Environment Committee on Feb. 4th, 2008

[Kenneth Ogilvie]

I haven't. There are other analyses out there, but--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Ogilvie.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

My apologies to the witnesses for interrupting, but as you pointed out and as was brought to your attention, Mr. Chair, we're talking about Bill C-377. Mr. McGuinty is taking the witnesses off topic. We're supposed to be asking questions about Bill C-377. Is Bill C-377 a good bill? How can it be improved? It's not helpful to keep taking the witnesses off topic. I'd encourage the questioning to be about Bill C-377, because that's why we're here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

Yes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

On a point of order, in order to know if a bill is good or not you need something to compare it to. Comparing it to Bill C-30 or Bill C-288 is a proper line of questioning to determine whether the government has improved or not--to go forward or back. I think it's a fair question in this regard.

If you have a piece of legislation before you, what can you compare it to; what can you analyze it against? I think Mr. McGuinty's questions are in line with what's happening here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Stoffer, that's why I'm trying to leave it as far as we can go. I would like it to ultimately end up with an analysis by our witnesses of Bill C-377, because we will be doing clause-by-clause on it; we'll be saying yes or no to it. I would constantly like to remind members to try to stay with that focus, because that's where we can move ahead.

We have limited time with these witnesses. It was the same last time. We have economists coming, so let's not ask economic questions on this. Let's try to evaluate Bill C-377 and show whether it's an improvement on what we had--without dwelling too much on the past--and go on with the future. I think everybody would agree with that.

Mr. McGuinty, let's continue. I will add an extra couple of minutes to your time.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'll go right back to my questions, if I could. To the panel, does Canada need a tailored Stern-equivalent report applied to the Canadian economy in detail? For example, should the Prime Minister, having devolved responsibility for his own national round table to a line department and the environment minister, not refer the question of a Stern-like analysis to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, or another think tank capable of doing it, and then use it to help achieve the kinds of targets that are being called for in this bill? Is it not time for us to stop scaring Canadians with pain, grief, and cost, and instead start talking about the inherent opportunities, economic opportunities, and the real prices we may pay at the back end if we don't start acting now? Is it time for us to do this?

Ms. Langer.

[Julia Langer]

Maybe I can turn this to the solutions side. We do have Stern analysis; we have the national round table perspective, which was very much in line with Stern. In fact, there's not very much pain involved here. What we need to look at is the cost of inaction. Having a Canadian perspective on that might be interesting, but I don't think it's going to change anything. On the other hand, various studies from all over the world are, I would say, the “get on with it” perspective that Canadians need.

Meeting the targets is possible, and there are four or five basic things to do.

Constrain carbon and the megatonnes will drop off. That's the first order of business.

Set the targets, set them short term, set them medium term, set them long term, and that means there will be price pressure, there will be innovation. It means all sectors will be captured.

Drive an energy efficiency revolution. If you want to talk about benefits, that is where we have the biggest opportunity to shave dollars off the cost of doing business for consumers, for government. This is the only way to recession-proof ourselves. That's where the studies have to be. It's no regrets; why aren't we doing that?

It's the same with renewable energy. We have to open the floodgates. The clean-tech companies are just chomping at the bit on that. If you want to do a study, do a study on that to show where the potential is.

No unmitigated sources of greenhouse gas emissions--none--going forward.

Those are the kinds of policies we know are there. If you want to do a study, do another study, but I can't see we are missing any information at all. We're missing the targets and the drivers to make it happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Ogilvie and Mr. Marshall, just very briefly, your answers, please.

[Kenneth Ogilvie]

Yes, I'll take a little bit of a different tack. I think there are many things we know we can do right now, and some of them are beneficial. They're net negative cost. We do need some detailed analysis because we need to write a business plan on how we're going to get there. We need to count things: power plants, pipelines, whatever. We need to remove barriers to getting there. We need to bring that to the public so they know what's going on. It's that type of detailed analysis, and a little bit is being done now.

I think I'm very much of the opinion that if we put a reasonable price on carbon and do good analysis, we're going to find out we have a tremendous number of things we can do that are really quite manageable. These numbers that Stern is talking about will probably pop out of that type of analysis. It needs to be done; it needs to be transparent so that the public understands; it needs to be independent so that we know it's in our interests as a nation to do them; and then it's going to take a fair bit of courage to get on with it because there will be big opposition.

I believe it's totally doable. I believe the analysis will show it and that there are a tremendous number of cost-effective things when one imputes an environmental price on some of the pollutants we're dealing with. It's all sitting there; the technologies are out there, and others will come if we start down that path.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Marshall, very briefly.

[Dale Marshall]

I think the Stern report for Canada would be useful, but I'm definitely in the camp that says what we lack is not information; what we lack is political will at this stage. We know what needs to be done. We understand the science. We know what policies work. We know what technologies need to be implemented. If I had a choice between the Prime Minister saying we're going to have a Stern review or him saying we're actually going to get serious about tackling climate change by putting policies into place, I'd pick number two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Bigras, please.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I have two questions, one for Mr. Marshall and one for Julia Langer.

In my opinion, one of the strongest arguments in support of the bill was made by Dale Marshall from the David Suzuki Foundation. Allow me to quote an excerpt from his submission.

Canada could get more than 80% of the way to the 2020 target laid out in this bill merely by applying a sufficiently high carbon price through a tax or a cap-and-trade system.

As I said, I think this is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the bill that we have heard, particularly in so far as our 2020 targets are concerned, coupled with the fact that all of the witnesses agree on the need to set a carbon price and to use the market tools available to us. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy had adopted this position, and, if I am not mistaken, the Conference Board of Canada took a similar stand a few days ago.

Since we are likely to receive the official report in three weeks, as noted in the submission, and since we will likely be doing a clause by clause study of the bill before the report is tabled, perhaps Mr. Marshall could tell us what modelling was used to make these findings? I assumed he set a quota system. On what basis was quota allocated? For example, did companies that managed to cut their greenhouse gas emission levels receive additional credits that they could then turn around and sell on the market? Without necessarily getting into the specifics, what type of modelling accounts for these findings?

[Dale Marshall]

The research in this case was conducted by Dr. Jaccard of Simon Fraser University, a climate change and energy expert. The research that was done was used by the current government and by the previous Liberal government. The modelling used fixes a carbon price. It does not call for setting a carbon tax, ceiling or exchange system, but for rolling everything into a shadow price. The model verifies changes to energy use patterns.

Only by setting a carbon price will we be able to achieve the 80% or better target by 2020.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

In your opinion, would we be able to surpass the target for 2020 if we applied other energy saving regulations? You stated that by bringing in energy saving regulations for motor vehicles, we could lower emission levels even more.

Are you saying then that if we bring in market tools and energy saving regulations, we could exceed the 25% target?

[Dale Marshall]

We plan to focus on precisely that in the next part of the study. I can't say for certain that we can exceed the proposed target for 2020. The experts that I've spoken to say that the 2020 targets are achievable, but I don't know if they can be surpassed.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I see. Therefore, you believe that if the government chose to use the tools available to it, it could meet this realistic target.

[Dale Marshall]

That is precisely the message I was trying to convey.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

My question is for the World Wide Fund for Nature.

We note the following in the second box on page 7 of your submission:

With many provinces making commitments and moving ahead, we need to ensure that the efforts of leading provinces are not cancelled out.

Prior to that, you say we need this:

Need clear rules that will work in the real world of the Canadian federation. Discussion [of] equivalency agreements will further undermine the system.

I think it is important to call to mind the discussions that the committee has had on bills C-30 and C-288. We had reached a consensus on the issue of equivalency agreements, provided that they be based on outcomes and not necessarily on regulations.

If equivalency agreements are results based and some provinces were to present their plans to meet the targets set in Bill C-377, would these targets in fact be achievable, realistic and fairer?

[Julia Langer]

My concern with the equivalency agreements being discussed now is the absence of actual targets. In other words, we're having bilateral discussions in which there's no overall goal or target, which is something that the bill in front of you could actually rectify.

If you have the target set, then you can discuss various slices and dices of the solution in an orderly way, and you may want to do that through equivalency agreements or cooperation agreements. As I said, the European Union calls it “burden sharing”.

Without any kind of framework, having these discussions would be really quite futile and would perhaps undermine what some of the provinces going further might want to do.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Lussier, there are about three minutes left if you want to use that time.

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

Mr. Ogilvie, you note the following in the third paragraph of your submission:

The federal government has faced enormous opposition from industry and provincial governments to implementing aggressive greenhouse gas mitigation measures [...]

In my opinion, provincial governments have cooperated admirably, with the exception of Alberta which has minimal reduction measures in place. Since 1990, through their collaborative efforts, industries have achieved substantial cuts to greenhouse gas emission levels.

I do not understand your statement. Could you clarify it for me?

[Kenneth Ogilvie]

Is your question on differences within the federal bureaucracy?