Bill No. 97, Electricity Act - 2nd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I can agree with my colleague on one thing, which is that there's a lot that not in this bill. I'm happy to speak to the amendments to the Electricity Act.

I will start by saying it sounds great. It definitely responds to many requests from the solar industry, from communities that we have heard from directly in our caucus, that we have heard at committee over the years. Virtual net metering, lifting the cap for commercial installations - those are direct recommendations from CanSIA's Nova Scotia Solar Roadmap from January 2020, which they did present to the Natural Resources and Economic Development Committee. The ability for renters to access solar energy, which the minister spoke of, reducing energy costs significantly, is absolutely a potential step forward in addressing energy poverty.

With that being said, we would like to see a more detailed strategy on eliminating energy poverty. We have tabled legislation many times in this House that would require a genuinely coordinated response to inequality and the need to transition to a green economy.

One concern that prevails when speaking about policies that promise green jobs is whether the policies are designed to actually build the capacity of local industry. Will there be procurement policies that favour local companies which may not be in the same place, and almost certainly are not in the same place, as companies from Ontario who have more ability to access that market, who may have more experience. Will they find it a significant challenge to meet other bidding requirements, like eBonding?

Program design is a particular concern after the failure of the Renewable to Retail program, which we discussed just the other day in this Chamber. That promised to break up the power monopoly and allow independent renewable retailers greater market access, but in fact didn't have a single subscriber.

In the case of another flagship renewable energy program which the minister referred to, the Nova Scotia Green Choice Program, the government has actually appointed an American company, Customer First Renewables, to administer procurement. Mr. Speaker, was there a search for a procurement company in Nova Scotia or even in Canada that could have administered this program? If we really want to address the climate crisis, if we want to green the province, we need to do that all the way through the system, not just with programs but with workforce, capacity, and procurement - the whole nine yards.

I will disagree with my colleague on consultation. I have spent lots of time in this Chamber calling for more consultation. On this, I actually don't think we need it. I think that we would, of course, like to see the regulations. We would like to know what's in them, but I think it's long past time that we need to consult on whether we respond to the climate crisis.

What we have seen with environmental legislation that comes into this House is that it sends good signals, it sounds really good, and it establishes a consultation period which either doesn't happen or never ends. That has been the case with the Sustainable Development Goals Act, and it looks like it might be the case here. That causes us concern.

When the Sustainable Development Goals Act passed in 2019, after hearing from dozens and dozens and dozens of presenters at a marathon Law Amendments Committee session, we spoke against the decision to put targets in regulations precisely because we would be going forward without goals in place in critical areas like this, like renewable energy, waste, local food, and land protection. We made every effort to amend the bill to include that. We were turned down, and nearly two and a half years later, we still don't have those targets. Public consultation has not happened, and we have seen no timeline from this government. You can't blame us for being a bit skeptical.

One timeline we do have, Mr. Speaker, is from the IPCC. In 2018, we were all put on notice that we have a decade to radically curb emissions. This government has not responded with anything approaching urgency. This bill gestures in the right direction, but with the promise of consultation and no timeline before regulations are set, we are concerned about what will actually come of it.

I sincerely look forward to hearing from stakeholders at the Law Amendment Committee and from my colleagues going forward.