Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the record here, my name is Maurice Vellacott. I'm a member of Parliament from Saskatchewan, and in the words of Stéphane Dion, the Liberal leader, I think it's just not fair what Mr. Layton's Bill C-377 will do to Saskatchewan, as I look at the numbers here in Madam Donnelly's WDA Consulting brief, at ten times the burden of Ontario, twice Alberta's, twelve times Quebec's, and seven or eight times as much as Manitoba, and so on.

I don't know why Jack wants to get back at Saskatchewan, my fair province, whether it's because we've rejected the NDP in that province recently or what the deal is, why he would be trying to place a particularly unfair burden on my province of Saskatchewan.

I have a question first for Mr. Bramley in terms of his report, The Case for Deep Reductions, done along with the David Suzuki Foundation. Mr. Bramley, with respect to this report of yours, do you do any economic modelling that specifically focuses on Canada?

[Matthew Bramley]

First of all, I think it's extremely misleading what you said in your preamble, because Bill C-377 says nothing about how the efforts would be distributed between provinces. So it is absolutely false.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Let's just get to my question here. I want to know if you've had any economic—

[Matthew Bramley]

It's absolutely false to draw any conclusions about provincial burdens on one province or another.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Well, it's a discussion, Mr. Bramley, that you'll have to take up with your counterpart on the phone, Ms. Donnelly, because she obviously would disagree, and she has a very thorough....

Maybe you have not seen this, and it might be to your advantage to see it.

But my question again is to you—

[Matthew Bramley]

Mr. Vellacott, there is absolutely nothing in this bill that talks about how the burden or how the responsibility would be distributed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Bramley, it's difficult. We try to get one person speaking at a time.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Bramley, does your report do any economic modelling that specifically focuses on Canada? In your report, The Case for Deep Reductions, do you have any economic modelling that focuses on Canada?

[Matthew Bramley]

We cite a number of economic modelling studies but none that relate specifically to meeting the target we advocate for Canada in 2050. To my knowledge, that hasn't been done, and it needs to be done.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

So you personally have not done any economic modelling that specifically focuses on Canada.

[Matthew Bramley]

No.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Bramley, with the Liberals, we saw a lot of talk and very little action, as you would be well aware. I'm referencing the 2005 commissioner's report, where she stated:

When it comes to protecting the environment, bold announcements are made and then often forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground. The federal government seems to have trouble crossing the finish line.

I note, Mr. Bramley, the fact that the Liberals seem a little more interested now in what you and the Pembina Institute have to say when they're not in power. This report of yours, as I understand, was released back in 2005. That's correct, is it not, 2005?

[Matthew Bramley]

At the very end of the year.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Exactly. So did that government, the Liberal government, indicate any interest in your report?

[Matthew Bramley]

I don't remember any specific meetings or interaction with the government of the day about the report, but I think we were almost into the election campaign at the time of the release, November 23, 2005.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Exactly. So it's not really that responsible for Canada to be silent on the part it intends to play post-2012, I would suggest to you, and I do suggest as well that the Liberals, it would appear, seemed rather interested in your report subsequently, but during that time when they were at the helm or at the rudder, there was not a great deal of interest in your plan.

I guess this question is for both of you at this time. Your plan, and this plan here, which I guess is the mirror of that, Bill C-377, has no action in it. It gives the government no authority to spend money to meet the bill. So what's your understanding of exactly what this private member's bill is, and how do you expect the government to be able to achieve anything in it without spending a dime?

[Matthew Bramley]

On this point, as others have noted, the bill has a similar structure to that found in the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, in that the onus is placed on the government to come up with regular climate plans. The government of the day has full freedom to choose the mix of spending measures, regulations, market-based instruments, provincial agreements, and so on that it sees fit as the most appropriate way for it to meet the targets in the plan, which the bill requires the government to set forth.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Ms. Donnelly, then, with respect to that question, what's your understanding of this private member's bill? Do you expect the government to be able to achieve anything without spending a dime? There's no plan of action in respect of that, and no authority to spend any money in this particular bill.

[Aldyen Donnelly]

I'm not a constitutional authority, so I'm taking you at your word.

Again, I cannot see any path forward towards compliance with any target below 2006 levels ranging between 20% and above by 2020 without substantial government spending. There are two reasons, and they're quite different.

One is that we often talk about the great opportunities, such as large hydro, east-west transmission lines, transit, and others, but the lion's share of large projects that we all know need to proceed require--to be delivered and in place by 2020--at least $90 billion, and maybe $125 billion, in capital investment to be in place before 2012. Most of the provinces have debt loads that are too high to be able to afford to raise that amount of cash, even on a return-on-investment basis, without federal participation.

The second thing that's really important is that anything we do is going to increase energy prices, which puts the 1.3 million low-income families in Canada in distress. It's going to cost at least $5 billion to pay the full costs of renovating their houses to make them more efficient. You can't move without those cash components—

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Right. Exactly.

Thank you very much, Ms. Donnelly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Harvey wants to go next.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I am sorry to see that Mr. Layton has already left, because I had some questions for him. I would like Mr. Christopherson to tell him that when we talk about carbon emissions in China, we divide the figure by 1.2 billion, which gives us a result of about 3 tons. Nonetheless, to attain the same results as Canada, China would have to invest not $10 billion but rather $378 billion in environmental protection initiatives.

Ms. Donnelly, regarding the 25% reduction by 2020, what does this mean in terms of the total percentage, if we estimate the current figure at more than 33%? What percentage of emission reductions below the current level does that represent?

[Aldyen Donnelly]

Those emissions compared with emissions in 2005—which I think were only a little bit lower than today's emissions—would represent a 50.4% reduction. That's the number in the middle column at the bottom of my table.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

So then, it represents a reduction of about 52%?

[Aldyen Donnelly]

Yes, I would think so.