Environment Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[Prof. André Plourde]

Depending on how you structure it, you may need additional measures other than just a tradeable permit system to reach the target. This would mean that you now need to get into a higher cost than what just getting the permits would get you. That's where you can get a differentiation on the cost of emissions reductions than basically the permit price.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, again, to the witnesses.

Dr. Plourde, I have agreed with very much of what you said today, but I want to take one tiny little issue with where you ended up with Mr. Braid on the question of whether the government is on the path or has laid out a pathway.

I've been doing a little collection myself, and I'm going to refer you to a few things. For example, effective July this year we've lowered the formal emissions reporting requirement from 100 kilotonnes to 50 kilotonnes, thereby extending to about 3,000 companies the obligation to report. We've been funding Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which over its lifetime has financed 171 start-up companies in the area of climate change and clean air. We have an early offset system for greenhouse gases, which we're working on to pave the way for a carbon market. We have introduced tailpipe emissions reduction standards. We have modernized the Energy Efficiency Act. We have put $407 million into VIA Rail improvements so as to reduce emissions from their stock; $1 billion over two years for energy retrofits to social housing; $1 billion for clean energy research and development; the creation of the ecoENERGY for biofuels program; and on it goes.

We can argue, I suppose, about whether we're doing enough, and I don't know if you've heard of any of these things, but do you think you might be able to agree with me that the Government of Canada is at least setting us on a pathway?

[Prof. André Plourde]

As with previous governments, this government has been spending a lot of money on this issue. The point is, are these cost-effective investments? The answer is that so far there is not a lot of evidence that these are cost-effective investments. So in the end, I have not seen any analysis that would suggest that the sum of these measures will get us to the targets we've been talking about.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

At least we're trying.

[Prof. André Plourde]

Previous governments were trying as well.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you think that lowering the emissions reporting threshold is a good idea, for example?

[Prof. André Plourde]

I don't know whether you have the answers here at the right level, but at some point in time, the answer to that is no. You don't lower the threshold. You're just increasing costs of doing business--

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

No, no.

[Prof. André Plourde]

--to deal with a very small part of emissions.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I mean the reporting threshold, so we know who is emitting.

[Prof. André Plourde]

I understand that. It's costly to report. You don't need to know who is emitting if you have a permanent system.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You're out of time.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the comments and analysis and the discussion that both Professor Plourde and Professor Dissou have brought. Professor Plourde said he's cheap and he doesn't want to see a lot of increases in costs in some of these measures. I can tell you that I think all Canadians are very frugal and are concerned about those types of issues.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.