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.

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am not going to talk about that, but I will put the question to the member.

I will remind the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona to address questions through the Speaker and not directly to the member.

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona.

I hope the next few times I will speak with you in English.

I will speak French for now, but I too am working very hard to learn our great country's other official language.

Let me say that you are right. We could be taking meaningful action. Bill C-12, the bill we are debating, does not address the concerns or propose any quick, tangible measures.

I would like to remind my colleague of the Conservative Party of Canada's record from 2006 to 2015, when our government made major investments through the eco-energy innovation initiative. These are meaningful steps the Conservative Party took at the time, but the problem has not been solved yet, and we are all aware that it is going to take a collective effort.

When it comes to recycling, everyone is making an effort to achieve results, yet 65% of the recyclable items that Canadians go out of their way to put in blue bins end up in the landfill. There is a structural problem that we need to address.

That is the type of meaningful action we need to be taking.

I would like to reassure my colleague that we can take meaningful action to get results for the sake of our environment, both here in Canada and around the globe.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I know the member corrected himself regarding how to ask and answer questions, and so did the other member.

I would nevertheless like to remind all hon. members to address their remarks through the Speaker and not directly to other members.

The hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to join the debate on Bill C-12, Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act, which is arguably the most important piece of climate legislation in our country's history.

This is because Canada should always be striving to act as a world leader in climate change action, but our history has not borne that out. The fact is that Canada remains a top-10 emitter in greenhouse gas emissions on an absolute basis, and that we are firmly entrenched as a top-three contributor of emissions on a per capita basis. For too long, Canada has set emission reduction goals and failed to meet them. Most of the time we have failed to even have a realistic plan to meet them.

In 2005, we committed ourselves via the Kyoto protocol to reduce emissions to an average of 6% below our 1990 emissions level. The Liberals, Bloc and NDP all voted in favour of meeting the targets. Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin then brought forth project green, which was Canada's first real climate action plan to meet this commitment.

Unfortunately, the government was brought down and we were subject to a critical decade of being a climate laggard under the Harper government. We missed the Kyoto targets, and nothing was done to meet the Copenhagen 2020 targets. Over these years Canada's efforts were characterized as cowardly and Canada was even seen as a pariah in the context of UN-led climate change negotiations, giving us the dubious winning streak for the fossil of the year award, as well as a lifetime unachievement award.

This was not only a source of great national shame. By failing to act in the greatest and most urgent challenge of our world, we also eroded our soft power and our country's standing in the world.

Thankfully those years are over. Canada, led by our former minister of environment and climate change, was a key protagonist in negotiating the Paris climate accord, where the world committed to limiting global warning to 2 degrees Celsius while working towards limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

Canada and the biggest emitters around the world are now committing to get to net-zero emissions by 2050. We have also committed to bringing in a strengthened 2030 target in time for the leaders' climate summit on April 22 of this year.

We know committing to it is not good enough. We need to hold ourselves accountable to meeting it. That is why the legislation we are debating today is so important. Bill C-12 will act as the legal foundation for Canada's strengthened climate action plan by mandating national emissions targets on five-year increments, based on the best scientific information available, as well as by requiring detailed strategies for achieving these targets and transparent reporting in efforts on the way to get there.

An independent net-zero advisory board will play a key role in informing the government in the setting of targets and the plans to meet them. This body was recently set up with a diverse and exceptional group of 14 experts, including several who have been highly critical of the government's efforts to date. I think that shows leadership.

I know the advice they will give the minister through annual reports on its activities, which the minister must publicly respond to, will be essential to ensure Canada's actions are informed by the specific challenges and opportunities our country faces.

Furthermore, the minister must table both progress reports and assessment reports in Parliament with respect to each target. As such, the public will be kept aware of our progress, two to three years prior to every target, and our prospective success or failure will be analyzed and presented to the House following each target date.

In the event of a failure to achieve a target, the minister must report on the reasons why Canada failed to meet the target, provide a description of actions the Government of Canada is taking or will take to address the failure to achieve the target. This is important both for transparency as well as for an accountability mechanism, because it will provide an ideal evidentiary base for a potential plaintiff to bring forth climate change litigation against the government for an action.

The Minister of Finance would also have a duty to publish annual reports explaining how the government is managing its financial risks and opportunities related to climate change. This obligation will require the government to report on all its operations, including crown corporations, such as Export Development Canada, so we can track how public money, even in organizations where the government is not involved in case-by-case investment decisions, and see how it is impacting our climate action.

This could set the stage for appropriate responses to be made. As such, Bill C-12 will effectively lay government spending bare, and ensure that Canada is putting its money where its mouth is.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, who is an independent officer of Parliament, must, at least once every five years, examine and report on the government's actions to date, providing additional scrutiny and transparency for Canadians.

The impact of multiple independent reports will have on climate accountability and transparency cannot be emphasized enough. However, the accountability bill itself does not stand, without acknowledging the importance and interdependence of Canada's strengthened climate plan introduced this past December. The strengthened climate plan, which has been deemed as absolutely marvellous by former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, builds upon the 2017 pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change to ensure that we do not only meet but actually exceed our 2030 climate target.

It includes 64 new measures and $15 billion in new investments, on top of the $60 billion in investments in our 2017 plan. This strengthened plan includes measures that will support the rollout and retrofits of energy-efficient homes and buildings; support more sustainable transportation, such as electric vehicles; support cleaner electricity to power our country; help build a lower carbon advantage for our industries; and invest in nature-based solutions to climate change, such as planting two billion trees.

Importantly, we have committed to continually and predictably increasing the price on pollution, up to $170 a tonne by 2030, to provide an incentive and certainty to individuals and businesses alike. This is so they can make and invest in more sustainable choices, while at the same time ensuring that the vast majority of Canadian households will get more money back than they spend on this mechanism.

The former leader of the B.C. Green Party tweeted, “The tax and dividend approach is the 'gold standard' of pricing policies and Canada should be praised for this innovative approach”.

While this plan provides a blueprint, we need Bill C-12 to ensure it is followed by the current government, as well as to ensure that future governments are held to account as well. I hope that my colleagues across this House see likewise and will be supporting this bill to get to the committee stage.

With that said, Bill C-12 is not perfect. There are ways it can be strengthened, and I hope that the following areas will be looked at at the environment committee. I believe that the progress reporting in this bill needs to be sooner. This is so Canadians could judge and be confident that our government is on track and on the appropriate arc to reach both our 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goals and setting us on a realistic path to get to net-zero emissions by 2050. I think this can be done three or four years earlier on top of the other reporting obligations that will be taking place in the meantime.

In addition, I do not think we need to limit ourselves by setting only five-year advance emissions reduction targets. We must ensure that the government, the private sector and Canadians at large have a clear medium-term picture of where we are going, so actions and investments that will help us get there are made now. In this respect, I believe we can set targets for 10 years in advance, at the same time we are making the targets for five years in advance.

As an example of what this would mean, a 10-year plan would allow for the planning and construction of provincial electricity interties that could connect to B.C. and Alberta electricity grids to support Alberta to transition away from fossil fuel-emitting electricity. This would be stable baseload power from B.C. while Alberta invests in renewable electricity. Alberta has some of the greatest Canada-leading potential in this space.

Canada's action on climate change alone will not solve our global crisis, but we have a strong moral, scientific and economic reasons to play our parts. We are not a first mover in this space, and we can learn from the efforts of our counterparts in bringing in legislation, while fitting it to the particular context we have here in Canada. This bill and our climate plan will ensure Canada will not be left behind by our international counterparts in the massive $2.6-trillion opportunity of the green economy.

Achieving our targets is not something that can be accomplished by the Government of Canada alone, as, by virtue of our federal structure, the federal government does not hold all of the levers on emissions actions. We need all orders of government playing a part.

B.C. has put forth a strong plan with a clean B.C. plan and I am fortunate to have municipalities within my riding taking a leadership role, including the District of Squamish directly intervening in the Supreme Court of Canada case on the constitutionality of the federal backstop price on pollution. We need municipalities on board because half of our emissions come from within municipal boundaries, but we also need to be there in partnership with them, as they often face the biggest costs in adaptation.

I will conclude today by asking my colleagues to support Bill C-12, arguably our most important piece of climate legislation in a decade, to get to committee. The measures I have identified in my speech are potential amendments, and I know my colleagues have identified others that we can make to make this important legislation even better.

We let one party's intransigence on climate action derail our country for a decade before. Let us not make that same mistake again. Let us deliver the climate action that the vast majority of Canadians want to see, and let us pass climate accountability legislation.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have four questions on the 15-member outside advisory board: Have those participants already been approached? What is the time frame of serving on that advisory board for organizations and/or individuals? Who is the advisory board accountable to within Parliament? What is the role it is playing in requiring the Minister of Environment to table plans?

I would appreciate having a far broader perspective on the role of that advisory panel.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I will be able to get to all four of my hon. colleague's questions, but I will mention that this net-zero advisory body has already been established. There are 14 members who have been appointed. This advisory body will play a key role in helping engage with the public and inform the types of actions the government can and should take.

The advisory board could potentially inform some sectoral strategies that it could take, and it needs to submit annual reports to the minister, which the minister must then publicly respond to. Those are annual reports that will be happening each year. I think it is going to play a very critical role in ensuring that we have accountability and are informed by the best science.

I would be happy to talk to the member opposite some more about how that can take place.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, in the throne speech, the Liberals said they wanted to meet the Paris targets by 2030, but there is nothing about those targets in the bill.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I think we are both passionate about the importance of taking strong action on climate change in this country, now and always.

With respect to his question, as part of this legislation the government would need to bring forward a plan to meet the 2030 targets within six months of it passing. Recently the government has committed to bringing forth a new 2030 target by the April 22 leaders' climate summit, which is going to be hosted by the U.S.

This will be an important time to first set that target. Six months hence, the plan to meet that new target will have to be made, as would be required by this piece of legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his sincerity on this issue. I know we are both very interested in and concerned about the climate issue. I also know that he is familiar with the call for not just an interim progress report, but also a 2025 milestone target. This is really important to hold the government accountable. After all, 2025 will be not five but 10 years since the Liberals first took government and started working on climate change.

I am wondering if he can explain to me, because I still do not understand, the reluctance to put that interim milestone target in place to ensure accountability leading to 2030.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his leadership in this as well, both before his time in Parliament and during. I think what is important to show here is that we are on the right track to get to our 2030 targets, and we are going to be on a clear path to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

The target date that the Paris climate accord has is 2030. It is the date countries are using to ensure we are on the right track. I think part of the challenges of establishing a 2025 target is that we would first have to negotiate with the provinces, territories, first nations and many others. We then might be prioritizing short-term actions to reach those 2025 targets, and I think what we really need to be focused on are some of the major systemic changes that will lead to the deep emission reductions we need to make by 2030 to set us on a path to 2050.

I mentioned in my speech the potential for great interties. There is a huge opportunity there within Canada and across the borders. I think those are the big projects we need to undertake now that might not pay off by 2025—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry, but the time is up.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country may have inadvertently just mislead the House by misstating what is in the Paris agreement. It very clearly refers to 2025 as a key year for—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately that is a point of debate. The hon. member may want to raise the issue during questions and comments.

Resuming debate, we will go to the hon. member for Jonquière.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-12, since I am concerned about environmental issues.

My party is in favour of the principle in Bill C-12, but unfortunately the bill does not go far enough. We were off to a good start, but sadly, the government shows no ambition with Bill C-12.

I would like to point out, because it seems essential to me, that all countries that care about the environment are putting forward legislation that will set greenhouse gas, or GHG, reduction targets. Unfortunately, in Bill C-12 these targets are nowhere to be found. Through the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, my party introduced Bill C-215, which sets greenhouse gas reduction targets.

If you compare Bill C-12 against Bill C-215, you quickly realize that nothing in Bill C-12 holds the government accountable for meeting its net-zero emission targets. It contains nothing to make future governments accountable for their actions. However, that would be necessary. There are no target requirements.

I find it rather strange that Bill C-12 sets out intentions. I always have good intentions. I want to lose weight. I intend to do it, but, unfortunately, I do not. We need to set achievable targets. That is a fact, but we need to at least set some targets. Bill C-215 talked about a 30% reduction by 2030.

I spoke earlier about the lack of a control mechanism—other than the political parties, which is rather problematic—to let the government know, objectively and impartially, whether it is meeting its targets. This bill does not contain any such mechanism, unlike the bill introduced by my party.

The government was on the right track, but it did not go far enough. When I was thinking about it earlier, I wondered why the government would be so wishy-washy about climate targets. Often, when we talk about the environment, I think the biggest challenge is striking a balance between the environment and the economy.

For those with an interest in environmental issues, the 1987 Brundtland report introduced the idea of sustainable development and, for the first time, people tried to strike a balance between the environment and the economy. I think the Canadian government has a lot of work to do on that front.

Balancing the environment and the economy is challenging, but so is figuring out how to overcome national self-interest. That is something that often comes up. Every time we talk about climate change, we hear the same key phrase. It is something I often hear from my Conservative colleagues. They say, “Yes, but China and the U.S. are doing worse”, as though that clears us of all responsibility.

There are therefore two main questions. How do we overcome national self-interest? How do we strike a balance between the economy and the environment? These two questions lead me to the crux of the environmental issue in Canada. The problem, in a word, is oil.

The Canadian economy revolves entirely around the oil industry. The Quebec nation often pays the price of a national self-interest centred on the oil industry. If I am not mistaken, other than Norway, the Quebec nation is one of the only nations in the world whose economy is not based on fossil fuels.

We therefore need to make both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party aware of the fact that Canada's future does not lie in petroleum resources. The best example is what can be done with the forestry industry. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources held six meetings and was told by the main stakeholders in the forestry industry that it is probably the most promising sector in the fight against GHGs. We must make good use of the forest. It is probably the most promising sector.

The forest is a carbon sink. After 70 years, a tree begins to release the carbon it has sequestered all its life through a natural process. It will either be devoured by insects, or rot, or be consumed by fire. Therefore, we must collect this wood, which has sequestered some carbon, and make full use of it, something the federal government has never considered.

I will give an example that I have repeated ad nauseam for some time. Take the construction sector. If we replace a cubic meter of steel and concrete with wood, we can reduce CO2 emissions by between 1.1 tonnes and 2.1 tonnes. This would represent 18 tonnes of carbon sequestered in 20 cubic metres of wood used for every house that would be built in Quebec.

I mentioned the construction sector, but there are many other possible applications. Now, with what is known as the bioeconomy, we can replace all petroleum-based products and generate bioplastics and even the medical equipment that was in short supply during the pandemic.

One company, FPInnovations, managed to make masks out of wood pulp in just under six weeks. We now know that we can use moulds that are also made out of wood pulp to make certain types of masks that can replace the well-known N95 masks that have been in short supply during this crisis.

If the federal government wants to meet targets it should start by setting some. To meet them, simple measures can be put in place. In its recovery plan, the Bloc Québécois proposes using carbon footprint as a criterion for purchasing power in the federal government's procurement policy. That is entirely feasible and we could leverage that into support for the forestry industry.

I want to address another essential point. I talked about national self-interest and the fact that we must reconcile the economy and the environment.

During the period from 2017 to 2020, the federal government invested $24 billion in the oil industry. Out of that $24 billion, $17 billion was used to nationalize the Trans Mountain pipeline.

During that same period, the federal government invested $950 million in Canada's entire forestry industry. For Quebec, that means just $71 million a year. Out of that $950 million, 75% are loans. These are not net investments going into the forestry sector.

This is clearly a double standard. As long as we stick to the narrative of putting oil before technologies that would help us reduce our carbon footprint, we will have the same problem. I do not want to malign anyone, but I think that this situation might explain the federal government's lack of ambition when it comes to setting greenhouse gas reduction targets.

As I was saying earlier, we have a solution. The forestry industry is where the economy and the environment intersect. Everyone is talking about the huge potential for innovation in the forestry industry, but the Government of Canada has not committed to or invested in this solution.

Our other solution has to do with transportation electrification. The government has indicated that it plans to make transportation electrification one aspect of its recovery plan. Now, if I were unscrupulous, I would point out that this plan is mainly focused on the economy of Ontario, the only province that no longer provides rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles. I am not unscrupulous, though.

This may be a step in the right direction for Quebec and its expertise. We already have expertise in batteries and we are quite advanced when it comes to hydroelectricity. The possibility of transportation electrification is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I apologize, but time is up. The hon. member has five minutes for questions and comments.