Environment Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[Kim Leach, Director, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

This is exactly the subject of an environmental petition that was submitted to our office in October 2005. The petitioners included Charles Caccia, Friends of the Earth, and the Pembina Institute, and they were represented by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. The issue was the subsidies to the oil and gas industry and the federal efforts to address climate change—and how in fact that was reconciled.

We discussed the petition, and the response to the petition, on page 3 of chapter 5, “Environmental Petitions”.

You can certainly find the petition and the response to the petition on our website, if you're interested. Those questions were posed by the petitioners, and responses were provided by the Ministers of Finance, Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and Industry Canada.

[Johanne Gélinas]

I should add that once again, the petitioners were not happy with the responses given by the Department of Finance.

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

This is the last question. Based upon these lessons learned, what is the single focus—specific to accountability—that any climate change plan must include?

[Johanne Gélinas]

What we said was that you need someone somewhere to play an oversight role. That's point number one. Point number two is the key players must be identified with clear roles and responsibilities, and a mechanism must be put in place so that the government can track progress and report publicly on the progress made and money spent.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Commissioner, I'm sure every member of the committee appreciates the time you've spent here, two hours of being grilled, and the encouragement to do something on this very important file. I'd like to read a paragraph and a half here and then ask for your comment. You said that:

For example, the transportation and industry sectors account for the majority of Canada's emissions—78 percent—but emission reduction measures we examined are not expected to bring emissions below 1990 levels. At best, they might only slow the rate of growth. Given Canada's strong economic growth, especially in energy production, meeting our Kyoto target would arguably have been a challenge even if bolder action had been taken earlier.

Ever-shifting responsibilities between federal departments and ministers, turnover of key personnel, and changes from plan to plan have caused delays and a loss of momentum. The government's weak handling of the many transitions that took place over the history of this file has hampered progress.

My question to you, and the challenge you leave with each of us on this committee, is how important is it that we work together for this file? We are in a political environment, which is often an adversarial environment. But how important do you think it is that we work together, that we create a momentum that will bring results?

[Johanne Gélinas]

It's crucial. It's the key to success. I have said that climate change is upon us. Like it or not, that's a reality. We have to work towards solutions. One step would be to do a kind of lessons learned exercise collectively. You have a lot of questions, and here I'm talking to individual parliamentarians. You have a key role, as far as I'm concerned, to play in the future. You are the ones who can hold the government to account, keep the government's feet to the fire. We cannot afford to lose momentum again. A lot of questions are still without answers. Here again you can play a key role in asking some of those questions, especially to Environment Canada, NRCan, and TBS. We all know that there's a plan to come, but at some point we will have collectively to see how my recommendations and your recommendations...you have to remember that you came with recommendations to address climate change not too long ago. It will be important to get a regular report from the bureaucrats on how much progress has been made towards those recommendations and where we're going with the whole climate change file.

Let me just re-emphasize also the fact that we have talked about short-term goals. The Kyoto goal, is it achievable or not? It is up to the government to answer that question. But never forget that we can also establish long-term goals. As climate change will stay, we can go on a step-by-step approach and work towards objectives to reduce greenhouse gases in the near future.

You have a very important role, and I will always be more than happy to work with you collaboratively and to go beyond politics to address something that we will have at least to report back to our children a couple of years from now.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Thank you.

Mr. Godfrey, you have the last question, and then the meeting is over.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to make one brief statement. There's been a lot of wilful disinformation about the subject of hot air, which is really a kind of short form for deindustrialization in eastern Europe. As the commissioner's team has confirmed, nobody on the government side ever advocated for a reduction of hot air as defined as deindustrialization in eastern Europe.

Secondly, it is illegal to do so under the Kyoto Protocol.

Thirdly, there is a wilful confusion between that hot air, which has this sort of connotation to it, and the climate fund, which was designed, as the commissioner's team said, to deal with emission trading systems domestically and internationally. I note that the commissioner is nodding.

Fourthly, there is a different thing, the clean development mechanism, overseen by Kyoto, which is to assist developing countries reduce greenhouse gas reductions. Hot air is simply that, hot air. It never was part of the plan. It's never been audited. It doesn't exist.

I have the following question for you, Commissioner. You say that new targets have to be set. You say at the same time efforts have to be redoubled. Without telling us what the target is, what is the mechanism by which we set new targets, which takes into account that we're not doing business as usual but we're redoubling efforts? What is a reasonable strategy--I speak in the abstract--for setting a new target so that we will have a better chance of success?

[Johanne Gélinas]

I don't know the answer, but if I could make a wish, it would be that the sooner we get those targets, the better we'll be able to get on with the job. And don't forget, I've also said that there are some good foundations. We're not starting from scratch.

So we have to build on what we already have, on what's been proven to work, and we have to improve where it's unclear if something is going to work or not.

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

You've said that we have to do a whole bunch of things, but if we take any particular element and we redouble our efforts, what is a reasonable way of setting a target that isn't in la-la land and that takes into account the unforeseen?

I'm just asking how one...because we do this all the time. I mean, all of what you do is about setting targets and meeting them.

So are there things the government should be aware of when it sets the new target?

[Johanne Gélinas]

It has to address the big chunk of emitters that haven't been taken into account--namely, the transportation sector and the industry sector. Otherwise, we will keep playing at the margins and we won't be able to achieve meaningful reductions.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

I want to thank the commissioner and her team for coming before the committee.

The meeting is adjourned.