Evidence of meeting #55 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
March 27th, 2023 / 11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the minister for being here, and the officials as well.
I want to follow up on some of the questions around Trans Mountain.
The cost of Trans Mountain has ballooned. When it was at $20 billion, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it was magical thinking to think that there was going to be any profit from this.
You've just said that as the Minister of Environment you can't really comment on the finances—that it's up to the Minister of Finance—but your predecessor, Minister Wilkinson, when he was here at committee, said that the proceeds from Trans Mountain were going to fund climate action. I'm curious to know if now, as the Minister of Environment, you can admit that purchasing the Trans Mountain pipeline was a mistake.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
As I said to your colleague, I'm not the Minister of Finance. I don't have expertise in this field. I would be happy to put your question to—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
As a minister of the government, knowing that your government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline.... It's now going to be over $30 billion. That's money that we could have put into climate action. Clearly, the government is going to lose money on the sale of Trans Mountain. Are you disappointed?
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Again, you should really ask your question to the Minister of Finance.
I don't know what's going to happen—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I'm not the Minister of Finance. I don't have in this big—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
You are the Minister of Environment. This money could have been spent on climate action—$30 billion.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
We're spending $120 billion. We're the second-ranking G20 country in terms of our greening investment—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I hear that you're not going to answer the Trans Mountain pipeline question, so I'll—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I've answered it a number of times. I said that you should ask the Minister of Finance that question, because it is a financial question.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
You, though, as a minister of this government, won't answer the question of whether you feel disappointed or think it's a mistake that the government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is now going to cost $30 billion.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
As you well know, I have worked, since I was nominated environment and climate change minister, very hard to ensure that Canada reduces its carbon footprint. We've worked together on eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, and we're doing exactly that.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you, Minister.
Maybe I can ask you some questions about the water agency.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
In the supplementary estimates (B), the ministry is requesting $3 million for funding for the Canada water agency. We were expecting to hear an announcement on the launch of the Canada water agency last year, but there's still no word. I'm curious if you have a timeline for when we can expect to see the Canada water agency announced.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
We've already announced that we would have an independent Canada water agency.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
It's coming. As you can imagine, we're creating a new agency. It's not something that can be done overnight.
I would add that last week we made an historic investment in the Great Lakes—$420 million. It is the single-largest investment in the Great Lakes in the history of Canada.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
With regard to the Canada water agency and the freshwater action plan, your government promised $1 billion over 10 years. Each year, that would be $100 million. That money didn't come through last year. This year it looks as if it's $3 million, so a measly 3% of that. The longer we wait for the Canada water agency to be launched, the harder it is to get that money out the door.
I'm curious. Are we expecting, in 2024, to see the government make up for that funding gap? That $1 billion over 10 years I would hope would be front-loaded. Freshwater advocates are saying that they'd like to see $1 billion over five years. Even just to meet the commitment you've made, I would expect to see, at minimum, $100 million a year. I'm curious about when that water agency is going to be launched so that we can get the funding out the door, and whether there is going to be makeup in the coming years to make sure we're following through on that commitment.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
We just announced $420 million last week. That's almost half of our $1-billion commitment to fresh water in Canada. I think we're front-loading this.
Obviously we can't announce all of the money before the agency is created. It's going to take some time for the agency to be up and running, but we're not waiting for that to happen. We're already investing a historic amount of money into freshwater protection in Canada.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you. I want to ask a couple of questions about tailings ponds.
New research is showing that tailings ponds from the oil sands surpassed 1.8 trillion litres. That grows daily. There is currently no legislation to force oil and gas companies to take on the environmental costs and economic liabilities, which are a risk to taxpayers.
In this committee, we saw Conservatives and Liberals vote to take the words “tailings ponds” out of Bill S-5, the bill on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I'm curious whether you would like to see those words put back in to ensure that we're addressing this, and that our Canadian Environmental Protection Act covers tailings ponds.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
As you probably know, we have a Crown-indigenous working group on tailings ponds. Our commitment is to find a long-term, environmentally durable solution to oil sands tailings ponds. I know there's a proposal in the House to reintroduce...to make an amendment to Bill S-5. I'm very open to this amendment.
As you know, I have also proposed that we change the way we monitor and report on tailings ponds, which would include, for the first time, indigenous people, the federal government, the Province of Alberta, obviously, and industry as well.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We have to stop there and go to the five-minute round, starting with Mr. Lake.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to focus on the website for the Canada Energy Regulator—a government website—and its most recent data from 2021. In 2021, the total cost of imported crude oil in Canada was $14.7 billion, an increase of 30% over the previous year. Of that $14.7 billion, we brought in 15% from Saudi Arabia for over $2 billion. We brought in 13% from Nigeria for $1.9 billion. It was over $4 billion from those two countries.
Is oil coming from Saudi Arabia and Nigeria subject to the same rigorous regulations around upstream and downstream emissions as oil coming from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador is?