Evidence of meeting #129 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 change.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:25 p.m.
Prof. Christopher Ragan
Who would be the right person to do it?
5:25 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
What I'm talking about is, who explains for other countries, other nations and other regions how they're reducing their emissions and explains their price on pollution and their plan? Is there a country that does this better?
5:25 p.m.
Prof. Christopher Ragan
Is there a country that explains carbon pricing better? That's a great question. I don't know the answer, honestly.
I think we can do it.
5:25 p.m.
Prof. Christopher Ragan
I think we can do it. We do it by starting. Then you see which part doesn't make it, and you do it again. You keep talking about it, you keep asking questions and you keep explaining. You do it in newspapers and on talk radio, in op-eds and in television interviews. You do it wherever you can.
5:25 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
I think that's what we're planning on doing. I just wanted to know whether you knew of a jurisdiction that had done it well.
I'll ask you a second question. You mentioned a couple of issues that we have to grapple with. They are the impacts on business competitiveness and household purchasing power, which I think we've tried to address as we've made announcements, and also that we can design policy to address both of those impacts. Do you think what we're putting in place is a good plan moving forward? Are there any other suggestions you might have for us?
5:25 p.m.
Prof. Christopher Ragan
I think it is a good plan and I'll tell you why it's a good plan in three parts.
You're asking about the federal backstop.
5:25 p.m.
Prof. Christopher Ragan
If the federal backstop is implemented in a province that does not have its own carbon pricing, first, it's good because it's a broad-based carbon price. “Broad-based” meaning that it applies to a big chunk of the emissions in a province.
Second, it's well designed because it is actually giving a significant share of the carbon pricing revenues from the fuel tax back to households and restoring their purchasing power. It's also saving some aside for small businesses, municipalities, etc. You could quibble about the details, but in broad outline, that is a smart design.
The third thing is that the federal backstop includes an output-based pricing system. The last two things are really modelled and inspired, in part, by the Alberta policy. The output-based pricing system in the federal backstop is well designed to deal with the tough problem of maintaining business competitiveness.
On those three elements, the federal backstop is a well-designed plan. You could certainly quibble about details, but in broad outline, it's a good policy.
5:30 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Although you haven't used your six minutes, we're at 5:30. I believe people need to move on, to catch flights and things like that.
I hate to cut it off, but we're at the end of the meeting. I wanted to jump in and thank the witnesses for their flexibility and understanding today and for their testimony.
If you have reports or things that you'd like to submit, and there have been some references to material, please send it in to the clerk, so that we can have it translated and circulated to the committee.
Thanks, everybody, for a great session. Have a great weekend.