Evidence of meeting #34 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was regulations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
They are serious. They are moving ahead. I hope I'm wrong in 2020. But we've said, and so have others, that right now, there's not enough there and there's not enough time.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In any event, that figure we're looking at of 178 million tonnes is an absolute outside limit. Whatever we can do up to that point will reduce that amount.
Indeed, as I understand it, we had only a two million tonne increase between 2009 and 2010. I think that's what you said.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
That's correct.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I couldn't quite do the math quickly enough, but it sounded to me like it was less than 1%. In fact, it was probably an increase of one-third of 1% between 2009 and 2010. Is that more or less correct?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I think it was even better than that. I think it was 0.25%.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That was even though the economy, during the same period, grew by 3.2%. Is that correct?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
That's correct.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That ability to hold our emissions down while the economy is growing may indeed be yet another factor that's hard to project into the future, if it's a trend that continues.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Exactly.
I think one of the things we said was that they were absolutely good first steps on the 2020.
Just to be very clear, there are a whole bunch of things we've said are very positive. But right now, it's unclear what the plans are and what the next steps are. If the economy grows by x amount, which we all hope it will, how do you actually continue to not only get that decoupling but to actually bring in the real reductions? Because the decoupling isn't going to get us there.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I guess what I'm saying is that the fact that there was such an excellent ratio from 2009 to 2010 augurs well for Canada as a whole, whether it's the result of particular regulations or the result of voluntary containment efforts or other efforts. It's something that is very difficult to quantify in a projection.
Conservative
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I think that, nevertheless, the goal is to bring it down by 178 million tonnes, and the most recent data shows an increase of two million tonnes. The gap is closing, but the direction isn't going downwards. The direction is still going upwards. That's the real challenge, which of course, the government knows full well as well. It's seized with this.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank all of you for coming and for your report.
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy has shown that climate change will cost Canadians $21 billion to $43 billion annually by 2015. We are talking today about Kyoto and what it means for Canada and internationally.
The most vulnerable countries understand that 2015 is already too late. The 2°C stabilization target will likely be missed. Some developed countries remain insensitive to their predicament. Some islands will likely become submerged, and their hopes for enhanced global support aiding their efforts have continually been disappointed.
I believe that the government needs to demonstrate moral and intergenerational responsibility on climate change.
My question is this. Did the government demonstrate legal responsibility in complying with the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
What we've said in this report today is that the government did not comply with the act. We've said that there has been improvement in the plans; nevertheless, the plans did not contain everything that was required in the act, particularly the equitable distribution among sectors. That information was not there.
More importantly, if the intent of the act is to show Canada's honouring the commitment of Kyoto, we've said—and the government itself has said—that they missed that by over 800 million tonnes. So the gap is actually enormous between the emissions and the Kyoto target.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
So they did not meet their legal responsibilities.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
They did not comply. Yes.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
I think your work today has confirmed what we've known for a long time, namely, that the government is not on track to achieve its 2020 emissions target. The Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act significantly strengthened transparency on federal climate policy. Previously the national round table had been recommending that the act continue until 2020.
Environment Commissioner, you have highlighted the perils of trying to meet a target without a clear plan and clear management structures in place. Instead of amending the act, the government has chosen to eliminate it. I wonder if you could comment on what's going to be there to hold the government to account, and comment on transparency going forward.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
First of all, the decision to repeal the act was a policy decision, and it wouldn't be for me to comment on.
What I would say is that under the Auditor General Act, our office has the mandate and responsibility to audit programs of significant interest to parliamentarians. So there was nothing that would constrain us from looking at future work related to climate change, in terms of progress.
Indeed, the 2020 chapter is not within the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, nor are the contaminated sites. We will continue in the future to look at this as one of the important areas of our work and responsibility.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That's encouraging to hear. Thank you.
I think page 80 of your report indicates that environment and human health risks remain. For example, I think that there are 827 contaminated sites that are high priority, and there are 2,437 medium-priority active sites. Could you comment on the risk to the environment and the risk to human health, please?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes. I may ask my colleague, Trevor Shaw, to explain it in a little more detail. The classification of those—as you said, over 800 sites—are class 1, which are high priority. They are classified high priority because they are either close to a community, or close to human population, or they pose a risk that, because of a groundwater aquifer or a river, a population may be exposed to contaminants that are dangerous to human health as well as to environmental quality.
The contamination within those ranges are from a whole bunch of different things, and Mr. Shaw could explain.
Trevor Shaw Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Certainly. The risks are both compounded. You can have environmental risks and health risks in combination. Of course, the risks vary depending on the site and location. What we found and reported is that they have a process in place of establishing that, assessing them, and doing the risk rating. When you look at the risk rating—high priority, medium priority—that reflects a compound assessment of those things.
In terms of commenting on the particular types of contaminants, in our report we put out the general information about the types of contaminants in the sites and their relative prevalence. We didn't look at individual sites nor all the ramifications of individual sites.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Could you describe one of the mines that is near where humans are living, and could you give us an example of what's there and what the potential risk is?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I will, because I actually went up to Yellowknife and to Giant Mine. I have to say that the public officials who are working on that site, particularly Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, and Public Works, are really, for me, an example of the dedication of the public service in this country. There are engineers who have been on that site for over 10 years.
The site contains over 200,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide. It's adjacent to Great Slave Lake, adjacent to the water source for Yellowknife. Because it's unstable—because it's powder—the plan is that it has to be kept contained forever because the permafrost has melted in that area. The plan is to have an underground frozen system that will be operating for centuries and centuries to come. That would just be one example and one of the four largest sites that are costing over $600 million to manage.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
This is not for decades; it's for centuries. Has the permafrost melted because of climate change?
