Evidence of meeting #11 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pricing.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Daniel Watson  Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada Agency
Michael Martin  Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Ron Hallman  President, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

We are out of time now. If somebody wants to pick up on that line of questioning, we can carry on with that later, if you don't mind.

Mr. Aldag.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

I have some questions, and I'm going to start with parks, something that's near and dear to me. I was really excited to see that our campaign commitment for providing free access to national parks and historic sites in 2017 is there, and that we've put in $83.3 million over five years for allowing free admission in 2017 and then, I believe, for students beyond the five-year period.

I did have the chance to be in Banff-Lake Louise two weekends ago, a place where I've spent some time in my career. As we prepare for the free admission, what sort of thought is also going into maintaining the ecological and cultural integrity of our parks and sites? We have some time to prepare for 2017, but I know that already on a summer's day in Lake Louise there is no parking, and I'm wondering, with the money that's coming, if there will be any opportunities to mitigate the perhaps increased visitation.

I'm not criticizing. It's a wonderful thing that we're providing access, but what measures will we be able to take as Parks Canada to mitigate some of the perhaps renewed interest in parks and sites that will be generated in 2017 and hopefully beyond?

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Thank you.

Also, thank you for all of your work over I don't know how many years. It's a lot of years. Maybe you don't want to say.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

Thirty-three.

11:45 a.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

That's on parks and also historic sites, as you've reminded me.

I was very excited that as part of my mandate letter and as part of budget 2016 we announced free access to national parks for our 150th birthday. I could not think of a better way to celebrate the beauty of Canada than through free access.

I think you raise an important point for some parks. As you say, some mountain parks already have a large number of visitors. We have some parks that see fewer than 100 people a year, so there's certainly a huge variety in parks.

I was in Banff National Park, where I made a really exciting announcement about support for infrastructure there. We had a discussion about this. I think it's important to have discussions about how we maintain the ecological integrity of our parks, which is paramount, as you say, while at the same time getting more people out to our parks to enjoy them, not just because they're free, but to see them and then make a lifelong commitment to coming to our parks.

We are having discussions, particularly with parks where they already see a high volume of visitors, to look at how we can ensure this. Maybe we can promote it so that people come at different times or go to different areas. Also, overall, how do we ensure that we maintain the ecological integrity of our parks?

I think that is absolutely manageable, and I think it is a really exciting opportunity for our country. What I'm also focused on is looking at what programs we can expand, and what are the new programs, the new opportunities for Canadians who do not see our national parks. For lower-income Canadians or new immigrants, how do we make parks more accessible to them?

I think it is really important that parks aren't just for people who can afford to get to parks or who are used to canoe-tripping or building campfires. There are a lot of Canadians who have never had the opportunity to go to a park, and it's a bit daunting for them. We're expanding our Learn to Camp program. We have a number of other programs that we're promoting to get disadvantaged Canadians and new Canadians to parks.

I'm also excited to be able to talk about two other programs. Starting in 2018, we will have free access to national parks for Canadian youth, children 18 and under, and new Canadians in the first year in which they get citizenship.

These are great initiatives, but they're not everything. We need to be thinking about how we get people there. How do we facilitate transportation there? How do we facilitate camp experiences?

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

That's excellent. Thank you.

Yes, they're very exciting programs, and I encourage you to continue with them. I know that Canadians will thoroughly enjoy the parks and sites in 2017 and beyond, as they have for more than 100 years.

You mentioned buildings contributing to greenhouse gases. I was also delighted to see in the budget the $20 million over the next two years in the national cost-sharing program. I have a quick question on how the agency is ramping up to deliver those funds to the third party historic sites. I've had great feedback already from the network of sites. They're saying that it's so nice to see the government doing this—to go to what Mr. Cullen raised—and to see a specific segment of the built heritage actually having investments made so that it doesn't have to be knocked down and we can actually retain these architectural gems that we have across the country.

Do you have a comment or two on how we'll be dealing with the investment in our built heritage?

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

I'll say something quickly and then I will pass it on to the head of Parks Canada.

Certainly sometimes we forget about national historic sites in all of our excitement in talking about parks, and they are very important to us. We are putting significant investments into them, and it is important that they're not falling down and that we encourage Canadians to get there.

Maybe on the specifics, I will pass it on.

11:50 a.m.

Daniel Watson Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada Agency

This is an area that's been of great interest to provinces, municipalities, and some other players in the country for a long time, as you may well know. They've been asking for this for a number of years, so we're working closely with them through an existing federal, provincial, and territorial working group to sort out the details. We expect to have these rolled out before too long, and there is a big backlog of demand in this very area.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fast.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before committee. It's good to have you here for the first time.

You have often said that the environment and the economy go hand in hand, and I fully agree with you.

As you move forward with your commitment to impose carbon pricing on Canadians, on the provinces and on the territories, have you given thought to how you're going to ensure that you maintain a level playing field for Canadian businesses vis-à-vis their competitors around the world? I'm thinking of the United States, which in a perfect world would move in lockstep with us in implementing our approaches to climate change. The reality is that we typically move at a different pace from the United States. The same is true for all of our key competitors around the world.

I have spoken to many Canadian businesses that appreciate that Canada has to do its part to address the environmental challenges that face us, but they are deathly afraid that the playing field will be dramatically tilted against them if Canada moves forward with aggressive climate change policy and specifically carbon pricing if, in fact, some of the key competitors do not follow suit.

What I'd want to hear from you is the approach you will be bringing to the table to assure our businesses that they will continue to be able to thrive within the global market.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Carbon pricing is clearly a key part of the first ministers' process; the first ministers all endorse carbon pricing.

I have actually had discussions with Canadian business, and they ask us to please go ahead with carbon pricing because it is the most efficient mechanism to reduce emissions and to foster innovation. In fact, we already have an internal price on carbon.

Just last week before I went to Washington where I spoke—Canada is a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership coalition—the Mining Association of Canada endorsed carbon pricing. I should point out that the members of the Mining Association of Canada that called for carbon pricing include Suncor and Shell. This is clearly a signal from the business community in Canada that this is something we should be doing.

Internationally there's a lot of good progress.

I should also talk about the leadership of the provinces. With the leadership of the provinces, more than 80% of Canadians will be living in a jurisdiction that has or will have a price for carbon. Currently, B.C. and Alberta have a tax. Ontario will be joining with Quebec and California in a cap-and-trade system.

We already have carbon pricing, so I think the question is how we ensure that it's across the country and that it actually reduces carbon pollution.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Minister, my apologies because my time is short.

My question was: how will you ensure that Canadian businesses will not now be playing on an unlevelled playing field once carbon pricing policies have been imposed on them?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

I think you do that in two ways.

One is working internationally. Next year, in 2017, China will be introducing a cap-and-trade system. When China does that, it will be a game-changer because most companies and businesses are looking to do business in China. That is a very important signal.

Absolutely we need to consider competitiveness, and I would say it will make our companies more competitive if they reduce pollution. We have 195 countries that have signalled that they are moving to a lower carbon economy.

I've always said we need to be thoughtful, and that is why we are sitting down with provinces and territories to discuss carbon pricing to understand the different systems and to understand concerns from business, the provinces, and the territories. Businesses have the opportunity and have said that they will be providing submissions to different working groups, including the carbon pricing working group.

I'm very interested in discussing this with them and looking at the different measures you can take to address carbon leakage, and I think that we will come up with and design a good system that addresses that, but that also ultimately makes us more competitive in the future.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Thank you for that. I hope you do listen to the provinces and territories, because many of them have carbon-intensive, trade-sensitive industries that have to be protected. These industries generally acknowledge that they have to do their part, but what they don't want to do is compete on an un-level playing field.

I want to challenge you. I'm glad you mentioned the Mining Association of Canada. I was aware that they would be supporting carbon pricing, but they made it conditional. It was a very clear position, and that was that it should be a revenue-neutral carbon pricing regime.

Are you able to commit at this table, based on the request and the commitment made by the Mining Association of Canada, that whatever carbon pricing mechanism you will implement will be truly revenue neutral—not an Alberta type of revenue-neutral, but truly revenue-neutral?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

We are very excited by the Mining Association of Canada's support.

We have said that we are working with the provinces and territories. It is really up to the provinces and territories to design the system that meets their needs. As you said, provinces and territories don't want things imposed on them that aren't going to make sense.

I trust the judgment of the premiers of provinces and territories to design a system that they think is the most effective.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Perfect. Thank you for that good timing.

Mr. Amos.

Noon

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Thank you, Minister, for coming. Thank you to the officials. This is really exciting. It's a real privilege to be able to ask you some questions.

I'll start off by looking for a bit more meat on the bone around the environmental assessment review process. I think many Canadians feel that if there were a signature challenge of the previous government, it was their devolution of authority to the provinces around environmental assessment and an unwillingness to be serious about ensuring that projects are promoted sustainably.

What can you tell us about what the consultation looks like? I understand that it's going to take time, and I understand that it's going to take consultations with various players, but can you shed a bit more light on how Canadians can expect that process to roll out?

Noon

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Thank you very much for all your work on environmental issues through your career.

As you all know, my mandate in the mandate letter is to restore the confidence of Canadians in our environmental assessment process. There are concerns with the changes that were made in CEAA 2012, so we are doing two things.

One is addressing projects that are currently under review. For those projects, we announced interim principles. What is great is that I work very closely with the Minister of Natural Resources. This doesn't always happen in governments, but we are absolutely aligned. Getting our resources to market has to be done in a sustainable way, which means that we need to be working together.

Those principles include ensuring that decisions are made on evidence, facts, and science as well as traditional knowledge; that we have proper consultation with communities; that we engage with indigenous peoples; that we look at upstream greenhouse gas emissions.

That's on the interim process. Now, with the review of our environmental assessment process, we're looking at various options. Obviously, there would be an opportunity for the committee to provide any feedback on what the committee believes building confidence in our environmental process would look like. Legislative changes would come to the committee.

We are still listening to various groups. We've met with indigenous groups, with environmental groups, with business, to try to determine the best way to move forward in a very timely fashion. We understand that we need to be doing this in a timely fashion so that we have a robust, modern environmental assessment process that has the confidence of Canadians.

Noon

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

I'd like to return to the line of questions that Mr. Bossio was pursuing around the Federal Sustainable Development Act. We obviously have taken it upon ourselves as part of our unanimously agreed work agenda to evaluate not only the strategy that is proposed, but more broadly, the act itself. Of course, the purpose of the FSDA is to ensure accountability and transparency in the federal government system, and obviously it represents a major opportunity. The federal government itself is a huge enterprise that spends billions of dollars and there are many opportunities to make major gains on climate files and on others as well.

You've got an interesting view. You've seen the whole of government, how it operates from the core out. What can you tell us so far from what you've seen about what you would like to see improved in the government operations?

Also, if you're so inclined, I'd invite your officials to comment as well. The federal government system isn't perfect in terms of how it operates. There must be ways to improve it. We're looking at making recommendations on that, but I wonder if you could provide us with some initial remarks as we contemplate it ourselves.

Noon

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

I can't say that in five months I know everything about how government operates, and procurement is a particularly complicated area.

As I said, what I see as the opportunity but also the challenge is that I have a very clear mandate to reduce emissions, including with our own government, but as the Minister of Environment and Climate Change I'm not the minister responsible for a lot of procurement in most areas except, obviously, within the agencies and the department. Goodwill clearly exists across the board—everyone is extraordinarily supportive from the ministers to the officials—to my mandate to reduce emissions, for Canada to take a significant step, to demonstrate that we get it, that we need to be a leader when it comes to reducing emissions. The challenge really is to figure out how to translate that.

That's why I really put it out to the committee but also to Canadians: how do we do that? How do we ensure that we have a whole-of-government approach and not just to climate change, because it goes beyond climate change, it goes to air quality, to water, to these other areas that we were discussing? How do we ensure that we have tangible objectives that are measurable so that we can ensure that we are actually reaching them and measuring them, but also that it's across government? I don't know that I have those solutions but I certainly appreciate the thoughts of the committee and of Canadians on the draft that was put out there.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome Marilyn Gladu who's joining us today at committee.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Thanks to the minister and her team for coming today.

I'll be looking for concise answers and I'll say thank you when I've heard enough of the answer because I want to make the best use of my time.

My first question is this: being that Canada's contribution to the overall global footprint is less than 2%, what tangible temperature decrease do we expect to see from the billions of dollars being spent on climate change?

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

I think everyone needs to be doing their part. Canada has to be doing its part and unfortunately right now we're going in the wrong direction when it comes to emissions.

If we don't, if every country doesn't do its part, then we are never going to be below 2 and be below 1.5. That is why we're working so hard to come up with our strategy to reduce emissions. There wasn't a lot of action, in fact we went in the wrong direction for the last 10 years—

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Thanks very much.