Environment Committee on Nov. 27th, 2018

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

The Canadian target is a 20% reduction by 2020 and 30% by 2030, below the 2005 levels. If we're using ourselves as a model, how far have we improved, using the 2005 Paris target? How far have we improved, especially if we're beginning, as you're saying, as one of the world leaders, with possibly the highest standards in the world? The largest carbon sink in the world is our boreal forest.

If we're starting at the top and we have to improve, based on 2005, how far have your industries or your sectors improved? Is it possible for your sector to actually improve by 20% when we're already at the top?

[Susie Miller]

That was the reason I pointed out the benefit of reducing nitrous oxide and focusing on that rather than the carbon sinks, because if carbon sinks...if 45% of the soils or 80% of the soils have already been converted, then it's very difficult for us to make the same type of significant improvement.

I haven't seen any analysis at this point that indicates where and how much we could actually reduce. I think everybody is trying to work to get the best bang for the buck, but at this point in time, we don't have the analysis behind us.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

British Columbia is often referred to as a model. They've been successful. The economy has grown. Yet there is little mention of affordability. It's also the least affordable place in Canada. There has been a price on carbon, a carbon tax, in British Columbia, which is growing at $5 a tonne per year.

You're representing Canada. We're told the price on carbon in British Columbia is $35 a tonne, so would you know what that equates to in a percentage of tax? In British Columbia, there is a PST and a GST, 5% and 7%. Do you know what that carbon tax of $35 a tonne equates to and what percentage of the tax...? When British Columbian homeowners, farmers and industry pay a carbon tax on natural gas, do you know what percentage that tax is on the carbon?

[Susie Miller]

The answer is no, but Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada actually undertook some analysis to look at how a carbon tax of various levels would impact producers. Now, they didn't include carbon sinks and they didn't include biological processes: methane generated from cattle or nitrous oxide from decomposition. They also excluded fertilizer, which is of course a big contributor—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm going to interrupt you and then ask you to finish, because my time is quickly disappearing.

It's 112%. Next year, on April 1, it goes up to over 155%. That will be the price that will be charged on the amount of carbon you use. Do you think a tax of 155% on the amount of energy you use through natural gas as fuel is going to have an impact on your sectors?

[Susie Miller]

I would say absolutely—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time, so I'll give you have a couple of seconds to respond if you have a brief response.

[Susie Miller]

I would just say that an impact of that size...definitely some producers would feel an impact.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Stetski, let's go to you for six minutes.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you for being with us today.

My riding is Kootenay—Columbia, located in southeastern B.C. I have three mountain ranges: the Rockies, the Purcells and the Selkirks. I have dairy farms around the Creston area, but much of East Kootenay is mostly cattle ranching and crops grown to feed cattle.

One of our issues, of course, is the lack of broadband connectivity. We're still on dial-up in a number of places, and we have to fix that. I'm wondering if you could tell us your view on how broadband can help farmers ultimately improve their impact on climate change if they have good Internet access.

[Prof. Mike Moffatt]

We are looking at that issue.

If we go back to the nitrous oxide, we believe there is a role there for the Internet of things, such as soil sensors and that kind of thing, which would help farmers with the proper use of fertilizer. We're going to be investigating that to see how much of a bottleneck that is and what are the costs of getting these areas on better cell coverage—and ideally in the future 5G—and what the benefits would be as far as greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental performance standards go.

We haven't done that analysis yet, but in terms of the fact that we are even investigating that, we believe that there are likely to be gains there. We believe that part of the lack of adoption of some of these technologies is on these Internet bottlenecks.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

It would be mostly about fertilizer and soil moisture then, or—

[Susie Miller]

I think it's greater than that, because the traditional mechanism for expanding knowledge and new technology was through word of mouth, demonstrations and extension officers who were out in the field. That has changed significantly over the last 20 or 30 years. That's not where producers get their knowledge now. Yes, they get it from industry professionals they deal with, but they also get it from the Internet. If they don't have access to that, and if they don't have access to online courses because their Internet is too slow or it's out, they don't have the same advantages of adopting new practices and appropriate practices.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

My first paid employment was picking rocks and baling hay for farmers in Saskatchewan, so it's come a long way since then.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It's better than baling rocks and picking hay.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Absolutely.

I want to talk about biofuels for a minute. There is a company that produces biodiesel fuels, in Sparwood, B.C., which is in my riding. It's called Agri-Green Biodiesel. Traditionally, you used mostly corn and sugar cane, etc., for some biofuels. Biodiesel was from fats, waste greases and vegetable oils, but apparently the technology is moving forward.

I would be interested in what you think some of the opportunities are in Canada to expand businesses, or to get into businesses around biofuels of the future.

[Prof. Mike Moffatt]

There are all kinds of possibilities for areas where there are waste products. That could be in forestry, for example. You have all of these products that could be ending up in landfills or areas like that. There is both an environmental and economic opportunity there. I think part of taking advantage of that is being able to price externalities so that those technologies would have a price advantage over more emitting sources.

There is also an innovation role to play. There is an important role for our industries to work with community colleges and other institutions to develop these technologies, which we could use not just here in Canada. We then have intellectual property that we could export around the world.

[Susie Miller]

Mike is right, in terms of the motivation behind a producer. A producer will sell and produce what is at the highest cost, so it needs to be realistic, whether it's a new crop or an existing crop specifically designed for the biofuels market. It all comes down to price. In terms of new crops, there has been a lot of investigation over time with various kinds of oils and products that can be used. That investment needs to continue, in order to be able to open up the possibilities. Economics will take care of the introduction itself.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

It would seem to me that burning waste is an environmentally better thing to do than grow crops specifically for biofuels. That's a personal opinion, I guess.

If we have a chance, I'd like to talk a bit about carbon offsets, which I always thought were an opportunity just to relieve how bad you're feeling about your carbon footprint. They are also, potentially, economic opportunities.

I wonder if you could share with us some examples of what you think are good opportunities in Canada around buying carbon offsets. What might that look like?

[Prof. Mike Moffatt]

Is that buying or selling?

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Well, from my perspective, I'd have to buy them, but for selling—

[Prof. Mike Moffatt]

Yes, I think there are issues around measurement and permanence—you know, making sure the carbon that goes in the ground is actually staying in the ground. There is an opportunity. As we heard earlier, we do have some of the largest boreal forests. We are one of the world's largest carbon sinks. There is an opportunity to use that and try to determine.... Keeping this carbon in the ground helps us get that much closer to our Paris commitments.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

We will now go over to Mr. Fisher, where I hope we talk about seafood, seaweed and cattle. I'll leave it up to you what line of questioning you want to take.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

He brought it up, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, folks for being here. It's been fascinating testimony.

I will go right to you, Mike.

Mike, you were talking about reducing GHGs being both an issue and an opportunity. You talked about increased profits and economic return when you improve environmental performance. I'm fascinated by the opportunity, whereas we always look at the issue.

You talked about animal diets of course. Thank you for bringing up seafood, because it is happening on the east coast, of course, and Atlantic Canada, with seaweed and non-traditional diets, as I think you might have said. There are promising opportunities, nutrient applications, and advanced nitrogen practices. These are all things that, from what I got from your testimony, will lead to an economic return. I don't want to put the words in your mouth, so I'll let you go, but you're providing an economic return by doing the right thing.

[Prof. Mike Moffatt]

Absolutely. I think it's important that we not couch this and say we need to hit these environmental targets, and so in order to do that we must produce less. Nobody wants that. We have very aggressive export targets set out in the Barton report and the economic round table. I think it's important. My family is from rural southwestern Ontario. We believe it's the economic opportunity for these communities.

I think these opportunities come in three areas. The first is increased yield and lower costs with the better use of fertilizer, use of technology, just producing more or producing more value on the same plot of land. I think that's the first opportunity.

The second opportunity is creating greener products. We've heard about organic. Agriculture is by its nature a sort of low-margin industry, but if there are ways that we can differentiate our products as being more green, which in many cases we are—our wheat has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world—and if we can use that when exporting and our international customers are willing to pay more for our wheat because it has a lower greenhouse gas footprint, that creates opportunity.

Third, if we can develop new technologies, again whether it be for fertilizer use or genomics or anything else, this will create a set of intellectual property that we can use to export. We've heard people like Jim Balsillie talk about the opportunities connected with creating IP in Canada. Instead of constantly being the importer of these technologies, we can export those technologies.

Ideally I would like to see those technologies manufactured in southwestern Ontario, where I'm from, but either way, if we own that intellectual property, that creates economic opportunities for all of Canada.