Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 26th, 2007

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I assume it wasn't contractual or anything. This was just a verbal agreement between your organization and the government to work together, and that was made in December.

[Gord Steeves]

That's correct. There was a commitment made by the former minister to work in partnership, and obviously that situation changed. We have requested of the new minister that we meet with him, and at this stage we are unsure of how that is going to proceed. We don't have any indication positive or negative.

I just want to clarify one thing. We represent member municipalities comprising almost 90% of the population. As you can appreciate, there are thousands of small municipalities, so a lot of them we don't actually represent. It's just the largest ones comprising the lion's share of the population.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to clarify this. You represent 90% of the Canadian population at the municipal level. Did you just say you haven't met with the new minister and you have not been able to confirm this initiative you had agreed to? I would suggest it wasn't an agreement with the previous minister; it was an agreement with the government. It doesn't matter who is sitting in the chair.

Have you not met with Mr. Baird?

[Gord Steeves]

No, we have not.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Have you requested this?

[Gord Steeves]

We have.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You're an organization representing 90% of the Canadian population, and what's interesting to me about your organization is your capacity to actually make the changes required in planning and infrastructure redevelopment. You folks seem to be an integral player in this. I'm a little surprised and not a little disappointed.

We're a fan of the green municipal fund for obvious reasons--the renewability of it, that it constantly regenerates itself. Do you envision--and I haven't seen your amendments yet--that something can be done along the order of how that fund has been working with direct respect to greenhouse gas reductions so there would be a revolving fund, or if cities could gain access?

[Gord Steeves]

I hope I understand the question properly. You're talking about potential changes to the green fund?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Or the creation of a new fund entirely, but with its focus being that cities would be able to sign on to achieve a certain amount of measurable reductions and have a revolving rotating fund that would access it.

[Gord Steeves]

Could I confer with my colleague?

Does that sound familiar?

[Mary Jane Middelkoop, Senior Policy Analyst, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

We do, under the green municipal fund, have a capacity-building campaign called the partners for climate protection program. Under that program, municipalities--we now have close to 150, representing a significant portion of the Canadian population--voluntarily sign on to this program, pass a council resolution, and establish targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.

At this point in time we have some pretty significant large cities across the country and some of the smaller communities as well that have actually developed action plans that would in fact exceed the Kyoto targets for their corporate operations. Some of them are now extending that to be a community-wide focus.

The challenge for our members, for municipal governments, has been in finding the resources necessary to actually implement the actions identified in those action plans. This is similar to the arguments made from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in the United States suggesting that there was a very positive initiative and willingness to act by their municipal governments but there was the inability to move forward because of a lack of resources and because of a lack of leadership shown by all orders of government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I'm sorry, we're a minute over already.

We'll move on to Mr. Warawa, for seven minutes please.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. It's very interesting. The topic of today is tools, energy efficiency, so I appreciate your comments.

Mr. Steeves, we haven't met, but as parliamentary secretary I've met with your president more than one time and look forward to meeting with you personally. I believe FCM is very important. I'm glad you're here. After 14 years of local government--that was my background and introduction into politics--I know how important.... You are in the front lines, and we're really excited you're here today.

On tools and fuel efficiency, Mr. Cullen started going down that pathway in asking Mr. Ribaux questions regarding the other half. Half of the greenhouse gas emissions are being created by manufacturing, oil and gas. The other half of greenhouse gas emissions are coming from us as consumers. We have questions from the Liberal members, asking if we can meet the Kyoto target.

We've also heard from a number of witnesses--Professor Boyd, Professor Jaccard. Professor Mark Jaccard of Simon Fraser University has been to the committee. I guess I'll quote him, and this is in relationship to the Kyoto target. And we acknowledge that we've inherited an environmental mess that we are committed to clean up, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it has to be in a way that has tangible results that reduces greenhouse emissions without destroying the Canadian economy.

Professor Jaccard said, “You would have to destroy one-third of the buildings and equipment in your economy in the next four years to meet the Kyoto target.” He said we'd have to raise $4 billion to $6 billion a year for five years to buy foreign credits--that is, assuming emissions of about 200 million tonnes over target each year between 2008-12. He said that buying credits is an option often discussed but little understood. He said:

Buying international credits in a four-year time frame is virtually impossible because you have to buy it from someone. Someone somewhere has to have done some greenhouse gas reductions and we have to be able to verify that they did that. That is really difficult.

So we've had a number of testimonies of the difficult mess we're in with the environment. We are committed to doing much more than the previous government. On the question of tools, what really can we do?

Mr. Ribaux, you made a comment saying that one of the tools you'd like to see is a moratorium to stop funding of all roads and bridges. My question to Mr. Steeves is this. What would be the impact if a local government were required by the federal government...? And we're talking jurisdictional problems here, because the municipalities are under the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories, not under the federal government; that's a whole other question, if we start going down that. But what if Mr. Ribaux's suggestion were adopted by the provinces, and you were required to build no more roads, do no more road widening?

I'll just finish here and then you can understand where I'm coming from.

My understanding is that to create a reduction where I can reduce my greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2050, if I'm still alive, we're going to have, say, a 60% reduction of where we are now. To reduce that, if every one of us set even a goal of 40%--right now I'm going to reduce my greenhouse gas emissions as a consumer, as a Canadian, by 40%--we're going to have to change the way our communities are structured. We're going to have to densify. We're going to have to build more public transit. We're going to phase into communities that are different from what we have now. Where we spread out, we're going to have to densify.

What is a realistic timeframe for setting a goal of making a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but doing it in a way considering where we are and where we have to get to? How quickly can we stop building roads and bridges? How quickly can we densify? How quickly can we come up with some of the suggestions that Mr. Ribaux has just said?

[Gord Steeves]

Thank you very much for the question, sir.

With deference to my new friend who is sitting with me, we would not support the idea that suddenly a federal or a provincial government would stop contributing to the construction of roads and bridges in our community. This is a tradition that's developed over the course of some years now, obviously, and regardless of how you feel about greenhouse gases and how you think it might be combatted, the fact of the matter is, for a lot of different reasons, we need roads and bridges in our communities. Obviously people have to get around.

But there are a couple of things. I think my friend might have been talking about some reallocation and some prioritization, I'm not sure. But the MRIF program funds--strategic infrastructure funds that have long been used by municipalities, provincial government, and the federal government to fund these large-scale projects--are and will continue to be a necessity in the governmental atmosphere of Canada. At least we hope they will be. To lose those would be catastrophic for the city of Winnipeg. Cities and communities are using this funding from different levels of government to rebuild bridges so we don't see very unfortunate situations like the situation we saw in Laval not too long ago.

The window is wide open for focusing on different types of projects. Instead of focusing on interchanges in every single place in the suburbs of cosmopolitan areas, there might be a chance to reconsider that possibility and look at spending that money on more rapid transit projects. But I want to be very, very careful not to eliminate the need for those, because at its base we are paying for a lot of these projects through the gas tax program, and the concept is a very fair one, which is the user pay principle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay, Monsieur Ribaux, a very quick response to that.

[Sidney Ribaux]

What I meant was a moratorium on expansion, on the funding of the expansion of highways and bridges in urban areas. We're not saying that funding for roads and bridges in rural areas or communities where there is no public transit system should be stopped. We are targeting the expansion of highway capacity in urban areas. Obviously, we are thinking in particular of major urban centres. This distinction needs to be made, and it is written that way in our brief.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Merci.

Mr. McGuinty, for five minutes, please.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, witnesses. Thanks for coming.

I'd just like to pick up on points you made during your presentations.

Mr. Ribaux, with regard to your comments on the federal program on energy efficiency in our commercial buildings, which is called in English

the commercial building incentive program, this program has been running for 10 years and has helped 541 projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of new commercial, institutional, and multi-unit residential buildings--not an unimportant project for the country with 541 projects participating. On average, the buildings that participated became 35% more energy-efficient than they otherwise would have been.

I'm sure the FCM is aware of this as well. It would have been something that would be made known to privately owned buildings in cities like Winnipeg, for example.

Can you help us understand why the Government of Canada would kill this type of program? We're talking about energy efficiency tools here, and we're talking about this partnership in Canadian society to reduce greenhouse gases.

[Sidney Ribaux]

What I can say is that it's clear that Canada needs to take action with regard to buildings in order to reduce greenhouse gases. Because I am leading a green building project in Montreal and I'm working with most of the people in this sector in Montreal, I can tell you that the major investors and major building developers are prepared to do a great deal to make buildings more energy efficient and greener, but they need encouragement, they need a framework to ensure they take this action. They also need what I would call a level playing field, and the CBIP or the Commercial Building Incentive Program, was a first step, although it was clearly not enough. We believe that this program should be reintroduced and should go much further.

I would say that when professionals work on buildings and there's a program like the CBIP, they are more likely to examine options that they might not have otherwise. We clearly believe that this program should not have been abolished and that it should be reinstated.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Steeves, could you also give us some understanding? What is the position of the FCM with respect to its first priorities in terms of, for example, federal investment in cities to be able to assist with reducing greenhouse gases? For example, there are very mixed views about the use of a tax-deductible transit pass. What is the priority now of the FCM membership? If there were a choice, for example, between investment in core public transit infrastructure or a tax-deductible transit pass, what would be the preference of the FCM?

[Gord Steeves]

We're going to be coming out with our national transit plan next week. I trust you'll all be looking for it.

To answer that question directly, we take no issue with the idea that the federal government would give individuals in Canada a tax credit for buying transit passes. That is completely fine with our organization. Obviously, that does not accumulate the millions of dollars necessary to build a rapid transit system in Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary or Edmonton or Montreal. They're two completely different things. And if the federal government wishes to provide tax credits, that is fine. But obviously that can in no way impinge on what we see as a necessity to have federal government funding to address these huge costs for infrastructure, so we can have the capacity to move these people who might be interested in achieving that tax credit.

With respect to the second item that you were talking about, we're asking that amendments to the Energy Efficiency Act should include a proposal to establish new standards for industrial equipment, household appliances, and a strategy for new and existing commercial, residential, and institutional buildings to help kick-start some of these ideas. As one example, in Drummondville, Quebec, for retrofit measures at six municipal buildings, the city has invested $125,000 since 2000, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by almost 2,000 tonnes and achieving savings of more than $450,000 over the five-year period, just because there was the upfront money available. That's an example of the kinds of success stories we can see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Manning, for five minutes, please.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank our witnesses for your presence here today. I certainly look forward to studying the amendments you have put forward.

I have a question for Mr. Steeves. Over the past decade, the air quality in Canada has worsened even beyond some people's wildest dreams, and certainly according to a study recently put forward by the OECD, Canada ranks near the bottom now as regards air quality. I'm wondering if you would put forward some ideas that you would see, and going forward on the short-, medium-, and long-term basis, of how we could right the wrong that's been done in the past decade or so in relation to air quality.

[Gord Steeves]

From our perspective, I'll try to slant my comments towards the bill that's in front of the committee. You heard me talk about the prospect of including municipalities in the discussion by virtue of the changes in the legislation that are being considered. In clauses 2 and 18 of Bill C-30 there is talk about amendments thereto. It talks about who should be included in the discussions. The first thing I would say is please include municipalities in those discussions, because the air quality problems you're talking about exist, to the largest extent, in the largest centres, and these people in these cities have a lot to offer. And the organizations that represent them, FCM and the provincial organizations, have a lot to offer. That's very important.

We are suggesting as well that in clause 18 in Bill C-30, amending section 103.09--this is all in our ask--that we add in references to the Canada–U.S. Air Quality Agreement, because you may be aware that a lot of the problems in terms of air quality that we're seeing in our cities are not as a result of pollution that's happening in Canada, but is in fact pollution that's coming up from the United States of America and flowing up to our north, which is a real issue for some of our cities. You've heard me talk about the kick-starting of the new loans under the Energy Efficiency Act. That's important. And we also talk about, in clause 47 of Bill C-30, putting in implementing a lot of the standards we've seen in the acts that have been implemented by California, which we have reviewed and we think are very progressive and would work in Canada.

So all of those, with the addition of the offset aggregator and the role that we might be able to play in cities and as an organization, we think we could really make a difference.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

You said your organization represents 90% of Canadians, which is a huge number. It doesn't leave many outside of that circle.

I'm sure the leaders of our municipalities are just as concerned about economic growth and making sure our economy keeps moving. I wonder if you would give us some of your thought process.

Do you believe the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be balanced with economic considerations? My belief is that we need one to help pay for the other, but it seems that we have a certain group of people who want 100% green and others who want it 100% smoke going up in the air. We're trying to find that median as a government. So from the point where you sit, it might be interesting to hear what you have to say.