Evidence of meeting #135 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 waste.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My next questions will be to Mr. Rosaasen and Mr. McCabe.
Mr. Rosaasen, you mentioned in your opening remarks that a system was put in place in 2007.
Can you tell us more about that system?
Chairman, Biological Carbon Canada
In 2007, within Alberta, we had what's commonly known as the SGER, basically the overhang of emissions that were resulting in large final emitters, so the specified gas emission reduction protocol.
Under that protocol came the opportunity to devise different types of offsets in the carbon market. Those offsets allowed large final emitters to either pay the tax, which was set in Alberta back in 2007 at $15 a tonne, or use a carbon offset to offset their emission overhang. Over the course of that time, just through the conservation cropping protocol—which refers to direct seeding or no-till farming or zero tillage—we managed to not only sequester but also have third party verification that this indeed was taking place, and to serialize, which means to actually put a serial number on that carbon credit that was generated on the registry in Alberta. It was the equivalent of 14.7 million tonnes, and that would be the equivalent of every single pickup truck that was sold in 2017 within North America.
There's huge potential when that potential is recognized. There have been some hiccups and bumps along the way. When you have changes in government and regulation and policy going forward, it's an unpredictable policy environment. We've had certain changes, of course, that have allowed large final emitters to use only 30% of their emission overhang as offsets, so in essence that somewhat crashed or resulted in big discounts from, say, that $15 a tonne down to much lower.
There's huge potential. We know we can capitalize on it. We know we're already adopting a lot of these mitigation technologies, not only in agriculture but also in forestry and even in waste management with methane capture for some of those landfills that don't have other options.
Don, I know you would like to add to this.
Director, Biological Carbon Canada
The Alberta system was a very early system that led the way for the rest of the country to explore more opportunities. Here in Ontario, when we had a Liberal government, we had a cap-and-trade program that was brought into place. It was brought into place in theory. We had a cap, but unfortunately there was no trade for the agriculture and forestry industries to offer offset solutions.
We're now headed to an Australian-type system. I haven't had a chance to study that system yet to find out if there will be opportunities for revenue in there for us at agriculture and forestry. Again, I have to reiterate, we are at the end of the cycle or at the front end of the cycle or the start of the circle—however you want to describe it—because we buy it retail, we sell it wholesale, and we pay the trucking both ways.
Be careful how you use your language. I accept that there has to be a price on carbon. A carbon tax is destructive to us in resource industries. Cap and trade has to be fully operational with the trade portion, and it will be the least cost-efficient way for us to address things, but if you don't frickin' recognize it at the international level, I don't know why we're wasting airfare to Poland to talk about nothing.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you.
For my own benefit, could you tell me who was in power in Alberta in 2007?
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you.
What I understand from your answer is that the industry disciplined itself and started paying attention to the environment in 2007.
The environmental issue is not new, it has not just appeared. The process has accelerated, perhaps because the environmental community has done what it needed to become involved. We will probably not be able to go backwards, actually, because we must build for the future.
In your presentation, you talked about problems in Canada, but you also talked about solutions. It is interesting to see that there is hope, that there are organizations and companies regulating themselves and proposing solutions in order to be even more respectful of our planet. That's encouraging.
Mr. Rosaasen, you said earlier that you were in favour of a carbon tax.
I think you're suggesting the carbon tax as a way to achieve the same ends as I and everyone around the table want, which is to protect our environment.
Can you explain your reasoning to me?
Chairman, Biological Carbon Canada
Again, price signals work, right? Even in the absence of regulation or a carbon tax, all industries will improve their efficiencies to reduce their overall costs. Even in the absence of regulation in the province I hail from, Saskatchewan, producers there were first movers in adopting no-till technology. They continue to do that and to innovate. It's very important to recognize that climate sense and economic sense go hand in hand.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Thank you.
We're now going to Mr. Fisher.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks, folks.
I'm going to go to you, Carolyn and Hans. I'm fascinated by the upcycling. In turning waste into treasure—one man's garbage is another man's treasure—you're turning what many consider waste into reusable products, and really cool products. Congratulations on that.
It's not totally comparable, but in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour there's a company called Dan-x. Long before anyone saw an issue with or value in used light bulbs, they were taking in used light bulbs, recycling them into four or five different products and selling every one of them. The most difficult one to sell was one that they had to almost create a market for, which is the phosphor powder.
I'm a little bit all over the place with this. I'm thinking about extended producer responsibility. We think that when you buy a tire, you pay four bucks a tire up front and that covers its end of life. What about having not just a cost up front but maybe making waste available to artists or upcyclers?
You talked about the snowsuits. Maybe that producer has to come up with a plan if they have unsellable product.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm just trying to think outside the box. I doubt very much that we're going to get to the position where a landfill is going to be a big flea market for upcyclers, but certainly there are things that don't go to landfill and do go to recycling facilities. There's probably a veritable gold mine at some of those recycling facilities.
Co-Owner, Bon Eco Design
Yes. Now, it is a dirty business, right? We have to deal with that, quite literally. I have been to recyclers. The success of a recycler has to do with markets; they have to find markets. Someone like me would be a producer. A recycler could take in inner tubes and I could go and buy them, if that's what you're alluding to. If there is a clearing house or a place not just for art.... I apply art and design, but I think that art and design can be in creating base materials, not just in creating art pieces. I think what I do is demonstrate that there is wealth in waste. There is money in waste.
Liberal
Co-Owner, Bon Eco Design
Yes, and as my colleague here says, money talks. If we can expose the value, such as breaking down products like light bulbs, that's brilliant. For anything we make, we have to think about how it comes apart. We do a terrible job of that right now.
I like the idea of researching. This industry is so ready for exploration, but there is a lot of money to be made in landfilling. It's very corrupt. I mentioned the trucking business.
You have to deal with that. You have to sell the value. You have to expose the value in the landfill business. We are throwing out valuable materials.
The environment is definitely my motivation. It should be everyone's motivation, but to have that material develop cradle to cradle, the next product material should be a good material. It shouldn't just be “that'll do because it is recycled”. It has to be beautiful. I've dealt with fabrics that have been recycled from post-consumer wastes that were beautiful and with some that were not so beautiful. I know that the beautiful stuff is selling. That's the design component that we need to have in our materials.
I think about this a lot, and I have researched it. We need a lot of work.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
As we think about garbage, we've known for quite some time that garbage is cash, wasted cash, whether it's alternative energy and waste-to-energy, of which there are several different types, or upcycling a piece of one person's garbage. Congratulations on that. I think that's fascinating.
Liberal
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm going to pass that last minute and a half on to Mr. Bossio.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I think there's one quick aspect here, and there are two quick questions I'd like to ask.
One is that if we had producer responsibility around stewardship so that those who are producing the products in the first place were responsible for that cradle-to-cradle aspect, do you agree that far more of them would actually create greater value in the consumed product at the end of the day? Therefore, it would provide you with good materials that could be used in creating that value, potentially. Or they could reuse the consumed products again in a new product, moving forward in the cradle-to-cradle concept.
Co-Owner, Bon Eco Design
We all know the standards I'm talking about whether it's LEED or ISO 9001, the corporate standards. I've been to companies that do absorb their own waste. They can't give me anything because it goes right back into the manufacturing. That's how we have to think. That's low-hanging fruit—
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I'm sorry to cut you off.
There's one final question I want to ask, and that is for you, Mr. Rosaasen. On the advancements that have occurred in agriculture in Alberta, which are phenomenal—and I commend the producers there for being able to achieve these great emissions reductions—do you feel that they would have occurred if the incentive had not been there through this pricing mechanism that was created in 2007 by Alberta? That clear pricing signal I think was the incentive that really drove a lot of the advancements and innovation that occurred.
Chairman, Biological Carbon Canada
Very quickly, because I see we're out of time, the price signal was only to the large final emitters. The producers were already adopting this. Also, they're adopting it all across Canada, from coast to coast. It wasn't the price signal that in the first place moved producers to minimize the number of passes they made over their land, to go to direct seeding and to adopt autonomous or precision GPS guidance. That's all happening in the absence of regulation.
The point is that, yes, price signals do work, and producers will continue to adopt and innovate. However, you need to understand that we have a huge potential in biologicals and we need to recognize that our soils have a huge buffering capacity, as do our forests. It's imperative to know that we can drive that innovation so much further.