Environment Committee on May 28th, 2008

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you for asking, Mr. Vellacott. It's unfortunate, but you're at five minutes. So thank you very much for being so careful on that, not wanting to go over your time. It is much appreciated.

Now we will turn to Mr. Scarpaleggia, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to get back to this issue of the eco-trust. It sounds to me, the more I learn about it, that it's some sort of banking machine for the provinces to draw on for vaguely defined environmental projects. There are no criteria. There's no real accountability. Is this unconditional money? Is there any hook; is there any condition that the provinces have to aim to meet to get this money? Is it just an envelope of money and they can just draw on it? Are there any criteria whatsoever? Is there any mission?

[Ian Shugart]

Mr. Chairman, I take the committee back to the first principles on this: that in the area of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, provincial governments have many of the direct policy instruments—

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

I'd like to stop you there. It sounds to me that the object of eco-trust is to allow provinces to take finance measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If there's an overriding condition or an overriding mission, that is it.

[Ian Shugart]

It is to support them in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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

That would presume the provincial plan meshes with the federal plan. In other words, if we have a province like Alberta, which is admitting its plan is to allow greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 15% to 20% by 2020, are we not funding a provincial program that is contradicting and undermining the federal program?

[Ian Shugart]

Mr. Chairman, I would have to clarify or qualify—I hope not to disagree with the honourable member—on one point. In the sense that a provincial action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may be in an area of jurisdiction such as to provide for municipal transportation infrastructure, or to replace a particular form of electricity generation, or to regulate it, that would be in its own jurisdiction. Therefore almost by definition there wouldn't be any meshing, because the federal government makes use of its policy instruments in its jurisdiction and the province in its own.

But there's nothing stopping the Parliament of Canada from transferring money to the province in support of its exercise of its jurisdiction, which is what was done. It is clear that the objective was a shared objective, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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

It seems to me we're giving money to a province that is admittedly going to work against federal targets. If you read Geoffrey Simpson in The Globe and Mail of March 22, he says we should do the math, that it's impossible, that the federal government cannot reach its national greenhouse gas reduction targets with the plan Alberta has in place now. He says that Alberta accounts for 35% of Canada's emissions. Premier Ed Stelmach's government plans to allow emissions to increase by 15% to 20% to 2020.

If the largest polluting province's emissions are rising, the rest of the country can't take that many emissions out of the economy to reach the Harper target. You must be aware of this as officials. Is the minister aware of this?

[Ian Shugart]

The federal government is confident it has the constitutional jurisdiction to regulate in the large industrial sectors using CEPA. That is what our regulatory plan—

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

So the federal government is going to use CEPA to override Alberta's own greenhouse gas plan because it believes it can win in court on this. Is that the government's logic?

[Ian Shugart]

The government has published its regulatory plan under the authority of CEPA, and is confident that this is an appropriate policy response for the problems we face.

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

I hope the government realizes we have a constitutional crisis brewing here.

Thank you for your answer, Mr. Shugart.

My question now is to Mr. McLaughlin. You published a report, and on January 7 you said research shows that

The most effective and efficient policy that would result in deep GHG emission reductions is a market-based policy, such as an emissions tax, a cap-and-trade system, or a combination of the two.

Have you eliminated the emissions tax from the equation at this point?

[David McLaughlin]

We have not.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

We will now turn to Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

So today we've heard expressions of concern from members of the federal Liberal Party that money in the $1.5-billion eco-trust has been given. We've heard from Mr. Shugart that provinces were taken at their word. Mr. Watson has reminded us that $586 million went to Ontario, taking them at their word that they will shut down those dirty coal-fired generating plants.

Canadians are counting on the provinces to live up to the agreement of those dollars, because Canada has a commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by an absolute of 20% by 2020. We're counting on Ontario to be honourable with those dollars that have been entrusted to them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The other point raised by Mr. Scarpaleggia was on the Liberal carbon tax. He was trying to justify a $62-billion tax—a tax on gasoline, a tax on Canadians to heat their homes, a tax to dry their clothes, a tax on food, a tax on people to drive their cars.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, this has nothing to do with the estimates.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. McGuinty.

Mr. Warawa, I encourage you--as you were urging other members earlier--to try to stay on topic. I know you'll want to do that.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I am raising a real concern I have on the carbon tax being proposed by the Liberals that Francis was asking about. This government firmly believes in the polluter-pay principle. We've heard that from the Prime Minister and the minister. Our plan recognizes that all Canadians have to help in the fight against climate change, and industry has to do its part.

My question is for Mr. Shugart. We've invested $21 million over two years to make environmental law enforcement more effective. It's not the Liberal plan for a sin tax or a carbon tax; it's to actually have law enforcement and force people who are polluting--big industry--to be effective in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

So on the $21 million over two years, how will that money be used and allocated?

Thank you.

[Ian Shugart]

There are two dimensions to this, Mr. Chairman.

The first dimension was an investment, which is still rolling out and being implemented in Budget 2007, to increase the capacity by about 50%, if my memory serves, through environmental enforcement officers on both the environment protection side and on the wildlife side. It was intended to hire and pay for and equip new environmental enforcement officers. They were to be deployed right across the country, basically expanding the geographic reach and in some cases the depth of our capacity to investigate and enforce.

In Budget 2008 there was a second round of investment in this area, which was to provide greater capacity in the environmental enforcement branch in areas such as forensic capability, data development, and tracking so that our enforcement program would know where the greatest risks are, to develop the evidence base, to be able to bring the detailed forensic analysis to court to achieve a successful prosecution—for example, in the illegal trafficking of endangered species across borders—or to be able to attribute a particular oil spill in a marine environment to the particular oil on a particular vessel, for example.

So in terms of both the human resource capacity and the science and technical capacity to back up their work, we are rolling out those investments and will be over the next couple of years.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Is there any more time left, Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa. As you indicated to me, your time is at an end; I concur.

Now I'll take my turn to ask a couple of questions.

First of all, I come from a part of the country where, as in most parts of the country, people are concerned about clean air. We sometimes refer to Nova Scotia, or we think of it in some respects, as a tailpipe of North America, because the wind, unfortunately, brings lots of bad air from other parts of North America. Particularly we think of the Ohio River Valley and other areas with lots of industry. We're the recipients of what they do to the air and what other parts of the continent do.

Clean air is important to us, and I'm alarmed to note that the clean air regulatory agenda has had its funding reduced by $2.2 million. Could you tell me what aspects of the agenda have lost funding and are decreasing?

[Ian Shugart]

Chairman, I think we may have an issue with the number.

You can explain this. Thank you.

[Cécile Cléroux]

What you have in the main estimates is not taking into account the additional funding that cabinet has accepted for the delivery of the framework.

We had a partial acceptance or approval of the framework until we had the final decision, so we got an additional approval of the funding necessary. You will see it later in the year, in the additional estimates that will be tabled in Parliament. This is why in the main estimates you see a reduction, but overall, by the end of the year, normally Parliament would see an augmentation of the amounts that are allocated to the clean air agenda.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

Mr. McLaughlin, it used to be that the national round table reported directly to the Prime Minister, and now it reports to the Department of Environment. Why was it demoted?

[David McLaughlin]

This decision was made in 2006, before I got to the round table. It was a decision of the incoming government, and I wasn't privy to the reasons for that decision, because I wasn't at the round table at that time.