Evidence of meeting #31 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
So you received no government funding at all?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. All of my work that is done in the context of my Sage work is funded by foundations. I have never been paid by any government under any regime.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
Is it correct, as stated in the Harrison paper, that it was your idea, and I quote, “to rely almost exclusively on government expenditures to achieve the Kyoto goal”?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
No. In fact, unfortunately, a series of bad government decisions, in my view, over many years--including Conservative governments, by the way, so let's just put this in the context of government generally--have made too many promises to industry that bound us to uneconomic approaches. The first one was that Canada would not use a carbon tax. The second one was that we would have this absurd price cap for emissions trading. When you start to do that, you become more and more restricted in the policy options you can put forward.
So I would encourage this government to abandon promises of the past, including voluntary MOUs with the auto sector, to move to regulation for emissions trading with no price cap that is broadly based in the economy, and to regulate vehicle emissions.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
So it was a voluntary subsidized action, if you will, the Liberal plan previously. That's basically what it was, a voluntary subsidized action.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
No, I'm talking about my plan, which did not propose a lot of subsidies. My plan proposed regulation, a real emissions trading system, a standard in the tar sands, vehicle emissions trading, building code standards, and those kinds of things. Proposals for a fund for government to purchase offsets emerged from government departments themselves.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
Okay.
Last question: do you know of or can you table any analysis that was used or was input into the system to come up with the minus 6% target?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
I am very proud you asked that question. In 1996 the Climate Action Network produced a plan, the rational energy program, that achieved minus 6% by 2010. It was one year before the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol.
I'm happy to table that very credible plan with the organization.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
You will be the first group that even has offered. Nobody, not government or anybody, has offered an analysis.
10:40 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
You should have called me first.
10:40 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
It leads me to believe that despite your modest protestations here, you had much more input into the Liberal plan, and here we have it even with respect to the minus 6%.
10:40 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
That's not a Liberal plan. That was done by the Climate Action Network in 1996.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
What I'm saying is that maybe that's where they came up with their figures.
10:40 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
No, that's really an old plan, and nobody has it today. I can share it with you for historical interest, but the plan was actually analyzed in cooperation with the Department of Natural Resources Canada. It was a very good effort.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
Do you think that subsidies for corporations are a responsible way to go?
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
We can continue with Ms. Comeau. I believe that her 1996 plan was very interesting.
Was this a detailed plan and did it develop or set territorial objectives? Were these spread among the provinces and major polluters? Were the reduction objectives well thought out?
10:40 a.m.
Director, Sage Climate Project, Sage Centre
At that time, I don't think we set them at a provincial level, but I could go back and look. The analysis rolled out to certain provincial reductions. Obviously it shouldn't come as any surprise to you where the real reductions occur. They occur in the electricity sector and in the oil and gas sector, as that's where they're most cost effective. Provincially you get more cuts in Alberta than you do in Quebec. There is a certain logic there.
The main instrument we used at that time was a pricing mechanism, which we called an atmospheric user charge. Whether it's carbon trading or a carbon tax, it's essentially a metaphor for putting a price on carbon. We applied a price in the modelling effort that showed in fact that through regulation and pricing mechanisms, which were not in any way destructive to the economy, we could achieve our objectives.
At that time, we had no idea that minus 6% would be the number coming out of Kyoto. That was an absolute coincidence and not planned at all.
