Western Standard - February 21, 2023


David Boudeweel Lefebvre on how Quebec may be heading toward an energy shortage

Topics
energy shortage in Quebec energy security in Quebec
Mentioned
Corey David Boudouille Lefebvre Doug Ford Gentilly
MPC Daily Market Update Feb 17, 2023 Being hit up for tips in all directions

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

187.86

Word count

2,526

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I speak with David Boudouille Lefebvre, who is the Director of Public Affairs at Bordeleau Public Affairs. He talks about the possibility of Quebec running out of power and the options they have at their disposal.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 So I'm going to speak with, and I apologize in advance, I'm probably going to slaughter your name, but I'm going to give it another crack.
00:00:06.180 David Boudouille Lefebvre with Boudouille Public Affairs.
00:00:11.080 And you speak on, well, Quebec Public Affairs?
00:00:14.740 Yes, of course. Nice to meet you, Corey. Nice to be here with your audience today.
00:00:20.020 Yes, I appreciate you coming on.
00:00:21.840 And it's in regards to a recent piece, you know, you put out, was posted on your site there about Quebec potentially running out of energy.
00:00:30.220 I mean, we've always seen Quebec as a powerhouse of hydroelectric electricity, and it seemed like it was almost an unlimited resource.
00:00:37.060 But as you describe, it sounds like in reality, they could be quite vulnerable there right now.
00:00:41.740 Yes, definitely. Interesting that you bring that up, because part of our Quebec Now newsletter is to instruct and also educate people from across the country about, you know, the main issues about Quebec.
00:00:53.980 And sometimes, you know, you find some shifts in the issues in Quebec that's interesting for other people, and this is definitely one.
00:01:00.480 You know, the news that Hydro-Quebec is thinking about refusing some industrial project because they will lack the ability to supply them is something that actually was quite surprising to a lot of Quebecers and definitely of interest to English Canada, you know, as the province moves forward.
00:01:18.920 And, you know, in fact, it's a little bit of a good news because you have a lot of industrial projects that want to develop in Quebec, but you would never have imagined that they could be short of power.
00:01:27.740 Well, yeah, and in power, I mean, it's essential for, well, the cost of living for your citizenry or any expansion of a commercial base.
00:01:36.760 I mean, if your businesses can't get a steady or affordable supply of power, they're not going to locate there.
00:01:42.200 No, exactly. And, you know, Quebec has not always had and still does not have the most favorable, I would say, corporate tax system to bring some companies in.
00:01:51.180 Like you would have Florida and Texas, for example, that would have very favorable taxation system to bring people in. 0.86
00:01:56.680 And Quebec used to be quite flush with labor, you know, but now not so much so, you know, with an unemployment rate under 4%.
00:02:05.180 You know, Ontario still has a lot of workers that they can offer at that reasonable price to businesses.
00:02:11.020 But Quebec's advantage has really always been on the hydroelectricity side, that they were able to offer very good rates to foreign companies and to people that wanted to do business,
00:02:20.600 including domestic companies from Quebec and companies from Canada.
00:02:24.540 But right now, what's in jeopardy is, you know, as the supply dwindles compared to what the demand is, well, something will have to give.
00:02:32.480 Either people will not be able to get the power or that electric power will be more expensive,
00:02:38.540 which is what we think that Quebec will have, whether it really wants it or not, to turn towards other sources of energy to put in its mix.
00:02:48.640 Because even if they want to build the hydroelectricity, then that's going to take 8 to 15 years.
00:02:53.680 Yeah, well, and something that's been a frustration for us who are more accustomed out here in Alberta with hydrocarbon-based energy sources is the knowledge.
00:03:02.460 And it was some Alberta-based companies were kind of investing, looking at there's some significant natural gas fields in Quebec
00:03:08.180 that could provide a ready amount of power in relatively short order, at least not the 8 to 10 years that it would take for a hydroelectric project.
00:03:15.740 But Quebec has now banned any more further development of any of those resources in the province anymore.
00:03:20.140 So it sort of frustrates when perhaps you're approaching an energy shortage, yet you're shutting down alternative forms of energy before they even get started.
00:03:28.500 Definitely, and I completely understand your point.
00:03:31.300 And you see Quebec has included in its mix of, you know, supply of energy over the last few years, you know, windmills, solar, biomass, biogas.
00:03:42.080 But there will come a point where just the amount of megawatts or petajoules, whatever you want to call them,
00:03:48.540 you will need at least some energy transition in the meantime while you build the dams and you try to bring more hydroelectricity to the grid.
00:03:56.840 And definitely the natural gas reserves is someplace where I think Quebec would have an interest going to.
00:04:04.000 We'll see what happens with the current government and where they want to move in.
00:04:06.720 But definitely there's a need for Quebec to bring more kind of energy in the mix.
00:04:12.300 A little bit like Alberta has also done so.
00:04:14.720 Alberta was very, very heavy in hydrocarbon.
00:04:17.200 But now you start to have some windmill, you start to have different projects.
00:04:20.560 We understand that the Quebec culture regarding energy is much different than Alberta's or even Atlantic Canada or Ontario.
00:04:27.020 But more and more jurisdictions are getting to the point where they need to have more safety of supply, bring more kind of different energy sources in the mix.
00:04:36.640 And we think Quebec is something that they will be most probably willing to explore over the next few months or years,
00:04:42.180 if only because, you know, they will want the jobs and they will want the economy growth that comes from companies that want to be established in Quebec and work.
00:04:49.860 Yeah, well, I mean, a sense of pragmatism, you know, eventually comes in when you realize that your economy might be suffering for the lack of diversity.
00:04:57.380 Something I didn't see mentioned was nuclear.
00:05:00.360 Is that a consideration of expansion?
00:05:02.120 There's the modular nuclear plants that are being developed or even conventional ones that can do reactors.
00:05:07.560 Has there been any consideration of expanding any of that in Quebec?
00:05:11.240 Good question, especially as I think Doug Ford in Ontario has been adamant that, you know, he would like to bring, you know, to continue to bring nuclear power in the mix.
00:05:21.900 Quebec basically only ever had, I think, one or two nuclear plants in the Gentilly region.
00:05:26.900 They've been shut down a few years ago, not multiple.
00:05:29.520 They've really been shut down.
00:05:31.100 So I think in terms of nuclear energy, the curve to bring it back in the mix would be very, very steep for Quebec.
00:05:38.660 It would require investment, a lot of people to work on the file and probably also, you know, Quebec basically lost its expertise in nuclear when those plants shut down.
00:05:49.940 So I would say, and I would say the volume that you would need to bring to make a difference, definitely not as interesting as renewables and what, you know, natural gas could be.
00:05:59.900 Yeah, well, and as you note in your piece is with the decarbonization, I mean, it only stands to reason then if people are moving to electric vehicles, electric heating, items like that, it's going to draw more power from the grid.
00:06:13.240 You will need more power.
00:06:15.120 There's no getting away from that.
00:06:16.580 But the solution part's difficult.
00:06:19.160 As you said, 8 to 15 years before a dam can come on, you try to propose some solutions, but what will it take to perhaps shorten those timelines?
00:06:27.080 Lobbying to the government, a change in attitude?
00:06:30.740 How can they avoid, you know, perhaps running into a wall of loss of energy security?
00:06:35.000 Well, one of the first things they could do, so maybe you signed the news that Quebec has contracted, you know, a very heavy electricity delivery contract to the United States, mainly to the state of New York.
00:06:48.020 Quebec is also working with Maine and Massachusetts to get a line to be able to supply parts of Boston.
00:06:54.020 I think probably some of those projects will have to be re-evaluated, especially as they would reduce supply and increase, you know, even more pressure on the grid.
00:07:03.560 I think Quebec needs to accelerate development of other sources of energy.
00:07:08.980 Not, I think, yes, as a transition toward building more dams, but also being able to, you know, to give a solution to people over the next three to five years.
00:07:18.820 And in terms of energy, three to five years is literally tomorrow morning.
00:07:22.480 And the other thing that the government will need to do is continue to put forward and promote programs into energy efficiency.
00:07:29.500 But these are a double-edged sword because usually those programs, you put energy efficiency on the same level of decarbonation.
00:07:37.540 Yes, but if you're more efficient, whether you use diesel or heavy fuels, well, then you will use the electricity.
00:07:44.100 So in a way, it is a quagmire and you need to reduce your energy dependency only on hydro.
00:07:50.960 And at the same time, you need to make sure that new projects are more efficient.
00:07:54.720 So definitely Quebec has quite a challenge on its hands that even just a few years ago, there's not many people that saw it coming.
00:08:02.560 Well, yeah, and as you said, Quebec has made perhaps commitments to New England area or New York for providing electrical services.
00:08:10.520 But if they reevaluate or back out on those deals, that could come with some serious repercussions as well.
00:08:16.160 I mean, those states have been dependent and expecting that power source to be coming on stream, right?
00:08:20.920 Yeah, I think the one with the state of New York, honestly, it's something that you cannot really get out with for the reason that you say that, you know, there will be some very, very heavy penalties.
00:08:30.660 But, you know, should they reconsider the one that they plan to do with Massachusetts?
00:08:35.900 Should they try to renegotiate the rates with other smaller export programs and projects that they have with the U.S.?
00:08:42.340 Definitely, I think this should be this should be on the table because otherwise, politically, there will be a price to pay if if I do Quebec needs to, I would say, increase or jack up the prices, especially for residential customers.
00:08:55.780 So that that's going to be an interesting topic. And it is something that from an energy perspective, I think that should be that should be monitored because it could it could redefine some some of the, you know, energy boundaries in the country.
00:09:09.620 And definitely, you know, Quebec has felt felt very safe with IDRO for decades. You know, they felt, well, we don't really need to engage into those big and large energy affordability and supply discussions.
00:09:22.280 Well, I think it's about time that we have the debate here also. And I think this this situation will bring the debate, whether people want to have it or not.
00:09:31.120 Well, the debates will always come in no matter how long you put them off. It's just a matter of what they're going to be on your terms by the time they get to you.
00:09:37.900 So I guess you're sort of started sounding the alarm early on this. I mean, there's still time to start perhaps changing some attitudes and direction before it potentially becomes a crisis.
00:09:46.000 Yes, no, no, exactly. And also, you know, both from a Quebec standpoint and also from a Canada standpoint, there's also the question that you always want to maintain your good reputation in front of foreign investors, financial markets.
00:10:01.760 And, you know, usually investors and markets don't like uncertainty. And you certainly want to make sure that Quebec addresses this problem before it becomes a crisis, also in order to be able to reassure those investors and people that honestly want to do open and transparent business in the province.
00:10:18.840 Well, I appreciate you bringing it up and laying it out. I hope it's been getting some appreciation in Quebec as well.
00:10:24.120 Can you tell us a little more about your public affairs company and other issues perhaps that you're following right now?
00:10:30.360 Yes. So I'm welcoming the opportunity. Basically, we set up shop at the end of 2020 because we found that there were some inefficiencies in the market that some companies, associations, especially from English Canada, didn't have the right conduit for Quebec, were not willing to go into the market because they didn't speak the language, didn't know the Quebec culture.
00:10:51.800 And honestly, I will say bluntly, it pissed me off a little bit to see a lot of very good people and very good project missing opportunities because of that.
00:10:59.920 So we said, let's build a firm that can help those English Canadian associations and companies do business in Quebec and do it the right way.
00:11:08.580 Because a lot of people tell us, Quebec is different. It's not another province. It's like being in another country, like doing business in Germany or Italy.
00:11:15.440 And I say, you're exactly right, but it's not a reason good enough not to do business in Quebec.
00:11:21.220 And, you know, I would say our business is basically 80% clients from English Canada and 20% from Quebec, but really the clients that we work with, whether it's on natural resource, financial sector, healthcare, definitely to help and provide them the services that they require to work with the government of Quebec, which is, by the way, very open to do so.
00:11:41.220 But they just need the right people to knock on the door and they need the right projects to get in.
00:11:47.120 Great. So before I let you go, where can people find your site and where your services are?
00:11:52.780 So they can find us mainly on our website at www.boudewel.com.
00:12:00.200 Just send us a line, send us a contact, and it will be our pleasure to discuss with you.
00:12:05.040 I always say, well, like a lawyer office or an accountant office, first call is always free.
00:12:09.900 Great. Okay. Well, I appreciate you coming on to talk to us today, and I really do appreciate getting a different perspective on things from that part of the country we don't communicate with or understand as clearly as we should sometimes.
00:12:20.380 So thank you. I hope things go well and we can talk to you again soon.
00:12:24.520 Much appreciated, Corey. Say hi to everybody. Thanks.
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