SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 201

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 201 - May/29/23
Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)
  • May/29/23 4:49:18 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill S-5 
Mr. Speaker, I am inclined to ask the member if he wants to say anything else that can be clipped to use against the Conservatives in the next election, but I will just point out one of the fallacies in his comments. It is something I talk about a lot in the House. He spoke about how harmful electric vehicles are to the environment compared to standard fossil fuel-burning vehicles. The thing is, though, that the batteries for electric vehicles can be completely recycled. As a matter of fact, there is a firm in my riding that can recycle 97% of an electric vehicle battery so it can be reused in another EV. This is not going to happen in the future; this is happening right now. How can the member possibly make such an argument when a battery for an electric vehicle can continue to be recycled endlessly into the future, whereas when we burn fossil fuel, it is gone, it is burned and we have to burn more again the next time and more the time after that and the time after that?
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Context: House Hansard - 201 - May/29/23
Mr. Earl Dreeshen
  • May/29/23 4:50:26 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill S-5 
Mr. Speaker, it takes 500,000 pounds of earth to make that 1,000-pound battery, and it is not without toxicity. It is very interesting when I hear the government say how it is going to handle this. It says we have all these rare-earth minerals here in Canada, so is it not a great idea for us to use them rather than buying this technology from China? Of course, I will leave that there. Here is the issue. How can we ever expect to produce the batteries required with the rare earth minerals we have when we have a government that restricts all development? We can look at the bills that have been presented to stop oil and gas. We will have exactly the same bills to stop people from having mines in their communities, and it will go from there. We have heard this sort of thing from the members of the NDP. They are standing up for jobs, but they say not to bring any of this into their regions. That is the problem we have. As far as being able to recycle batteries goes, it is great, but to put another battery into a vehicle takes $10,000 just to get the car to a spot where the new battery can be put in it. Yes, it would be great if we could recycle it, maybe using storage banks and that type of thing, but I believe all of those things have to be thought about. That is why I said we must measure this entirely, from the first shovel to dig it up to the last shovel to cover it up. In no way am I suggesting that this is not something we should measure.
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