Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

[Dale Marshall]

Well, like my friend here—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It seems to me that if you really want to do something about greenhouse gases—if you're serious—you first of all leave the six greenhouse gases on the toxic substances list. Then you write it in the law that the government must regulate.

What's your opinion on that?

[Dale Marshall]

I would agree. But you're asking me to ascribe motives to what the government has done, and I obviously—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

But you agree. Okay, that's all I need.

Now, let's say, Mr. Marshall, you had the opportunity to meet Premier Stelmach and you told him, look, you can reach targets, greenhouse gas caps. Then let's say he told you, well, it would hurt my economy; slowing down the tar sands would hurt the GDP of the province of Alberta.

What would you tell him?

[Dale Marshall]

I'm going to continue to point to what the industry itself is saying, and cite again the report by Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada: there are emission reduction possibilities within the oil and gas sector—not just in Alberta, but obviously in other provinces that have an oil and gas sector—that would cost them nothing.

In the end, we are moving toward a world where we're going to have to reduce our emissions at one point or another. The longer we wait, the more it costs.

I'll point to another study. Sir Nicholas Stern put out an economic report on climate change. He found that the cost of not acting is much higher, at least five times higher, than the cost of dealing with climate change.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

We're going to have to move on.

Mr. Manning, five minutes, please.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, to Mr. Freeman, during our discussions this morning and throughout our hearings we have heard about the desire, I guess, within Canada to address the environmental concerns we have, but also about the price tag that comes with it. Certainly we're not talking about hundreds of dollars; in some cases we're talking about billions of dollars.

In your comments you made the point that we had the legal route, I think you said, but not the political will over the past to address some of those concerns.

[Aaron Freeman]

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that last part.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

In your comments you put it forward that we had the legal route under CEPA but not the political will. Would that be correct?

I'm just wondering, in regard to the Clean Air Act and moving forward with some political will—and you put forward some amendments. Thank you for those. I think you put forward some excellent amendments.

I'm just trying to find out how we address the concerns that Canadians have, in your view, of addressing the environmental issue and at the same time being able to provide an opportunity for people to work and provide a living for their families and so on. There seems to be a disconnect within Canada. The number one concern is the environment, but immediately after that people are also very concerned about the impact it has on them individually, as persons living in Canada.

I'd just like you to elaborate on that, if you could.

[Aaron Freeman]

I don't accept the dichotomy and I don't think Canadians accept the dichotomy. According to government estimates, 16,000 Canadians die each year from urban air pollution. Ontario Medical Association studies came up with similar estimates on the same scale.

There are severe respiratory illness effects of air pollution that you heard about yesterday and have heard in various standing committees over the years. So I don't accept that Canadians believe there is a dichotomy between the quality of the air they breathe and the association this has with their quality of life.

There are going to be extreme cases where there will be severe economic hardships to meeting air pollution standards. I think those cases will be remarkably rare, but for those cases there should be an exemptions provision built into the legislation. Those exemptions should be only in cases of severe economic hardship, they should be time-limited to 12 months, and if the area wishes to receive a subsequent exemption, they will have to show demonstrable progress toward meeting the ambient air quality objectives. And those exemptions have to be transparent. There have to be reasons provided publicly for them.

So in those very rare cases where there is severe economic hardship to meeting the standards, there should be exemptions.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

What do you believe should be the process of requesting that exemption? Should that be the decision of the minister, the granting of the exemption? I think it's important.

[Aaron Freeman]

Those would be exemptions granted by the minister.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Marshall, many would lead us to believe—we've heard several presenters here say this—that it's Kyoto or nothing, but when we look at the track record, we're 35% above where we need to be. What's your opinion on that? We had this protocol that we're supposed to be following, but we've had years of inaction and now we're at 35% of where we're supposed to be. There's got to be a better way of addressing the concerns that we as Canadians have, wouldn't you think?

[Dale Marshall]

Better than throwing our arms in the air and saying we're at 35%? We have an international obligation to meet this. It's in our best economic interest to meet this, and it will propel momentum in the global community toward a climate change regime that adequately addresses this very important problem.

[Aaron Freeman]

If I can make a suggestion on this point, in my view, the issue of whether or not we're going to meet that level is really beyond the scope of this bill. I think whether or not we're going to meet our Kyoto obligations is an important question, but the purpose of Bill C-30 and the scope of Bill C-30 is to achieve the deepest domestic reductions that we can in this country. Once we've achieved those reductions we can then have that debate, and obviously we've been having that debate in other venues, but we can have the debate about how we're going to meet those targets, whether we're going to meet them through offsets, whether we're going to take the penalty in the second Kyoto period. Those are all relevant questions, but the scope of this bill deals with the deepest domestic reductions that we can achieve.

[The Chair]

We'll have to move on.

Mr. Godfrey for five, please.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

I would like to congratulate both Mr. Manning and Mr. Jean for ignoring Mr. Warawa and continuing to ask questions about greenhouse gases and Kyoto. Thank you.

I want to talk about proposed sections 103.07 and 103.09, which two witnesses referred to precisely, Mr. Drouin and Mr. Freeman. As far as I can make out, they're both on the same page in terms of having mandatory air quality standards, and Mr. Freeman sets out the kind of detail we're looking for.

I want to understand something, just for the purposes of looking at an amendment. Proposed section 103.07 is all about issuing objectives and assessing effectiveness, and consulting, publishing, and preparing—that's what it's all about. But 103.09 seems to be about regulating air pollutants and greenhouse gases, the quantity and concentration of air pollutants in greenhouse gases.

Can you explain to us, Mr. Freeman, what the difference is between going after specific substances in proposed section 103.09, which might seem to have something to do with air quality, and actual air quality standards with enforcement?

[Aaron Freeman]

Sure. I'll draw the distinction between ambient air quality standards and emission standards.

Ambient air quality standards—and in the way you're following the legislation, this would be in proposed section 103.07—set the standard of the air we breathe, in essence. We want a basic standard that meets human health and environmental criteria that ensure the ambient air around us is of a certain quality. So that's 103.07.

Then proposed section 103.09 deals with how you get there. How do you get to achieving those ambient air quality objectives? And that's about air emissions. That's about the facilities that are emitting pollution, what kinds of standards they will have to adhere to.

They're both key elements. The problem with the Clean Air Act as it's currently worded is the setting of ambient air quality standards. One of the problems is they don't talk about the quality of those standards, but setting that issue aside, they do set ambient air quality standards. It's within three years, it should be shorter, the standards should be strong, and there's no mention of how strong.

Then when you move to proposed section 103.09, the setting of the emission standards in order to reach those ambient standards, the key word there is “may”. So if you look at 103.09(1), it says “The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Ministers, make regulations”. If you look at subsection (2), it says again, “The Governor in Council may—make regulations”, and then there's a long list of powers that parallel the powers that are existing in CEPA that the minister may choose from.

So the problem here is that we have a setting of the quality of the air we breathe. We don't have a mandatory setting of how we're going to achieve those standards.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Very helpful, thank you. I think that's good.

One very quick question is. this. In the joint submission, which you took part in, from the NGO community, there's a reference to international air pollution, and something here says, “Through Bill C-30, CEPA should be amended so as to clarify and strengthen the federal government's authority to regulate sources of international air pollution in Canada.”

I read this. It is totally baffling. I have no idea whether you're trying to regulate outside the country, which is not possible, or—what does that mean?

[Aaron Freeman]

This really is a climate change issue. The international air pollutants they're talking about are pollutants that cross an international boundary. So for the most part, that's going to be greenhouse gas emissions—

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The pollutants created in Canada that go across the boundary.

[Aaron Freeman]

They could be created in Canada. In the context of this legislation, we're talking about regulating greenhouse gases that are emitted. I'll refer to legislative drafters, if they have a better interpretation of this, but I think what that section deals with is pollutants that cross international boundaries. We only have the authority to regulate sources within Canada, so I think what we're talking about there are, for the most part, greenhouse gases emitted in Canada.

[The Chair]

Okay. Thank you. We'll have to move on. You're over five now.

I'll just beg the committee's indulgence to go over a couple or three minutes, so we can get Mr. Watson his full five.

Hearing no objections, Mr. Watson for five, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Monsieur Drouin, you said, “Don't look at the cost, look at the benefits.” Is that a statement I heard you say correctly, that we should be looking at the benefits, not just at the cost? You said, “Don't look at the cost, look at the benefits.” That's what I heard in translation, anyway.

[Dr. Louis Drouin]

Yes, the benefits are much higher than the cost, and—