Environment Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[Mike Beale]

Thank you.

Those air quality sites are primarily for air pollution and monitoring ambient levels of air pollution in Canada. But one of the initiatives that is being funded out of the most recent CARA funding is scientific analysis of the interaction between climate change and air pollution. This is really some path-breaking analysis that's going on internationally. We're working closely with our international partners in both the U.S. and Europe to examine how the projections of global warming are going to affect air pollution.

This work is at its early stages, but it's promising to be quite significant.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Monsieur Ouellet, cinq minutes, s'il vous plaît.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today. I think you will be able to answer some of my questions.

I would like to go back to the 20% reduction target. At present, it is a target; it is not yet a plan. Nevertheless, I assume that you can help us understand where the most significant reductions will take place.

We know that the tar sands—I love that name—emit more greenhouse gases than any other kind of production in Canada.

Do you know if the 20% reduction target is based on the current 3 million barrels per day, on the desired 5 million, or on 7 million barrels per day? Is that foreseeable?

[Mike Beale]

The 2020 target is a requirement for what Canada's total emissions will be in 2020 relative to that 2006 baseline. So that's an absolute emissions target that we need to attain.

As we develop our policies for how to attain that, we need to factor in the growth that we're expecting in different sectors. For example, the expected growth in oil sands is one of the factors that we take into account.

I need to point out that the oil sands is currently not the largest source of emissions; it's actually not nearly the largest source of emissions. The electricity-generating sector accounts for about 17% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions, and the transportation sector accounts for about 25%.

The issue is that oil sands are growing, and therefore we need to factor into our plan the projected growth in the economy and the jobs that represents, balanced with the emissions that will be coming from it.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

But in terms of energy produced, it still generates the most pollution per barrel. It is worse than electricity and coal.

I would like to go back to nuclear energy. A little earlier, the minister said that we would produce 90% of our electricity using clean sources. I hope you were not the one who wrote his speech, because nuclear energy is dangerous and generates a lot of pollution. It does not emit greenhouse gases, agreed, but that is not what he said in his remarks.

The request for supplementary funding does not include an allocation for the nuclear sector. Is that because not all of the money was spent this year? Last year, there was an increase. Given that the minister intends to increase efforts in the nuclear sector, where are we at? Where was all the money in the nuclear sector spent this year?

[Mike Beale]

None of this funding goes to support the nuclear sector in Canada.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Do you know what this year's budget for the nuclear sector is?

[Basia Ruta]

I think that a significant part of the funding can be found in the budgets of the Department of Natural Resources and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. So it is not part of our budget.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

It is in the Department of Natural Resources' budget.

[Basia Ruta]

That is correct.

I am not 100% sure, but we are not responsible for it.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I saw that there were transfers to the Department of Natural Resources. If that is included in the Department of the Environment's policies, I wonder why there were no transfers for the nuclear sector? Perhaps it is because the entire budget goes to the Department of Natural Resources, which is quite plausible.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

C'est fini. Merci beaucoup.

Mr. Calkins, you have the floor.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I have a bit of a keen interest in national parks, so I am going to ask questions along those lines.

The minister talked about $13.1 million for national parks, $9 million for contaminated sites, and $3 million for the advertising campaign. Could you provide the committee with some insight on the contaminated sites that are the priorities for the government at this time? Which national parks are they located in? Which contaminated sites will be taken care of with this $9-million investment?

[Céline Gaulin, Chief Administrative Officer, Parks Canada Agency]

Thank you for the question, Chair.

I do have some information on the contaminated sites program, which I'd be happy to share with you. I will not be able to provide the level of detail you are asking for today, but I can give you examples of where investments are being made over the coming year.

You are right that we received $9 million in funding this year for this important program. It's part of a $25-million investment over the next two years to address the numerous remediation and assessment challenges we face in national parks across the country. We have those same challenges in some of our national historic sites. In many instances they also were industrial sites where that kind of work took place.

There are examples in recent media releases of initiatives that are under way in Jasper National Park. For instance, there is $2 million being spent this year and next year to assess petroleum hydrocarbon contamination at three warden stations. Another announcement that was recently made related to the Lachine canal, where remediation work is under way for about $4.6 million this year and next. Again, that is hydrocarbon but also heavy metal contamination. These are two former industrial sites along the canal. There is also work in Ivvavik that is under way at this time.

I believe there are a total of 53 assessment projects planned, as well as 64 remediation and risk management projects. I don't have the list with me, but I'd be happy to share that information with you.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

For clarification, is this part of the stimulus funding or is it part of regular base funding?

[Céline Gaulin]

There are two streams of funding for the contaminated sites program this year. We received, in supplementary estimates (B), $5.9 million, and we had also received a little earlier this year $3.1 million through an advance supply from the board.

So there is some money related to the stimulus program and there is also money under the five-year program that we're funded under.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Just as a matter of interest, I used to be a national park warden in Jasper, so I am very pleased to hear that some of the warden stations and sites are being cleaned up. That's great news.

I probably only have time for one more question. On the $3.1 million the minister mentioned with regard to the clean energy dialogue, could you give the committee a sense of where those moneys are being spent, and break that down into the priorities that money will cover?

[Basia Ruta]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will provide a short perspective and ask my colleagues to provide more information.

Essentially it really is to, under the clean air agenda, international actions to implement the Canada clean energy dialogue. The initiative calls for both domestic and international actions to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It respects a significant commitment towards establishing a low carbon economy in North America to encourage the development and deployment of clean energy that will ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions and concomitant climate change.

There are working groups that have been developed, and a lot of this funding is for this. There is some funding in this $3 million that will also be extended to Natural Resources Canada as well as DFAIT.

Mr. Keenan might like to comment further on that.

[Michael Keenan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As my colleague indicated, a portion of the resources has been transferred to NRCan, and a small portion to Foreign Affairs.

There are three main project areas in the clean energy dialogue that were established by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper. The first is to advance collaborative work on carbon capture and storage. The second is toward a more efficient electricity grid based on the provision of clean and renewable sources of power. The third is on research and development around new technologies on clean energy, with a focus on building a common North American innovation road map for clean energy technology.

The resources are going to a wide range of types of activities. There are joint workshops between Canadian and American officials. There are some small-scale R and D projects. There's a lot of work in terms of pulling together a common information base. An atlas of CCS in North America is one example. There's work in terms of working out what you could describe as common North American rules of the road for CCS so that both countries have the same kind of regulatory policy on this important technology.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. The time has expired.

Mr. Trudeau, you have the floor.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When talking about the 20% reduction by 2020 from 2006 levels, we have to look at the issue of early adoption. We had a number of major industries in here in the last session—chemical companies, steel refineries, petroleum refineries—that indicated they've managed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by anything from 12% to, in the case of the chemical companies, almost 65% since 1990.

I asked how they thought they were going to be able to do on the 2006 reduction levels by 2020 and whether they were going to be able to hit the 20% reduction from 2006 levels given that, since 1990, they did as much reducing as they had for many different reasons and in many different ways.

They reached the low-hanging fruit on that and they indicated it was going to be much more difficult for them to hit the 20% reductions by 2020 from 2006 levels because the obvious things had very much been done early on from 1990 levels.

I asked them about the kind of support, guidance, encouragement, and direction they were being given from this government to help them reach those 20% reductions from 2006 levels by 2020. Their response was that it was not all that much.

As our chair mentioned, the public service is responsible for implementing policy. How are we doing on implementing the only policy the government seems to have, which is the target of 20% reductions from 2006 levels?

[Mike Beale]

The 20% target, as you know, is a national target. One of the issues the government will be seized with is how that target gets distributed across all the Canadian emissions, which are not just industrial emissions. Industrial emissions account for roughly 47% of Canada's total.

Clearly, to reach a target like that, all sectors and sources of emissions are going to contribute. How that will be done exactly has not yet been detailed. As the cap and trade system is brought to implementation, that will be through a series of regulations that will set out the details of what each industrial sector is expected to do.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I understand that industrial sectors represent, as you said, about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is obviously not all of it but is a big chunk and something of a unitary chunk. It's an important thing to address.

The fact there hasn't been a clear direction given to those companies in the past four years is something we hear every time we meet with industry stakeholders that need to know how they're going to reach the reductions that not just Canada but the world markets are demanding of the various industries.

It seems to me this is the first thing we should be looking at, but if the government hasn't got around to talking to the major industries and giving them tools for reduction, what is the government doing about major reductions on the 60% side, the other areas where we can reduce? How are the concrete steps we're going to take to reach that 20% from 2006 levels coming in?

[Mike Beale]

One very clear way in which we are doing this, and I think the minister referred to it in his remarks, is through our regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Canada has led the way in North America by moving to a tailpipe approach towards regulating emissions from vehicles. The minister announced this in April. We're currently developing the regulations. Those will be harmonized with the United States.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Is that with the California levels?