Environment Committee on May 2nd, 2024

[Kimberley Leach, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Yes, we have seen that information before. This information is just an overview of how the model works and is not necessarily the result of any particular modelling run, but we've seen that before, yes.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Did it have “draft” written all over top of it?

[Kimberley Leach]

I don't believe so, but it was dated January 2021.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Haven't you seen the real interactive model?

[Kimberley Leach]

We've seen some information. We did an audit last November and tabled that on the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. Yes, we had seen some information, but, no, we have not seen all of the information run through all of the model.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Did the government approve any funding through their $8-billion fund before knowing exactly how many emissions were supposed to be reduced?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Really, for $8 billion...?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

The majority of the contribution agreements do not have a commitment for reductions; five of them do.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

How do you get to a target?

Do you believe that this government is fully transparent with their emissions reporting data?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Be brief, Commissioner, please.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

No, it's not fully transparent.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go to Ms. Taylor Roy.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the commissioner for being here again and for the reports you've done. I think it's very important for us to be looking at how we are doing in meeting our ambitious goals.

There are so many different aspects of this.

Just this last week I was at the Carpenters Union, and I looked at a lot of displays on wood, of course, and how eco-friendly it is. I was wondering if you could tell me how the government is encouraging the adoption of eco-friendly construction materials in public infrastructure projects.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Our “Report 2: Greening of Building Materials and Public Infrastructure”, notes that government has been slow in promoting and considering the use of low-carbon construction materials. I would say that it's furthest ahead only with respect to ready-mix concrete. That's in the standards on embodied carbon in construction that was produced in 2022. Our view is that the next carbon-intensive construction material that should be targeted by government in terms of public infrastructure would be steel.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

You don't see the use of wood as a major solution that they should be focusing on right now.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

It could be a solution. I was talking about concrete and steel as having a heavy carbon footprint. You can replace that with lower-carbon manufacturing processes, but you can also switch out high-carbon materials, such as concrete, for lower-carbon footprint materials, such as wood or engineered wood. That is a possible solution. I was speaking more about the materials that have a heavier footprint such as steel and concrete.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I understand. Thank you for that.

The other thing I wanted to ask about was zero plastic waste. As you know, we've just hosted the intergovernmental negotiating committee here in Ottawa, and I know that environment minister Steven Guilbeault and parliamentary secretary Julie Dabrusin have done a lot of good work pushing for international co-operation on this.

I want to look at some of the things that have been successful in Canada. Report number three noted in particular the success of Fisheries and Oceans Canada's ghost gear fund, which reduced plastic waste in the environment including through the use of grants and contributions. Are there lessons learned from that specific program that can be applied to other programs to actually increase the rate at which we're making these changes and eliminating plastic from our environment?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes. As you see in exhibit 3.4, results have been achieved in 11 of the 16 activities that we've sampled, so there has been good progress there and good alignment with the government's priorities. There are so many initiatives available. We tried to summarize them in exhibit 3.2 in order, from the most beneficial to the least beneficial. Yes, once the waste is out there, ghost gear programs like that, which are about recovering it from the sea, are good, but reducing our reliance on plastics would be the most beneficial strategy, and then you have repairing, reusing, remanufacturing, recycling and so on.

There is a variety of strategies available. We shouldn't focus just on what to do with the waste once it's created or thrown away. We also have to think about reducing our reliance on products that generate that waste in the first place.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you. I couldn't agree more. In the agriculture committee today, we were talking to some of the organic producers who have found alternatives to single-use plastics already. I'm sure that with the ingenuity in our academic and research environment, our farmers are going to find a lot of solutions and replacements for single-use plastics.

The last thing I wanted to ask about was the federal plastics registry that's going to standardize data around plastics. Are there existing data sources already in Environment and Climate Change Canada for this registry? How is that going to be produced?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Quality and timeliness of the data are issues that we raise in the report. The registry is a good initiative too, and we talk about that in exhibit 3.5, but there are other sources. Statistics Canada's material tracking source, even though it takes over three years to get produced, does provide useful information. There's also a variety of sources of information from the provinces and municipalities, but I think having a registry brings it all together. Now that the federal government is taking more of a leadership role on plastics, whereas before it used to be mainly left to the provinces and municipalities, it makes sense that there should be some way of bringing all that data together so we have a full picture.

We note in our report, in the first exhibit, that it's quite interesting. The graph showing the plastic waste from 2012 to 2019—exhibit 3.1—is the best available data we have right now. Since we've published this, the next version of it has come out from Statistics Canada, and it didn't just add another data point to the graph; the whole graph moved because of the data quality issues and because we were understating the amount of waste in Canada. As I said, there are issues related to both the quality and timeliness of the data, and the registry is a good first step.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Trudel, please go ahead.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for being here with us today.

I can see that you came here with a sizable team. Combatting climate change is an important issue. I'm truly pleased to see that you're taking it as seriously as we do.

I'm going to start the discussion on the net zero accelerator initiative. In your report, which appears on the Office of the Auditor General's website, you say this:

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s calculations of anticipated greenhouse gas reductions for projects funded by the initiative did not always follow international standards, affecting the credibility of the department’s calculations.

I think that's important. Allow me to continue:

Sometimes due diligence steps within the Strategic Innovation Fund’s Net Zero Accelerator initiative were not followed before funding approval.

I'd like further details about the use of the words “not always” and “sometimes”. Are we to understand that the due diligence steps normally required before funding approval were skipped in this process?