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

[Mary Jane Middelkoop]

I'm not sure. The members of the Partners for Climate Protection program—there are approximately 150—can adopt any one of the milestones. There are five milestones, and one of them is to set targets. I'm not sure of that number, but it's available on our website, fcm.ca.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

What are the five objectives?

[Mary Jane Middelkoop]

One is to create a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and forecast. The second is setting an emissions reduction target. The third is developing a local action plan. The fourth is implementing the local action plan or a set of activities. The fifth is monitoring progress and reporting results.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Did you add up the objectives of each municipality before determining that all municipalities could contribute to a 300-tonne or a 300,000-tonne reduction?

[Mary Jane Middelkoop]

We have seen some results and we're tabulating them now. Currently, the Centre for Sustainable Community Development is the group within FCM that manges that program, and they are putting that information together for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you very much. We'll have to move on.

Mr. Watson, for five minutes, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to our guests who have appeared today.

Reading through some printed materials here, close to 55% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions can be influenced by decisions made by municipal governments. Clearly, then, as you've expressed today, there is a strong role that municipalities can play in tackling climate change. Can you give us some direction, if you will, on where in local government some of the low-hanging fruit is with respect to tackling climate change quickly and deeply?

[Gord Steeves]

I'll give you a list of six things: energy efficiency in buildings; energy efficiency in lighting, particularly street lights; alternative fuels for municipal fleets; purchasing renewable energy, as opposed to fossil energy; and landfill gas and methane recapture in landfill operations in municipalities. Those are probably the most popular low-hanging-fruit methods of attack when it comes to GHGs.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Public transit is not in there?

[Gord Steeves]

Public transit is important. The thing about public transit is that the infrastructure for rapid transit is very expensive and obviously has to be done in big municipalities. A lot of municipalities obviously don't have rapid transit or transit at all. The lion's share don't. For those that do have rapid transit and want to expand their capability, it's very expensive and needs a tripartite agreement.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

By that, can I conclude that it's not necessarily the short-term low-hanging fruit, but that it's a little more in the mid-term to develop the systems and actually place the infrastructure there to do that?

[Gord Steeves]

It's a priority and it does make a huge difference. It's just very expensive and difficult to access the funding.

I'm not sure if I answered you exactly.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Not directly. I'm just trying to get a sense of how much time it's going to take to put in place the types of transit systems you're talking about. In the major municipalities, clearly you can get a good bang for your buck, but what timeframe is it going to take to put something in place?

[Gord Steeves]

I do want to say that in our larger cities, like Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, rapid transit systems obviously already exist. Funding from the federal government, through MRIF and gas tax legislation, has resulted in expansion. Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal I think have all used funding to expand those systems already. So it's started. It's happening, and hopefully it's going to continue.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I want to come back to the economic questions. Clearly, in terms of municipalities, you need an industrial tax base to fund your budgets. Of course, your citizens who live there need to work.

I want to come back to the short-term window, because with respect to Bill C-30, I sense there's a strong desire in the opposition parties to probably make some amendment to enshrine the Kyoto target and timeline into the legislation itself. It would then become something very real and fixed that would have some consequences for you and for the businesses in your communities.

There are some of us who would like to see our industries make the kinds of investments required for the deep transformation of a carbon-constrained economy. It's a concern that if we have to comply with Kyoto by purchase of credits, for example, we're avoiding the investments right now to begin that kind of transformation.

Are you concerned that in the short-term window there could be some economic problems in the next four or five years? I'm not talking about the medium or long term, because we can see where industry needs to go and what the opportunities are, but if there's an amendment for a specific target and timeline that's difficult in the next four to five years, what are the repercussions at the municipal level? Are there some concerns about that?

We want to get the targets right. I guess that's what we're looking at.

[Gord Steeves]

That's a fair comment, and I completely acknowledge your concern. I think what you're saying is that greenhouse gases are an issue that has to be addressed, but we don't want to address this issue at economic peril if we don't have to.

Like you, we would be searching for a way to try to achieve real greenhouse gas reduction, while maintaining a robust economy at the same time. I think everybody in this room would have that exact same goal. At least I hope they would, because that certainly is in our interest.

I have been following the reports on the challenges right now with different industries and how they want to achieve the potential targets for reduction in different industries. I can't claim to be an expert in that, except to say that we would support any target the federal government wanted to lay out in terms of trying to address greenhouse gases in a measured and real way.

In terms of the analogy that I would use, I would draw upon the analogy of the cod fisheries out east, which we saw go through a very horrible situation and a moratorium. If that situation had been addressed at an earlier stage, in a real and less painful way, then perhaps we wouldn't have seen the graphic problem at the end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ribaux, at the very beginning of your presentation, you said that there was nothing in Bill C-30 that really helped to solve greenhouse gas and air pollution problems.

Am I right?

[Sidney Ribaux]

We said that Bill C-30 does not properly address climate change and air pollution.

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

I do not really understand your statement. Are you expecting regulations or funding programs?

[Sidney Ribaux]

Basically, what we are saying—

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

In other words, you feel that the bill has no value?

[Sidney Ribaux]

Your committee is studying ways to improve a bill. We are telling you that the current bill does not meet the intended objectives. We drew up a list of seven criteria that will help us to assess the implementation of the legislation, and of government action as a whole.

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

Will you submit amendments to the committee?

[Sidney Ribaux]

The comments we made today express our opinion of the bill.