Environment Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

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

I don't understand. Your testimony said, “Governments in Canada have taken little action since 1997 to facilitate broadly effective energy....” It sounds from your testimony that you lament that fact and that there hasn't been enough done on the energy efficiency programs. There was one in place, yet you have no comment on its removal. I'm confused by that.

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

I have no statistics before me to tell me whether it really made people throw out their refrigerator and buy a new one, or what the actual impact of that was.

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

And no commentary from your members?

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

No. I think the difficulty there, on the consuming side, be it small business consumption or individual consumers who are heating their homes and driving their cars, is the issue that was raised by several people. We all may really want to make a difference by getting an energy efficient fridge, but we use our fridge for 15 years because that's what we can afford. If we can get all the old vehicles that are 10 years and older off the roads, and if we can get consumers to get rid of energy deficient appliances, obviously we could make a difference on that side.

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

Does your organization believe in the cap and trade system that is being suggested and used in other jurisdictions?

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

Our organization would not favour, for example, Mr. Bramley's approach about purchasing international credits.

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

To clarify the question, I mean the cap and trade system for greenhouse gas emissions for large final emitters, big polluters, in which, sectorally, there is a legislated cap on what an industry can pollute, and beyond that, there is some sort of emissions trading system that is encouraged.

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

That is domestic?

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

Let's start with domestic and consider international.

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

I think the members would agree that having some kind of flexibility of that nature, on a domestic basis, could be something that would be looked at. I don't think there is any appetite for purchasing international credits that may or may not have any impact on actual environmental goals.

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

It's interesting, Mr. Bramley. You raised this point. Some Canadian companies are now participating, it seems somewhat voluntarily, in a trade system, not a cap system. We don't have a cap in this country.

Is there not greater benefit for doing things primarily domestically, rather than going into the international market? In terms of just restructuring the Canadian economy, it seems if you go out and buy a lot of credits, you'll just have to go out and buy them again.

[Nancy Hughes Anthony]

If I can go back to your first question, which I have been mulling over, on this whole question of making policy choices on sources of energy, etc., and linking it to Mr. Bigras' question about decentralization and the interests of provinces and territories, I think there is more virtue to having some kind of a national strategy that thinks about, for example, our energy sources.

In Ontario, the premier campaigned on saying no nuclear energy, no coal energy. I'm not quite sure what's left that's going to actually provide power to the province of Ontario. We have had difficulties with respect to things such as linkage of an east-west grid. We had a serious blackout on the east coast.

To go back to those policy choices, my instinct says it would be better for Canada, as a country, to have a more cohesive debate and dialogue about those policy choices.

As I said, the place of nuclear and things like that, look at Europe and--

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

We hesitate to talk about national energy programs too much in this Parliament, but I want to make sure we have Mr. Bramley's testimony as well.

[Matthew Bramley]

We absolutely need to have a domestic emissions trading system, with the ability for projects in Canada to create what are called offset credits, so that companies have a choice of investing domestically or internationally. In fact the previous government was developing a domestic offset system that was expected to begin to be in place during 2006, and I think it's unfortunate that hasn't happened.

An article published in Le Devoir on November 2 talked about a Canadian company called Biothermica, which has been forced to do landfill gas capture projects in El Salvador because there's no domestic offset system to allow credits to be earned in Canada from doing that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Dillon, you wanted to say something.

[John Dillon]

Mr. Cullen, emissions trading is an extremely complex area. I want to try to be clear here, but it's not--

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

It was $60 billion in the first three quarters of this year.

[John Dillon]

--easy to give a simple answer to your question.

The reality is that yes, as Nancy said, many of our businesses facing regulation would like to see the flexibility of some kind of an emissions trading regime. The reality is, though, that one can't answer that question without understanding what the targets are and how they relate to what's realistic and achievable for those industries. Otherwise, the previous schemes we've seen would largely--and the government has acknowledged this--mean that all major industrial emitters in Canada would be buyers. That's really a tax, not an emissions trading regime.

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

It's a polluter pays principle, essentially.

[John Dillon]

At the end of the day it's about the flexibility to have emissions trading. Some of those companies are already voluntarily participating in both domestic emissions trading and international CDM purchases because either they have their own company corporate commitments to meet or they have provincial commitments to meet.

It's not that there's a yes or no answer to whether there should be emissions trading or not; it's about how we define those targets realistically and how we ensure those costs are not unreasonable, compared to what their competitors are paying in other countries.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We will go to Mr. Warawa, please.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first question to each of you is for clarification. During the comments you've already made, you've made your positions very clear, but I want to repeat the question.

The government has been very clear that we will not buy foreign credits to meet those targets. Considering domestic achievements here in Canada on meeting our Kyoto target domestically, can we meet the Kyoto target reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, which is what this bill is asking for--

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

We are debating Bill C-288, which calls for these mechanisms. You cannot decide to debate a bill and remove part of its content. You must debate what is in front of you. Bill C-288 calls for a foreign credits purchasing mechanism.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Do you want to carry on, Mr. Warawa, and try to keep to Bill C-288?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Bill C-288 is meeting the Kyoto targets by taking out--sending away--billions of dollars. Mr. Bramley, you've said you support that. Billions of dollars leaving Canada--if we kept that money here, if we keep those billions of dollars right here in Canada for investment, can we meet the Kyoto targets here in Canada? Yes or no, please.