually been the first to mandate LEED as a rating system for all new provincial facilities. The City of Vancouver and the City of Calgary have done the same. In central and eastern Canada, you've seen very little recognition and very little activity happen. It's something, obviously, we're seeking to lobby and make more of an impression to get more involvement.

At the federal level, also, there has been some slow progress. We're looking for some positive announcements to be coming soon, but it seems to be going in the right direction.

Again, the Province of B.C., primarily, saw it from an economic benefit point of view, as well. If they're leading the way in demonstrating the benefits of sustainability, they're also going to see some dollars and some economic benefits for being leaders in the field. They have been particularly proactive in that way, less, though, than you've seen in other provinces.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: I have one further question. I used to sit on the board of the Saskatchewan Research Council, and I was very interested to hear that the National Research Council is giving you some funding. May I ask how much that is? Did they give you a substantial amount?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Are you talking about the Canada Green Building Council?

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Well, it was the national...innovation research council.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: The National Research Council started this a couple of years ago and is funding it on a declining basis, which we'll know about again in about two years. The funding was not large; I think it started off at about $25,000 a year and is down to about $10,000 or $15,000 a year now--plus they also provide the secretariat services.

As I say, the game plan is similar. The Canadian Construction Association has put in $10,000 a year. None of these are large amounts; it's primarily been a volunteer organization. We're now at the point where we're looking at engaging a full-time executive director. We're raising some more funds from the industry as well as from demonstration projects that have some benefit, for example, to Industry Canada or to Public Works. Hence the requests for interim funding as well, to really get this thing set up and rolling.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Skelton.

Madam Neville, please.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You've alluded to much of it already, but I'm really interested in this. You've identified a number of planned initiatives here. Some of them overlap and some of them are stand-alone issues. Where are you on these new initiatives you're looking at? Are you working in cooperation with government or with other sector councils?

You say you're not in the home-building business, but you're looking at working with the Home Builders' Association. You're talking about urban redevelopment. How is it all coming together in terms of moving your agenda forward?

º (1640)

Mr. Jeff Morrison: I think that, as a somewhat smaller association, we're always limited by our resources and how many staff people we can devote to some of these projects. Luckily, we have a very active and somewhat large board who of course can take on some of these.

First of all, our board of directors and the industry have provided the leadership, have provided us with the support to ensure that some of these initiatives get pushed forward. On some of these initiatives we're just at the discussion stage. On the notion of ensuring that construction companies can take part in a domestic emissions trading program, for example, we are where the federal government is, which is at a fairly early stage in the development process.

On some of these other issues, the energy reduction guide for road builders, for example, we've moved fairly quickly. We'll probably have something finalized by this summer.

As an association, you're always bound by the resources you have, but I think the commitment is there, the leadership is there, and the support is there. We do intend to see some of these through to completion.

Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: On the Canadian Construction Innovation Council, for example, in a more general sense it's broadly represented with owners, developers, contractors, architects, engineers, and strong government representation, particularly the public works department of the federal government. So that's all moving forward as well. There we're actually looking for a sort of coordinated, focused connection with the various contracting departments of the federal government. There are about eight or nine different contracting departments, all of which in some way do their own thing.

With respect to innovation participation, we'd like to see if that can be internally coordinated for us to have a single voice, with the government and industry speaking with a single voice. The representation is all there, and it's proceeding on this basis.

Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Neville.

I have three questions, and one has to do with this very promising Canada Green Building Council. Can you tell us what the council plans to do in the next five or ten years?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Well, the Canada Green Building Council's primary mandate is to administer the LEED rating system, as well as to train and basically certify as many professionals to be LEED-certified professionals. This means the education and knowledge will be out there for us to deliver more LEED buildings.

The Chair: What's your definition of a green building?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: I can tell you from our slide show what we have. Our vision is to transform the built environment to contribute to a more sustainable future. Our vision, our definition of a green building, has five key aspects, which are sustainable site planning, safeguarding water and water efficiency, energy efficiency and renewable energy, conservation materials, and indoor environmental quality. That's the specific building.

Beyond that, it is basically building buildings that provide a better benefit to the community through smarter development, and that's where you get into more details on these points. But it's about smart intensification; it's about mixed-use buildings that deliver multi-purpose centres that create a better sense of community.

The Chair: Are these criteria to become part of a national system for construction?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: You're asking if we would like to do that?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes, that would be very much something we'd seek to do. This is where the U.S. Green Building Council has worked very proactively with the U.S. government in the sense of having various departments lead by example in demonstrating both what a green building is and....

The key thing is a measurement of what the benefits of green buildings are and then to see that ripple into more private sector development and that sort of thing once the benefits have been communicated. That's something we're actively seeking to do, and I think what is being mirrored here by the Canadian Construction Association is the desire to see the government act as a partner to clearly pilot the initiative and demonstrate the benefits of sustainable development.

º (1645)

The Chair: Have you submitted a set of green standards for construction to the federal government or a provincial government?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: The LEED rating system itself is a set of standards that are point-rated. You get certain degrees of points, depending on how successful you are--for example, if you choose a brownfield site versus a greenfield site, whether you're close to transit or not, whether you're using fly ash concrete or not, what your energy efficiency is, and what your water efficiency is. That's a very well-developed, standard matrix.

We have been working primarily with Natural Resources Canada. We've been trying to mirror--we're not duplicating CBIP ratings and those sorts of things--the LEED ratings so the outcome is the same, versus creating two separate systems that are essentially competing against each other. There has been some work there, and the LEED standards themselves have been fairly well communicated and distributed, but we still continue to work with the various departments to find that right level of support.

The Chair: Can you repeat those five categories you mentioned in your presentation leading up to the platinum level? Can you elaborate on that?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: There's LEED certified.

The Chair: LEED?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes, LEED being leadership in energy and environmental design, which is the rating system. There's LEED certified, LEED bronze, LEED silver, LEED gold, and LEED platinum. Basically, you have a series of points from zero to 53, I believe, and your rating depends on how many points you get. Your points vary depending on, again, your site selection, the various attributes of the site in the sense of brownfield versus greenfield, location and transit, infrastructure use, and that type of thing, through to the materials being used to construct the buildings in the sense of their life cycle analysis and the amount of GHGs that would be emitted by these materials.

In the construction process itself there's the waste management process put in place. Are you diverting 10% versus 90% of your waste during the construction process? Regarding the air quality during the construction process, are you cleaning up the air before occupants move in to provide a healthier environment?

With all those elements you can have different degrees of excellence. To get a higher rating, you go through to the ongoing operation of the building and the level of water efficiency, water recycling, energy efficiency, renewable energy use, and provision for alternate transport. For example, there are points there if you provide for alternate fuel cars such as hybrid cars or electric cars. Again, car share programs provide points.

It goes through to the finishing materials you use. For example, a bamboo wood floor that has a seven-year life cycle versus a hardwood floor would gain you more points, as would the use of low-VOC paints and sealants and those sorts of things that provide much better air quality. All those provide you with a greater number of points.

This all goes through to the ongoing operation of the building, and this is one of the things that is often missing when you develop green standards--that is, commissioning after the fact to make sure what you've designed is actually delivered. Also, if you do go back and commission to verify your systems, that brings you more points by ensuring you are delivering on your design.

I've missed a few things there, I'm sure, but it's basically about the degree of excellence you attain in all those various categories, taking you from certified to platinum. Platinum, at the end of the day, is essentially something that is off the grid; it involves completely harvesting and reusing as much water on site as possible, using as little potable water as possible, and using as much recycled building material as possible; it's that type of thing. Also, ideally, it's on a brownfield site. Those sorts of attributes will get you to that platinum level.

The Chair: So in a perfect world--which doesn't exist, of course--would you like to aim to have in Canada, 30 years from now, 100% platinum buildings?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: That would be an ideal goal. To achieve platinum is really a case of having the right infrastructure in place to create it.

Platinum is about really, truly innovating and getting what is cost-ineffective today to be cost-effective. You're seeing that happen in the solar industry and other key industries where some of those alternatives can come from. But we're still missing right now that infrastructure to properly do the research, to properly do the measurement, and to see how we can get to the cost-efficiencies to make platinum a reality on a large scale.

º (1650)

Mr. Jeff Morrison: Mr. Chair, we--

The Chair: In a second, but let me finish with Mr. Westeinde.

What is the response of provincial governments so far?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Again, there are different degrees.

The Province of B.C. has been quite proactive, to the point where they've actually delivered a sustainable charter for the province. Pretty much every other province has mixed signals at best, and not a lot of coordination, and--I'm speaking generally here--you're not necessarily seeing as concerted an effort.

There's lots happening in the various departments, but again, not a united front to know exactly where to go to achieve your goals.

The Chair: Mr. Morrison, please.

Mr. Jeff Morrison: I just want to add that we spoke earlier about how the federal government, as perhaps the biggest property owner in the country, can take leadership in some of these areas. LEED is a perfect example. A few weeks ago, Minister Owen, on behalf of Public Works and Government Services Canada, announced that all new federal buildings under PWGSC must meet I believe it was at least a silver rating under LEED. That's a great example of how the federal government as an owner can move forward some of these changes, and if they were to do it in other areas, then we could really move this agenda forward.

The Chair: Definitely. You're quite right. But there is a broader picture, and the provinces can play a major role, and the municipalities too.

Are you planning to launch a public information campaign?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes, we've done that, and again, we're basically trying to garner support to broaden our resources.

Right now, we are pretty much entirely funded by our private members, so we're trying to garner as much support as we can to build a broader campaign and get greater recognition. But yes, absolutely, we're trying to get out as broadly and as loudly as we can.

The Chair: Thank you.

My next question is probably to Mr. Morrison. Why do you use energy intensity and not percentage reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?

Mr. Jeff Morrison: It's because, of course, we understand that the greater the level of economic activity within a sector, there is a corresponding increase in energy use. That's certainly true in the construction industry.

So what we want to show is how in fact--and this is what energy intensity does, as opposed to pure energy use--despite growth, despite the level in actual industrial activity taking place, energy use was still on the decline. We use energy intensity to do that, but even as a whole--in other words, taking out the increase in GDP growth itself--we are still seeing overall energy reductions, and for that we're very happy.

The Chair: Finally, following up on a question by Mr. Reed earlier, why, in your second-last bullet, on planned initiatives, would you not see merits in expanding the scope of your consultant to include better-funded subways, rather than limiting yourself to highways? You seem to sound hostile to the subway.

Mr. Michael Atkinson: Well, number one, in talking to this committee and other federal government departments, we see a role for the federal government in the stewardship of our national highway system, as identified by ministers of transport at all the levels.

It was the federal government that initially passed the Trans-Canada Highway Act, which initially built, with the provinces, the Trans-Canada Highway.

Our concern with respect to highways is that highway system. It's not building roads for the sake of building roads; it's the fact that we have an extremely significant and important infrastructure asset that we have not been maintaining, that we have not been planning. We don't know six months out what we're going to be doing with our national highway system.

With all due respect, this country, because of its size, was built on the promise of a railway from one coast to the other coast. As far as a national system in linking the country east to west is concerned, the railways have gone into other roles. We have a national highway system, which typically has been the way we've moved people and goods across this country, that is in an absolute state of disrepair. That's not according to us, but according to ministers of transport at various levels of government who have identified the need in study after the study. There's a plan sitting somewhere in this building on a shelf gathering dust that says here's what we have to do.

So that's why we're not against improving public transit, particularly in the cities. We're not against looking at alternate or integrated modes of transportation. We don't want our senior government to forget about the importance of that particular national heritage, that particular national asset that we have in our highways.

I'm repeating myself, but I think it's worth repeating. We are the only developed nation in the world that doesn't have a national highway policy. Forget about how much money we're investing. Where's the plan?

º (1655)

The Chair: Well, it's reassuring, but we're saying that because a better and expanded network of subways would benefit considerably your sector as well, therefore a recognition of subways in your planned initiatives might not harm.

Mr. Reed has a question, I believe.

Mr. Julian Reed: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will go back to this business of the codes and the regulations and so on that your industry faces. When you're talking about the various levels of green building, how is that accepted by the regulators, the bureaucrats?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Generally, because as a day job this is what we do, in fighting through this from a development point of view.... It's not accepted well, because no one wants to have the finger pointed at them for breaking the rules. There's not a culture, I guess, of trying to move the target versus just making sure we don't get in trouble by not meeting the code.

Mr. Julian Reed: Taking the green concept, does it also apply to residential dwellings?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Yes, the Canadian Green Building Council itself is both residential and commercial.

Mr. Julian Reed: Are you in any communication with the municipality of Milton in Ontario, which is planning the ecotech village?

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: I've personally had some discussions with them, and I'm not sure at what level the Canadian Green Building Council has talked to them as yet.

Mr. Julian Reed: Even though I'm retiring from public life at the end of this term, I will be following that project with great interest, because I feel it could establish parameters for development all over Canada if it is done in the way we hope it will be done, in the platinum mode.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Across North America there are plenty of case studies to demonstrate the value, the economic benefit, the social benefits of doing green buildings. What's missing, to a certain degree, is a proper documentation such that when I, the City of Milton, wants to go ahead with an effort like this, where can I go to clearly see what was done before to look at the metrics? That's just a challenge of geography and proper measures. What are you measuring, exactly? That's what LEED is able to do, to a certain degree, but that's also where, again, some of the greatest benefits have come out--from just properly detailing the outcomes of some joint efforts, some government-private-public partnerships.

As a follow-up to one of the chairman's questions, as well, our goal would be to have enough of these happen such that what is a LEED platinum building today becomes perhaps a LEED certified building 30 years from now, and LEED platinum is that much further ahead. But you need to have that cycle of innovation to let that happen.

Mr. Julian Reed: But somebody imagines during this process that they are taking risk.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: It's great to see the City of Milton and in certain cases the City of Vancouver and other municipalities take this on.

The biggest problem is a disconnection of benefit and incentives, in the sense that if you build a building that, for example, has half the impact on municipal infrastructure, the owner is not really getting the direct benefit or incentive for those savings, yet there's nothing coming, at this point, from the municipality in a structured way to incent those kinds of things to happen. At the end of the day, the municipalities or the various levels of government that pay for the infrastructure are seeing great benefit as well by virtue of just having less tax on that infrastructure.

» (1700)

Mr. Julian Reed: I saw a process happen in Milton that was very disconcerting where any innovation in terms of water use was not implemented. The decision was made to do the old 1906 technology, put a pipe into Lake Ontario and put a sewer pipe back in. It was a totally unnecessary exercise, in my view, if water conservation had been applied.

In the town of Georgetown, less than a mile from my farm, there's a car wash. It says “we use fresh water only”. It just shows you where the mindset is at the present time. So you have a long way to go, but I think we'll do everything we can to try to help it along.

Mr. Jonathan Westeinde: Again, we've done a fairly extensive case study for grey water reuse in one of our own buildings where we're trying to recycle--for toilets and that sort of thing. Then there are the regulatory hurdles you have to get through, first of all, to be able to do it, even though the treatment facility is there.

Again, it really comes down to the fact that water, particularly, is subsidized to the point that there's no way you can develop a positive payback on water, the way it's currently charged and delivered, by recycling and treating.

Mr. Julian Reed: Thank you.

The Chair: I ask the remaining members of the committee to stay a few minutes after the conclusion of this hearing so as to allow our colleague, the parliamentary secretary, to make a brief presentation.

We thank you very much, and we congratulate you on the almost 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the last decade. We hope you will be able to keep up the faith and continue the reductions, despite the expansion of your industry. We wish you well. Thank you for coming.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcil, you have the floor.

Hon. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois—Salaberry, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I arranged to have the document distributed that deals, precisely, with birds oiled at sea. The issue is getting worse every year and involves more and more ships sailing along the Canadian coastline. Off the Newfoundland area alone, the annual mortality rate is estimated at 300,000 birds. If you add to that number estimates for the Pacific Coast—both the Atlantic and the Pacific Coast are affected—this issue is an increasing source of concern.

Currently, there is legislation: the Canada Shipping Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, but they lack the enforcement provisions to allow for more severe punishment of polluters.

The Environment Department has reviewed the situation and expects to take action, probably with a bill to be tabled shortly.

My aim today is to make you aware of the issue and ask if you would be interested in getting a briefing on the topic. Officials from Mr. Anderson's office are willing to meet you in your offices or even here if necessary to educate you on an increasingly pressing problem.

We intend to act quickly on this issue. So, Mr. Chair, a legislative measure may be tabled in the coming weeks to remedy the situation, to get the enforcement powers necessary to search the ships, redirect them to Canadian ports, increase fines, and so forth.

If you want to look at it, this is what this document is about. If at the next meeting or this week you are interested in meeting people to get more information, please get in touch with my office or Mr. Anderson's office, either with Mr. Boutet, his assistant, or Ms. Josée Morin, another of Mr. Anderson's assistants. It will be a pleasure for us to meet you and provide you with more information on the issue.

» (1705)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Marcil.

Before giving the floor to my colleagues, I would like to tell you it seems to me to be a very good idea. If you want to take advantage of the fact that there are no witnesses scheduled for Wednesday afternoon since the Minister of Natural Resources has postponed his visit, this would give us an opportunity to have a briefing on the topic.

I think Mr. Reed would like to add something.

[English]

Mr. Julian Reed: I want to thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's an excellent idea.

We should take a look to make sure that this legislation is going to be strong enough to do what has to be done, obviously. I also wonder whether, from our perspective as a committee, from the east coast perspective at least, we could somehow work out a plan where we can empower the International Joint Commission as well. There is a lot of dumping in the Great Lakes too. These ships will dump at sea, depending on what their ballast situation is. There are answers to this problem that, yes, it's going to cost a little money to pump out a ship into the ballast of another one to hold it while the ship is loaded, and so on. But with the type of contamination that we're getting, not only offshore but also in the Great Lakes, and the introduction of foreign species and so on, when do we reach the tipping point? We must be close to a critical situation now. I think this is bigger than even the ocean component.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Mills. At last we have one rare case when the official opposition is not given a briefing at the last moment or even when it is already too late.

Mr. Bob Mills: As the chairman knows, I've been working on this for a couple of years, and have studied the U.S. laws, and the fines that are there. They start at about $1 million, and go up from there, with seizures of ships, and immediate fines. Here we have a most recent example of the Olga, where they were actually charged, where the crew was charged but let go back to Norway, where the ship was let go and set sail and then declared bankruptcy. They were fined the highest fine we have ever fined anybody, $125,000, but we didn't collect it because of the bankruptcy. The sailors refused to return to Canada, so we dropped it.

I forget the name of the ship, but last year we had another case where Environment laid charges, Transport got involved, and Justice got involved. The three departments ended up fighting with each other so much that the ship finally set sail with no fines being levied.

It's pretty obvious that if it costs $30,000 to empty the ballast oil of a ship into a proper recycling facility, but if you dump it out at sea the maximum fines have been in the $20,000 range, you are much better off to just dump it at sea, because nobody is going to catch you, and if they do catch you, they are not going to lay charges. Just don't go into U.S. waters, because it is $1 million, they seize your ship, and they lay fines. It's pretty obvious what kind of legislation we need. Just go to the U.S., look at their legislation, impose it, and it works.

We don't need a lot of studies; let's just make it, as Mr. Reed said, tough. Let's follow our neighbours, because it's the same water, and let's enforce it. You can do it by satellite, it's easy to do, and detect it. Let's get one jurisdiction. Don't have Environment, Justice, and Transport all fighting with each other, because as they're busy fighting the culprit leaves town. That has happened too often. Even in a case of CSL, which was fined $30,000, and I believe they paid their fine, it was a long, drawn-out battle, with court fights, and it cost a fortune to collect the $30,000.

I don't know how much briefing we need. It's a problem. There are a million birds killed. I did a thing with CBC; we walked the coast, and you pick up dead birds everywhere. It's just disgusting.

» (1710)

The Chair: You make a number of very important points. It may be that the committee does not need a briefing, but the officials who are preparing the legislation may want to hear the official opposition's stand on this. Your support could go a long way to making it a stronger bill, whereas not knowing the position of the official opposition usually leads to weaker or less strong legislation.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's our position.

The Chair: That would be very helpful.

So, Mr. Marcil, if you want to appear on Wednesday with your officials and make a presentation so that Mr. Mills can be heard by the officials of the CWS and others--

[Translation]

Hon. Serge Marcil: So there is an agreement for Wednesday. We can take one hour. We will invite officials to come and explain their intentions to us. At that time, we'll have an opportunity to discuss matters with them.

The Chair: At the same time, we can hear Mr. Mills.

[English]

Mr. Bob Mills: Mr. Chair, I have a problem. Because the meeting was cancelled, I accepted a speaking engagement.

The Chair: You can cancel the speaking engagement. This is more important. Legislation comes first. It's a unique opportunity for them to hear you.

Mr. Bob Mills: They've already heard me. I've already talked to them.

The Chair: The election will be full of speaking engagements.

Mr. Bob Mills: We've done that before.

[Translation]

Hon. Serge Marcil: To offset the democratic deficit, since parliamentarians are given a say beforehand.

[English]

The Chair: You can ask a colleague to make the points that you just made. They're on the record. Maybe you could add some other points.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.