Evidence of meeting #31 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Order.
We do apologize to our witness for running late for the first part of our public meeting.
I want to welcome Mr. Bob Page, chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, who's going to help us with our study of Bill C-311, an act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change.
In light of the time left, Mr. Page, if you could limit your opening remarks to ten minutes or less, it would be greatly appreciated.
12:25 p.m.
Dr. Bob Page Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pleasure for me this morning to contribute to the committee's consideration of Bill C-311.
In opening my statement, I just want to emphasize two points. First, I want to talk about the situation with regard to the round table's mandate and the new obligations you wish from us; and second, I want to discuss some of the questions on the research and the perspective it gives on Canadian public policy and sustainable development.
As most of you are aware, I'm sure, the national round table is an arm's-length, independent federal public policy advisory agency, whose purpose is to play the role of catalyst in identifying and explaining to Canadian society and all regions of the country the principles and practices of sustainable development. We have a broad mandate to develop and promote and act as an advocate for policy ideas that advance sustainable development. We try to build useful consensus solutions for government on public policy questions.
Our role, therefore, is fundamentally an advisory one to government, not an audit or accountability one of government. Evaluating government policies and programs is not something that was ever really envisaged as part of the original act and the establishment of the round table. While it is not explicitly precluded under the 1993 National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act, such a role does not fit well within our governance structure and purpose. Three years ago, when we were assigned a similar obligation under Bill C-288, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, we stated our first response under that act as cited in my deposition today. I won't read that whole section, but you can see it in my deposition.
Bill C-311 actually goes further in assigning new audit and evaluation roles for the round table. Section 13.2 appears to require us to perform even more stringent and extensive accountability oversights of government policies and programs. We respectfully submit this is typically a role for the Auditor General or the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, and the Parliament itself. As an arm's-length public policy advisory organization, we have no desire to be perceived in a light that could in any way colour or compromise our core policy advisory role.
Furthermore, this bill will add significant new burdens on the national round table and its staff without any compensatory funding. While subsection 13(1) appears simply to replicate the additional obligations we were given under Bill C-288, it does in fact double the obligations because it does not supersede Bill C-288. We therefore perform two accountability and evaluation functions each year, one for the Kyoto targets, and one for these new targets, both of which would have to take place within the same timeframe. On top of that were added new and more extensive audit and evaluation functions under this bill.
We are certainly not seeking additional funding to carry out our policy agenda and work plan, which I don't believe is possible under this bill. However, meeting these new obligations under Bill C-311 would require the redirection of resources from current projects and would affect the timing and delivery of the ambitious policy agenda we have. I want to emphasize, however, that we will of course strive to fill any obligations given to us with the passage of this bill by Parliament.
The second issue I wish to address touches on our own climate change research and advice, especially as it relates to sustainable development. Over the past several years we have published extensive and well-researched advisory reports on climate change, which have contained original economic modelling and analysis and broad stakeholder consultation. I would just hold up to you our Achieving 2050 report, which came out last March and was circulated to your committee. It has detailed information on a variety of the comments I'm going to be making.
Our role has been to examine some of these top issues, like carbon pricing, from both an environmental and an economic perspective. In developing consensus solutions, we have acquired a certain expertise that we feel is useful to you when considering the core of this bill.
As the round table, we have consistently said that Canadian climate policy is most effectively approached as a long-term problem requiring long-term solutions, not short-term fixes or top-down target-setting.
As we wrote in Achieving 2050, climate change policy should be developed by the federal government in collaboration with the provinces and territories in order to move away from the current patchwork or fragmentation of climate policies across the country.
Greenhouse gas emission reduction targets also need to be underpinned by relevant and rigorous economic analysis and assessment to show whether the proposed targets can be achieved within the regulatory timeframes; to show whether the appropriate technology required to reduce emissions in the energy sector can be deployed quickly enough; and to establish the financial, sectoral, regional, and consumer impacts in so doing. This type of approach is essential to ensure economy-environmental integration so that Canadians understand the consequences of acts.
Our reports demonstrate the massive scale of the energy and technology transformation needed to meet the government's current targets of cutting greenhouse gas levels by 20% from 2006 levels by the year 2020. The NRTEE has shown that meeting this target will be quite challenging in itself for Canada. The target is equal to a 3% reduction from the 1990 baseline, which should be compared to your 25% cut from that 1990 baseline.
You are no doubt aware that this is a major change from existing policy that would likely require more difficult and expensive measures than currently contemplated, including a higher carbon price, which we've estimated to be, for the government's program, $100 per tonne to achieve its targets in 2020.
Finally, choosing our baselines and targets cannot, of course, be done in isolation from any future global agreements. Our research shows that acting in concert with the world is more cost-effective for Canada. Even though a post-Kyoto agreement is not yet in place and may be years away, nonetheless, we do not wish to see this used as a reason for delay in terms of action by Canada.
None of this should be interpreted, then, as an excuse for delay. The round table has been very clear on this. Rather, it means that we need to consider environmental and economic impacts and implications of emission reductions together, not separately, to achieve our joint environmental and economic goals.
We appreciate very much that the spirit of this bill is to improve the environment and help address climate change, but as the national round table's mandate explicitly provides, we need to do so while considering the environment and economy together in an integrated fashion. In our view, that is what lies behind the words “sustainable development”.
I'd be happy to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you again for inviting me to appear at this time.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. Page.
We'll start our seven-minute round with Mr. McGuinty.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
How are you, Mr. Page? It's good to see you again, even though it is through a television screen.
12:30 p.m.
Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
Thank you, David.
My apologies to the committee. I knew about this for certain only two days ago. I apologize for not being there in person.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
It's good to see you. Thank you for being here on short notice.
Mr. Page, we are debating Bill C-311. As I've just said in the House of Commons in a speech, frankly, we're debating this private member's bill because the government has prepared and presented no plan to the Parliament of Canada to debate otherwise. So we are now dealing with Bill C-311, as we should, in a timely fashion.
I know that you have a lot of experience. I'm not quite sure how long you've been chair of the round table, but you have laid out quite thoroughly those elements of a plan, and targets, that should be addressed. You talked about relevant and rigorous economic analysis, about whether the proposed targets can be achieved within the timeframes, about appropriate technology, and so on.
Mr. Page, our problem now, as the official opposition, is that it's been almost four years and we've had three ministers of the environment, and we've had apparently three plans, we've had regulations promised by January 2010 now delayed indefinitely.
Have you, in your capacity as chair of Canada's advisory panel....? It used to be the Prime Minister's advisory panel; in my humble submission, you have been demoted, now, to report directly to the Minister of the Environment. But that's another issue.
Have you seen, as chair of the round table, or have any of your members seen, with of all the work you've done, a plan, a domestic plan, for the climate change crisis in Canada today?
12:35 p.m.
Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
First of all, Mr. McGuinty, thank you for that question.
Part of this is factual and part of this is interpretive. I'm not presuming to take any stand, which is really the right of the Parliament of Canada in determining the nature of the plan or the plans that have been presented by the government.
I have to come back to the details in terms of our own report and our work from that, and our response from the minister. I understand that earlier this year..... I understand there was another announcement yesterday and that there are series of announcements coming forward at this time.
The minister has assured us that the work we have done, both in our policy report and our technical report, is being very carefully assessed by the government. For instance, we argued very strongly in our report for the importance of an offset system for cap and trade. The government is proceeding on that. There were announcements earlier this year with regard to part of what that offset system would look like. We see this as an ongoing process in which leading up to Copenhagen and beyond, and with the negotiations with the United States, the government will be proceeding.
I'm trying to select my words carefully, sir, because I'm very cognizant that we don't operate in a political context.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
I'm going to interpret it for you, because I do operate in the political context. I think what I heard you say, Dr. Page, is that you've never seen a plan from the federal government. I think that's becoming eminently clear now to Canadians.
Can I ask you a more specific question, then, based on your own research and advice?
Have we just lost you? Mr. Page...?
12:35 p.m.
Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
Yes. I apologize to the members. I lost transmission there.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Page, I want to go back to something in your brief. It was something you raised here.
You went as far in your own reports to refer to a price for a tonne of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalent. Two years ago the Prime Minister made a speech in London, England, about what he described as a green energy tour across Europe. He stood up and announced that Canada would be pricing carbon after a few years at $65 a tonne. Since then the government has never again spoken about pricing carbon. Now you say it's going to be closer to $100 a tonne, depending on what measures are brought forward.
Have you advised the government? Have you seen anything from the government to inform the Canadian people that if they do bring in, for example, a cap and trade system, as they purport to want to do, how high energy prices will go for average working Canadians under whatever is left of the Conservative plan? We can't find one, but in the past three iterations of plans have you come across anything to tell the Canadian people how high energy prices will go?
12:40 p.m.
Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
We in fact have had direct discussions with both the department and the minister's office with regard to that. They are very aware. In fact, they very carefully went through all the assessments we did for the modelling. Those figures are almost identical to other modelling that has been done, so I think there's a consensus with regard to modelling.
I'm not in a position to comment one way or the other with regard to whether the Prime Minister or the minister have made any public statement recently on the question of the carbon price.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
How about the price, then? Have you advised the government on the ramifications of your research or their own plan, wherever that might be? And I think it keeps changing, depending on what happens in Washington. What will the implications be under this government's plan for energy prices for Canadians?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Yes, Mr. Chair. It's inconsistent to argue that there's a plan and no plan simultaneously.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
That is not a point of order. That is debate.
You've asked your question, Mr. McGuinty--
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Page, the implications, please, on energy prices for working Canadians: how high will energy prices go under the purported Conservative plan?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Chair, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
Our work conclusively shows that in the year 2020 the price for carbon in Canada would have to be at approximately $100 per tonne for carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalent in order for the government to meet its target of minus 20 of 2006 by 2020.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
The time has expired, so we're going to move on.
Monsieur Bigras.