Bill C-12 (Historical)

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050

This enactment requires that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada be set, with the objective of attaining net-zero emissions by 2050. The targets are to be set by the Minister of the Environment for 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2045.
In order to promote transparency and accountability in relation to meeting those targets, the enactment also
(a) requires that an emissions reduction plan, a progress report and an assessment report with respect to each target be tabled in each House of Parliament;
(b) provides for public participation;
(c) establishes an advisory body to provide the Minister of the Environment with advice with respect to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and matters that are referred to it by the Minister;
(d) requires the Minister of Finance to prepare an annual report respecting key measures that the federal public administration has taken to manage its financial risks and opportunities related to climate change;
(e) requires the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to, at least once every five years, examine and report on the Government of Canada’s implementation of measures aimed at mitigating climate change; and
(f) provides for a comprehensive review of the Act five years after its coming into force.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Welcome to meeting number 33 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

Today we are studying Bill C-12, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. I won't go over all the procedural rules because they are quite obvious.

I ask witnesses to address the committee through the chair. When you are not speaking, your mic should be on mute.

This afternoon, we have five groups of witnesses with us. We have, as an individual, Robert McLeman, professor in the department of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University; from Climate Action Network Canada, Caroline Brouillette, policy analyst; from Équiterre, Marc-André Viau and Émile Boisseau-Bouvier; from Mothers Step In, we welcome Dr. Kelly Marie Martin and Laure Waridel; and from Pulse Canada, we have Corey Loessin and Greg Northey.

Each group will have five minutes for its opening remarks. Then there will be two rounds of questions from the members of the committee.

I will be following the order on the list I have here.

Mr. McLeman, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

COP 26 is going to be focusing largely on nature-based climate solutions.

Mr. Gage, from West Coast Environmental Law, do you agree that there should be something in C-12 that has reporting on the non-anthropogenic emissions and sequestration in Canada so that the public at large has a better picture?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for making time for committee, and I appreciate your expertise and your sharing it with us and all Canadians.

First of all, I'd like to start with the Cattlemen's Association.

I've read a book called The Tyranny of Metrics. Sometimes, if you only focus on certain numbers, you get certain results, but you're blind to other things. One thing you mentioned in the grasslands video was the importance of natural sequestration.

As the targets in the bill, specifically the net-zero target, referred to anthropogenic emissions and reductions, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for collecting and reporting on non-anthropogenic emissions and sequestration. Would adding that to the report so that Canadians can see the entire emissions picture be something that we, as a committee, should consider in C-12?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Under Bill C-12 as it's currently written, if the government is not on track to achieve its milestones and we understand that prior to hitting the milestone because of the reporting measures, does the bill currently require the minister to take corrective measures that get the government back on track towards meeting that target?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Gage and Mr. Andrews, I wonder if you could share your perspective on the discussion around the need for a 2025 milestone as part of Bill C-12.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I have another question. I've heard people talk about beef production being harmful. I'm just wondering; what is the impact of beef on other species and how does that relate to what we're trying to accomplish through Bill C-12?

[Andrew Gage]

I would say that there are substantive differences, but done well an approach involving targets can achieve many of the same functions that a carbon budget approach takes.

One of the key points is the one that I mentioned in my opening. Carbon budgets have always been established going out a number of years, with carbon budgets covering different periods of time as opposed to one at a time. There are no examples of carbon budgets being used internationally a single budget at a time.

The other thing is that carbon budgets I think are actually better for a jurisdiction like Canada in that they express the emissions over a multi-year period in terms of how much we can emit as opposed to reductions relative to a base year. There's more opportunity for businesses, local government or provincial governments to take ownership over how much they're contributing and to see how that fits within a broader conversation.

I don't agree with the minister that carbon budgets are not well suited for Canada. That being said, if the government has decided to go with a targets-based approach, if it does it well—and currently BillC-12 doesn't do it well—it can certainly achieve many of the same goals.

[Alan Andrews]

In short, and to be frank—and I'm looking to Andrew to develop my answers—it doesn't stack up well compared to international examples. We've heard a lot about the U.K. I'd also mention New Zealand as a more recent and possibly better example.

Some of the key criticisms we've already heard about. I won't elaborate further on the lack of detail in plans, but that's one obvious area of improvement. Similarly, Andrew mentioned the need for a bigger runway—a bigger lead-in time—between the targets being set and the plans developed, so that we have better advance warning that allows adaptation and innovation.

Finally, I'll talk about the advisory body. There are various amendments that could be made to take Bill C-12 closer to the U.K. model in order to better insulate that advisory body from the political process and give it that cross-party consensus that's been so successful in the U.K.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Ms. McLeod.

I'll turn now to Mr. Gage and Mr. Andrews.

You spoke a bit about this in your introductory remarks. We've seen a number of countries and subnational governments pass climate accountability legislation over the past decade. I wonder if you could expand on your opening remarks in terms of how Bill C-12 stacks up to those international examples.

Specifically, what improvements—and you noted some of these—do we need to make to Bill C-12 in order for it to really reflect the international best practices in this area?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the comments we've received already from our panel.

I'd like to begin with Ms. McLeod.

I thought your comments about intergenerational equity were particularly well put. I wonder if you could talk a bit about Bill C-12 in that context. If there was one change to Bill C-12 that you feel would best reflect that obligation we have to future generations, what would that change be?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Do you mean on the advisory panel? Is that what you mean, Ms. Jackson, or is it broader, in terms of the way Bill C-12 pins the cattlemen ranchers into a hole, if you will?

[Fawn Jackson, Director, Policy and International Relations, Canadian Cattlemen's Association]

With Bill C-12 we want to make sure that there's holistic policy analysis done and that folks from the agriculture community are there to understand and advise on it.

[Dr. Reynold Bergen]

I'll talk a little bit more about that product and then I'll throw it over to Fawn for the specific issues around Bill C-12.

This product hasn't been approved, but it's not a C-12 issue. It is a regulatory issue. Canada has a veterinary drug approval process for things that go in feed and things that are for animal health, but it does not have a regulatory path for products that are specifically designed for environmental improvements.

That's not what you asked. I'll let Fawn answer what you did.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

From what I understand it's yet to be approved by the government. You're welcome to get into that, but I won't dwell on that at this particular point.

If we could tie it back to Bill C-12, with all the research and development and, really, the leading way that the Cattlemen's Association has been going forward on the environment, what are some of the reservations that you have with C-12? Do you think the bill balances GHG emission goals and economic factors fairly?

[Andrew Gage]

I'm the head of West Coast Environmental Law's climate program, the author of several reports and submissions on Canadian climate law and a member, as Alan mentioned, of a coalition of organizations that really want Bill C-12 to be a real climate change accountability law.

In 1992 under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Canada played a leadership role in negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the governments of the world agreed to “[stabilize] greenhouse gas concentrations [and] prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” In 1992, I still had a full head of hair. I have waited my entire adult life for Canada to deliver.

Canada set specific targets in 1997 under Prime Minister Chrétien and then in 2010 under Prime Minister Harper, but as a country, we continue to miss every climate target set. My daughter at age 15 is now organizing climate strikes, worried about her future. The challenge is that climate change doesn't follow election cycles. Too often governments claim credit for setting targets and then push off the work and ignore the difficult choices necessary to meet those targets. We need accountability.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, here is the definition of accountability: “the quality or state of being accountable, especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions”. At their core, climate accountability laws insulate climate policy from the election cycle by making each administration accountable for keeping the government on track to achieve both short- and medium-term climate targets.

Bill C-12 fails in a number of respects. First, as drafted, and as Alan noted, clauses 9 and 10 don't clearly require the minister to show how the country will achieve the climate targets that have been set by the government. Rather, the minister is required to identify measures and strategies that the federal government intends to take that will contribute to achieving the 2050 target.

Second, because Bill C-12 sets only one target at a time—initially a mid-term target for 2030 and then short-term targets of five years each thereafter—it never requires governments to consider both short- and mid-term action at the same time or to be held accountable on both time scales. Generally, international climate accountability laws achieve those short- and mid-term targets through rolling short-term targets that, together, plot a path to one mid-term target further down the road. For example, the U.K.'s Climate Change Act, when it was enacted in 2008, established three targets, known as carbon budgets, covering the next 15 years. When the first budget was finished, a new budget extending out to 2027 was established and so on. We're now expecting the sixth budget, which will extend to 2037, in July of this year. Each U.K. government is therefore accountable both for achieving a target within the next five years and for putting in place measures that will help achieve future targets further out.

By setting a first target for 2030, with the first progress report not until 2027 or 2028, Bill C-12 invites cynical claims that it creates accountability for only future governments. The post-2030 targets set for just five years at a time are equally problematic. Five years is simply not enough time in which to roll out new programs, to see them deliver significant emissions reductions and to get the results we're looking for, nor does a single five-year target give an administration an incentive to look beyond those five years and put in place the measures that will help future governments achieve their five-year targets.

Here's what we need from Bill C-12: rolling five-year milestone targets—not one target at a time—supplemented by robust plans, set at least 10 years ahead, preferably 15. For example, in 2025, a target for 2035 should be set, and a new 10-year plan would then update the second half of the existing plan and incorporate new measures to extend the road map out to 2035.

Second, we need to require immediate action, ideally by setting a 2025 target reflecting the expected emissions reductions from Canada's climate plan or, alternatively, simply requiring all plans to identify emissions reductions for each year covered by the plan.

Third, we need frequent and earlier progress reports much more often than every five years, ideally annually, and starting by 2023 at the latest. As Alan mentioned, plans that actually set out a road map to achieving the milestone targets are key.

It's impossible to separate these aspects of accountability from the other important requirements that my co-panellists have already mentioned and that are referred to in our submissions.

Despite its name, Bill C-12 does not yet deliver on the promise of climate accountability. We hope that you will make the amendments necessary to bring it up to where it needs to be.