Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

Evidence of meeting #12 for Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was emissions.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act)

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michael Cleland President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Gas Association

Matthew Bramley Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

Gordon Lambert Vice-President, Sustainable Development, Suncor Energy Inc.

Clerk of the Committee Mr. Chad Mariage

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

Please give a short answer.

10:05 a.m.

Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

Matthew Bramley

The work to put it in place could begin immediately, as soon as the clear expectation of a sufficiently high carbon price is there.

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn

Thank you, Mr. Bramley.

Mr. Holland is next.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

My first question is to Mr. Bramley.

A question was posed around the effectiveness of Bill C-30, but you didn't get a chance to answer. Would it be fair to say at this point that Bill C-30 really represents a series of minor amendments to CEPA, and that the work of this committee, in your opinion, might be that we have to make substantive amendments if we're to put forward a real action plan for dealing with climate change?

10:05 a.m.

Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

Matthew Bramley

I'm certainly troubled by the fact that the federal government does not currently have a comprehensive climate change plan. It has made a series of isolated announcements that do not address all the key sources of emissions in Canada. Bill C-30, as it stands, is essentially a set of fairly technical amendments to existing legislation; it's certainly not a climate change plan.

By the way, a climate change plan would have to be much more than simply a bill. In fact, we know the government could act immediately using existing legislation, CEPA, if it wanted to move ahead immediately to put in place regulated greenhouse gas targets. Given there is this opportunity to amend Bill C-30 and make it stronger, I see that opportunity essentially as one of turning what is currently “government may” legislation into “government shall” legislation--in other words, to put in some requirements to give increased confidence to Canadians that the federal government will be obliged to put in place some of the elements one would expect to find in a credible climate change plan.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON

You spoke to the ability of the oil sands to achieve the Kyoto targets within the Kyoto period—by 2012, that is. It certainly has been said, and I know your organization has said, that over 50% of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions would come from the oil sands on a business-as-usual model. The type of growth contemplated by the government is upwards of, say, five times the current production of the oil sands by 2015; if that kind of growth were to occur, emissions would obviously be much more severe, yet the Pembina Institute put out a recommendation of carbon neutrality by 2020. I'm wondering if you could comment on how that would be achieved.

10:05 a.m.

Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

Matthew Bramley

In our analysis of how that sector could become carbon neutral by 2020, we considered a number of scenarios that combined purchasing offsets—in other words, financing emission reductions elsewhere to offset the industry's emissions—with deployment of carbon capture and storage at various different levels. I don't have the exact range of results in front of me, but to achieve that target, the middle range of the numbers was in the low single figures of dollars per barrel of oil.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON

On the clean development mechanism and international trading of credits—perhaps we could hear from all the witnesses on this—I seem to get concurrence that a preference is to reduce emissions domestically, but that all options need to be utilized.

Would you speak as well to the ability, through using the clean development mechanism or other methods of international trading credits, to promote Canadian technology and utilization of Canadian technology and to assist, perhaps, with some of our foreign aid development goals?

10:05 a.m.

Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

Matthew Bramley

First and foremost, investing in real emission reductions in developing countries through the CDM is a perfectly legitimate way to take responsibility for emission reductions that are not achievable, in the very immediate timeframe, within Canada. It has a positive benefit on protecting Canada from climate change, because as we understand, emission reductions protect Canada from climate change wherever they take place.

There is no doubt that it's an opportunity also to export Canadian technologies. Unfortunately, currently only about 12 projects out of some 500 registered CDM projects have any Canadian involvement. This is a consequence of the lack of sufficient progress towards putting in place regulated targets for industrial emitters in Canada.

But I would agree with you as well that we should look at the CDM as a kind of specially targeted form of foreign aid, targeting investments that help Canada's environment but that also help developing countries get access to much-needed resources to get onto a more sustainable development path.