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.

[Alan Andrews]

Okay, I'll do my best to talk clearly.

I'm going to focus on the emissions reduction plans, which I've explained are really the key to success of Bill C-12. That's because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Too often, Canada has failed to meet climate targets because it has not had a credible and detailed plan for achieving them. Too often, we see climate plans that are really just a glossy marketing brochure with no real detail or substance.

A credible plan must do three things. First, it must explain how much carbon pollution needs to decline in order to meet the targets. Second, it must set out the policies that will close that gap. Third, it must explain who is going to implement those policies and when. The plan must be detailed enough that the public, Parliament and civil society can determine whether it is credible or whether it is overly optimistic and likely to fail.

As drafted, unfortunately, Bill C-12 does not require plans that meet that standard. Clauses 9 and 10 are the relevant provisions of the bill. Clause 9 requires the minister to prepare a plan for achieving the net-zero 2050 target and each of the five-year milestone targets. Clause 10 then prescribes the information that a plan must contain, but clause 10 is very light in terms of the specific details that plans must contain. There's a real risk of the glossy brochure type of plan that we so desperately need to move beyond.

For example, clause 10 does not explicitly require that the plan explain how it will achieve the milestone targets to which it relates. By contrast, the U.K. Climate Change Act is more explicit, establishing a clear duty on the government to not only achieve the 2050 net-zero target, but also to prepare policies that it considers will enable the five-year carbon budgets under the act to be met.

Bill C-12 also does not require projections of what impact the actions described in the plan will have on carbon emissions. It doesn't require plans to include any details of sectoral strategies or actions by provinces and territories. Taken together as drafted, the bill would allow the government of the day to prepare an obviously deficient plan or maybe even worse—a plan that contains so little detail that we really have no idea whether it will be adequate. This would undermine the main purpose of the bill, which is to ensure accountability for the achievement of climate targets through transparency.

Fortunately, some simple amendments to clause 10 would significantly improve the bill. First, the bill needs to make clear that the plan must demonstrate how it will achieve the relevant milestone targets. Second, it must require the minister to show how the action being proposed adds up, tonne by tonne and year by year, to the cuts in pollution needed to reach the next milestone target. This will require projections based on the evidence of what the plan is expected to achieve.

Third, the plan must—

[Alan Andrews, Climate Program Director, Ecojustice]

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today.

I am Alan Andrews, the climate director at Ecojustice, where I lead a program of law reform and litigation aimed at securing a stable climate.

I'm joining you from the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh first nations in Vancouver, B.C.

I'm a qualified lawyer both in Canada and in England and Wales. Prior to joining Ecojustice, I practised environmental law in the U.K and the EU, where I focused on holding governments to account for missing pollution targets and advocating for stronger laws so that I didn't need to.

Ecojustice is pleased to see Canada aiming to join the growing number of countries that have adopted this type of climate law, which has really become a standard tool worldwide to ensure governments meet their climate commitments and is increasingly viewed as essential for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Ecojustice has made joint written submissions with West Coast Environmental Law and a number of other organizations. Given time constraints, I will focus on one of the key themes in these submissions and, thus, the obligation on the minister to prepare emissions reduction plans.

This is the foundation of the accountability framework that Bill C-12 establishes. These plans are where the real action and accountability stem from. Unfortunately, as I will explain, that foundation is, at the moment, rather shaky. Strengthening those provisions will be the key to the success of Bill C-12.

If you fail to plan—

[Dr. Reynold Bergen]

Okay. I will start rolling through, and then I'll let Fawn jump in if she wants to.

Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm Reynold, the science director with the beef cattle research council. My silent collaborator is Fawn Jackson, who is the director of policy with the Canadian Cattlemen's Association.

The CCA represents 60,000 beef producers in Canada. The beef industry contributes $21.8 billion to Canada's GDP and supports 348,000 full-time jobs. Fifty per cent of Canada's beef is exported around the globe.

The beef industry is a hidden gem when it comes to Canada's environment. Beef production is one of the best tools Canada has to reach our shared conservation and climate change goals. When we talk about net-zero emissions, it's important to recognize where beef production fits into Canada's climate change picture. The emission intensity of Canadian beef is about half the global average, and we're continuing to improve. Our per-kilogram greenhouse gas footprint dropped by 15% between 1981 and 2011. That happened because Canada is a world leader in research and because Canada's farmers and ranchers are adopting the improved animal and plant health, nutrition and genetics practices and technologies that research generates.

Reducing consumption of Canadian beef would be detrimental to Canada's net-zero emissions goals, and here's why. Beef contributes 2.4% to Canada's total emissions, but emissions are only one side of the carbon ledger. The other side of the ledger is the soil carbon that's stored in grasslands. Canada's ranchers steward 44 million acres of grasslands, which are a stable store of 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon. Reducing beef production and consumption would mean that privately owned grasslands would be converted to other agricultural uses. Cultivating Canada's remaining grasslands would release much more soil carbon into the atmosphere than we would ever save from reduced cattle emissions. This risk is real. Canada lost five million acres of grasslands in the early 2000s when beef producers faced tough economic times.

To further improve the net greenhouse gas footprint of Canadian beef, we need to tackle three key challenges. The first is to further reduce our emissions per kilogram of Canadian beef. Our industry's goal is to reduce Canadian beef emissions intensity by another 33% by 2030. Achieving this will require continued advancements in genetics, animal health management and nutrition. Canadian researchers are also investigating nutritional supplements for cattle that could significantly accelerate those improvements.

The second challenge is to further increase carbon sequestration on grasslands. Our industry's goal is to sequester an additional 3.4 million tonnes of carbon every year. This will require research to develop more productive plant varieties and to identify forage and grazing management practices that increase productivity and carbon sequestration. We will also need to support producer adoption of these beneficial practices.

The third challenge is to protect the large and stable store of carbon in Canada's grasslands. Canada's beef industry has a goal to maintain and protect the 44 million acres of grasslands that are under our care. We've already lost 80% of our natural grasslands. The World Wildlife Fund's “2020 Plowprint Report” found that the great plains are continuing to be lost at a rate of four football fields every minute. We're working very closely and collaboratively with the conservation organizations and the Canadian round table for sustainable beef to protect these grasslands.

We worry that these efforts will not be enough. The biggest unknown is how a myriad of government policies such as offset protocols, clean fuel regulations and significant investments in irrigation will drive land use change, on top of record high crop prices. We need thoughtful deliberation to avoid policies that drive irreparable damage to this grassland ecosystem and its significant carbon stores.

We give this detail on Canada's beef industry because it emphasizes why, in regard to Bill C-12, our key ask is that holistic policy analysis be done to understand the potential unintended negative consequences of well-intended environmental policies. We also ask that experts from Canada's beef industry be included in advisory roles under the act to ensure that the best analyses and policies to support net-zero emissions are developed.

We look forward to being partners in this work towards net-zero emissions in Canada.

Thank you for your time.

[Dr. Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers, Resident Physician and President, Association québécoise de médecins pour l'environnement]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers. I am the president of the Association québécoise des médecins pour l'environnement, and I am also a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, or CAPE.

With me today is Dr. Courtney Howard, former president of the CAPE and Emergency Physician in Yellowknife.

The World Health Organisation, or WHO, has identified climate change as the greatest threat to health in the 21st century. In fact, climate change acts as a risk amplifier. It increases asthma and evacuations due to forest fires, particularly in western Canada. It increases secondary mortality and morbidity from heat waves, as was the case in Montreal in the summer of 2018. It lengthens allergy seasons and amplifies symptoms. It poses food safety issues. Most importantly, climate change accelerates the spread of some diseases, including Lyme disease, and even increases the risk of some new pandemics.

The impacts are unevenly distributed. Above all, in Canada's North. They also affect women, children, racialized people and indigenous peoples.

Many deaths could be avoided if we change the current trajectory, and as quickly as possible. A recent CAPE report even showed that improved air quality could save 112,000 lives between 2030 and 2050 in Canada alone.

I am a family doctor by training. In everyday life, I treat patients from the time they are very young until the end of their lives. I don't have a miracle pill to protect my patients from climate change. I need an effective treatment, that is, strong legislation that enshrines the state's climate responsibility.

Strong climate accountability legislation has proven successful elsewhere in the world. In the United Kingdom, binding carbon budgets, which have been legislated since 2008, have improved the efficiency of the health sector like never before. The National Health Service, the public health network, reduced its emissions by 18.5% between 2007 and 2017, despite a significant increase in clinical activity.

In 2020, in the United Kingdom, a group of health experts was brought into the process and development of the sixth carbon budget at the request of the Climate Change Committee. The aim was to take the best possible approach to protecting people's health, focusing on measures that have health co-benefits, for example, improving air quality, increasing active transport to reduce chronic disease and even improving the food system. These kinds of successes are possible here too.

In CAPE's view, Bill C-12 contains some of these key elements, which have enabled similar legislation to succeed internationally.

We would like to highlight three important elements. First, the establishment of a framework on climate responsibility. Second, the requirement to have national climate targets. Finally, the idea of creating plans to reduce GHG emissions and drafting regular reports on progress.

However, some of the current shortcomings of the bill diminish its scope and limit its ability to truly protect the health of the youngest and the oldest. In our view, three amendments are necessary.

Firstly, a GHG emission target from 2025. We would like to have a target and a requirement to report, as early as 2025, to really give us the impetus to start reducing our GHG emissions quickly and effectively, so that we can be sure to reach the 2030 target.

Secondly, we need an independent body of experts and scientists. For us, this includes health experts, who have their own secretariat and their own capacity to do climate modelling. This advisory group must have a substantial budget, to ensure its independence and accountability not only to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, but also to Parliament. It must also be able to applaud the government or even criticize it publicly, when necessary, without fear of reprisal. In our view, the net-zero advisory body does not meet all these conditions.

Thirdly, the bill must explicitly reflect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is important to remember that the health of indigenous peoples is already profoundly affected by climate change, and any assessment of climate liability must reflect the rights of these peoples.

Science tells us that climate change is truly the greatest threat to health in the 21st century. But it also tells us that an effective climate change plan, anchored in strong climate accountability legislation, is our best opportunity to improve the health of everyone here at home and around the world. That's why the Paris Agreement is considered by many to be the most important public health treaty in the world.

So I wish for us to have that future, for our health and that of our parents and children.

Thank you.

[Christie McLeod, Articling Student, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Christie McLeod, and I'm calling in from the unceded, ancestral traditional lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish nations in the city of Vancouver.

As mentioned, I am an articling student at Miller Thomson LLP, and I have a master's degree in environmental studies that focused on Canadian climate accountability. I have authored and submitted a brief that 179 young individuals and 11 youth-led organizations signed on to. I am also a co-author of the brief submitted by the national group, Lawyers for Climate Justice.

My generation and the generations to follow will bear the brunt of the climate crisis in the coming decades. It is our future that will be shaped by the strength or weakness of the climate accountability laws we pass now.

The Canadian government has recognized the climate emergency, yet it continues to faithfully subsidize the industry most responsible for fuelling climate change. Canada's projected oil and gas expansion from now to 2050 will consume a staggering 16% of the world's carbon budget in a 1.5° C world. We have tried maintaining business as usual, but it has failed. Since setting its first target in 1992, Canada's emissions have increased by net 16%. Our emissions in 2019 were higher than when the Liberal government took office in 2015. We can and must do better.

I understand the challenges that politicians face in addressing the climate crisis. The benefits of climate action emerge over time, while our election cycles focus on the short term. As our futures are at stake, however, it is critical that climate efforts not be politicized and that Canada's accountability legislation contain sufficient measures to ensure the government meets its climate obligations. I am frightened by the lack of urgency and accountability presently in the bill.

Bill C-12's focus is on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. The target set by the minister for each milestone year is to look towards achieving the 2050 target. We need to ensure that our focus is, first, doing as much as we possibly can by 2030 and then looking towards 2040 and 2050. We cannot leave the brunt of the effort to be tackled in the distant future.

As the bill presently stands, Canada's first milestone year is 2030, which means that the minister's first progress report would not occur until 2028. We should not have to wait that long to receive an update on the progress made towards Canada's targets. By amending clause 2 to include the year 2025 as a milestone year, the minister would be obligated to prepare a progress report in 2023, which is a much more appropriate timeline.

Under subclause 7(4), each target must be set a mere five years in advance. Under clause 10, Canada is only required to create an emissions reduction plan that contains key reduction measures and strategies as opposed to a robust plan of how the target will be reached. The stakes are simply too high for us to draw our map to net zero while already en route.

Young people deserve to know what Canada's plan is to address this emergency and secure a better future. Those working in industries and markets want to know Canada's plan to get to net zero so that they can respond and adapt.

When Teck Resources withdrew its federal application for the Frontier oil sands project, they noted that industry values jurisdictions with frameworks that reconcile resource development and climate change, and that this was lacking in Canada.

The international community also deserves to know what Canada's plan is. Canada is responsible for 1.7% to 1.8% of all the emissions in our atmosphere. In 2018, Canada was the 11th-highest emitting state globally and the fifth highest per capita. Our country's actions have and will continue to play a pivotal role in the global race to reduce emissions and address the climate emergency.

A target that represents Canada's fair share of the global mitigation burden would have to be an estimated 56% to 153% below 2005 levels, which is significantly more than the 40% to 45% range enshrined in Canada's new target.

I urge the committee to ensure that Canada follow its peers by setting bold targets that begin to approach our fair share of mitigation and put forward a credible plan that ensures we can reach these goals. As young people, our future hangs in the balance.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to pick up on the topic of enforceability. We heard the minister say that the intention, or his intention, is for Bill C-12 to force future governments to meet the targets, but we know from previous court cases that certain phrases or certain clauses in the legislation can make that nearly impossible. You put in a clause about other considerations or Mr. Albas's favourite word “balance”, and all of a sudden it simply doesn't have the teeth that it needs to stand up to any sort of legal challenge.

Has the department conducted any sort of internal analysis around the enforceability, the legal enforceability of the act?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Bill C-12 would put obligations on the Minister of Finance to put together reports disclosing the “risks and opportunities” of climate change at the federal level. Can I ask officials to explain what those reports would look like?

What does the bill mean by “risks and opportunities”, as mentioned in clause 23?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Coming back, Bill C-12 introduces new reporting requirements on the government between now and 2030. Could you expand on those and how they would be integrated into the existing reporting obligations? I appreciate your previous answer as well, but if you could expand on it a little bit, I'd appreciate it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you so much, Dan.

I want to ask these questions to John Moffet. There were a couple of points in the minister's testimony to us that reflected inconsistencies between—and I don't know that he's aware they're inconsistencies—what we agreed to do in Paris, and what he thinks we've agreed to do. I want to put them to you.

One is that we know from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change October 2018 special report on 1.5°C, that it is not true to say that if we get to net zero by 2050 we have held to 1.5°C. There's only one pathway that the IPCC identified that holds to 1.5°C, and it requires most of the heavy lifting to be done before 2030. Therefore, I also find it worrying that the minister and many Liberal MPs persistently say in the House that there's nothing that we agreed to in Paris that required that we work in five-year increments starting in 2025.

There is indeed in the Paris Agreement the commitment to 2023 being the first global stock-taking, and paragraph 24 of the COP 21 decision document said that Canada should have improved its target in 2020, and every five years thereafter.

How is it that the department has advised the minister that Bill C-12, with a first milestone year in 2030, is not completely inconsistent with what we agreed to do in Paris?

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

Okay. Could you please send us that? That would be most helpful to our work.

I'm interested in it, because the minister seems to have said that this advisory committee that Bill C-12 would create is the exact same thing as what he referred to as his ministerial panel.

Anyway, I'm shocked by that because when you make a statement in the House in regard to this, you would imagine that the government wouldn't be saying it's one thing when it's really another.

Could either you or Mr. Moffet please tell us about my question in regard to the workforce, workers' compensation, and the eligibility for this ministerial panel?

[Douglas Nevison, Assistant Deputy Minister, Climate Change Branch, Department of the Environment]

Mr. Chair, I can take that question.

Thank you very much for the question, Member.

Currently, coming back to one of the questions that you posed to the minister, there's no funding for the net-zero advisory body in the main estimates for 2021-22. The funding was approved in the budget, but it is now going through the Treasury Board process. As a result, it will show up in future estimates.

In terms of the body itself, it is a voluntary group at this point in time, serving, as you said, at pleasure, on appointment by the minister. With the coming into force of Bill C-12, whenever that happens, the proposal would be that this would become a Governor in Council appointed body.

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

Thank you. I may be splitting my time with MP McLeod or MP May, if I have some time left.

First of all, thank you to our witnesses for the work they do for the people of Canada.

The minister described the advisory committee in Bill C-12 in many different ways. One way he referred to it was as a ministerial panel.

It's my assumption that this ministerial panel is a separate body from what is proposed in Bill C-12, because they are being compensated from the department itself and not from the legislative authority in this bill. Is that the case?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you. I certainly agree. When our government took office, as I said, five years ago, Canada's emissions were going very much the wrong way, and they would have been 12% higher by 2030 versus 2005.

Both the international Paris Agreement and the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act recognize the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global human-caused C02 emissions must reach net zero around 2050 to achieve 1.5°C.

Canadians are already experiencing the significant impacts of a changing climate. Canada is actually changing at twice the average rate around the world, and in the north, it's three times. There are enormous impacts of that. The Bank of Canada found that climate change could cost the economy between $21 billion to $43 billion a year by 2050 if no action is taken. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has put out its own set of figures, and we've all seen some of the extreme weather events around Fort McMurray and in B.C. with respect to forest fires. This is real. It is happening. It's a science issue. It's not a debate; it's a science issue. These effects are expected to intensify in the future.

Already, there's a lot of global momentum, and 120 countries have adopted this science-based target. Canada has an opportunity to address the potential impacts of climate change to ensure that we're moving towards an economy that will provide the products and services that people in a low-carbon world are going to want, and to ensure that we can actually have a prosperous economy that will sustain and grow good middle-class jobs. That's the focus of this bill.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Wilkinson, for joining us today. I thank you for your leadership in getting Bill C-12 to committee because it is certainly an important issue for Canadians.

One of the top issues of concern for my constituents here in York Centre is climate change, and they do know that it's real and the science behind it. They're seeing the dangerous trajectory Conservatives put us on when they were in government, and they understand that failing to take action on the climate crisis is not only detrimental to our environment but also to the economy.

Minister, can you discuss what the economic and environmental risks to Canada are and would be if we don't move forward with our net-zero legislation?

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

I would agree with MP Bachrach that it's a little bit presumptuous of you to be appointing a group.

The bill in front of us, Bill C-12, lays out how the advisory committee is reimbursed for expenses. Obviously the bill hasn't passed. If the group is already working, are these people being reimbursed right now? If that's the case, Minister, where is the money coming from?