Evidence of meeting #138 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 fuels.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
To resume debate is a dilatory motion so there is no debate.
We'll go straight to a vote.
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Okay.
I will turn it over to the clerk.
The question is to resume debate on the motion.
4:20 p.m.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
As a point of order, could I find out, through you to the clerk, what the clause is in Bosc and Gagnon that says a motion to resume debate is a dilatory motion?
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
There are no clauses in Bosc and Gagnon, but we can find—
4:20 p.m.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
Where in the policy manual does it list that it's a dilatory motion?
I'm not debating, Mr. Chair. I am asking a point of order question.
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
The clarification I've been given is that we can provide you with that reference. The ruling is that it's a dilatory motion. We're going to a recorded vote as you had requested.
I'll turn it over to the clerk for the—
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
The motion that debate had been adjourned on, that is now being proposed to come back, says specifically: that:
That,
(a) the Minister of Environment and Climate Change appear before the Committee to discuss the Committee’s study of Clean Growth and Climate Change in Canada: Forestry, Agriculture and Waste; and,
(b) in the event the Minister appears before the Committee with regard to Supplementary Estimates (A), 2018-19, the request in (a) be considered to have been fulfilled.
The vote to be taken is to move back to resume debate on that motion.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I have a point of order. Does that then extend the study because the study ends today?
4:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
The committee would have to decide if we were then going to extend the study.
(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 3)
With that we'll return to our business.
We go to Mr. Stetski for his six minutes of time.
4:20 p.m.
Wayne Stetski Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
Thank you. I really wanted my opportunity to question.
I'm going to start with Mr. Coulter, if I might.
I'm curious. Can you give us some examples of where money has actually ended up in the pockets of farmers as a result of credits, I guess, for carbon?
4:25 p.m.
Vice-President, First Carbon Credits Corporation
As aggregators, we were the largest aggregator in 2007. In the 18 months following the announcement by Premier Stelmach and his Conservative government to implement that cap and trade program, we generated $5 million in revenue, $3 million of which was disbursed back to the farmers. We handled that disbursement through a cheque requisition company, third party, as demanded by the large final emitters. That was all verified and it was audited.
There was significant revenue, especially for the Hutterites. They loved us. Their average size of farming operation out there in Alberta is about 10,000 acres, so they got significant five-figure cheques because, of course, Alberta at the time allowed credits to be measured and counted in the past, so from 2002 to 2007 we were able to aggregate their offsets and then quantify them, convert them to compliance and sell them to the large final emitters. Of course, that generated additional revenue to them. It was a significant revenue right back into the hands of the farmers.
4:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
Can you give me just a couple of examples? I'm trying to encourage other farmers to take advantage of this. What were some of the things that the farmers did to get a cheque?
4:25 p.m.
Vice-President, First Carbon Credits Corporation
All they had to do was sign a contract with us as their agent aggregator, and then we took care of the aggregation process. As long as they were following the best practices of agriculture like the one-pass.... No-till in particular was a main plank of that policy. If they were doing the one-pass system and they were leaving their crop residue on the field, not baling it or burning it.... There were a few basic things. If we could verify that practice, then they would get the money.
One farmer said, “Even if this buys my children a new set of shoes, it's a bonus for me.” I got lots of those kinds of comments from people who got $50 to people who got five figures.
4:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
Thank you.
Mr. Hooper, you talked about transition heading into the future, where it's moving away from oil and moving into more biofuels. We often talk about this transition, that ultimately it's a necessary transition to move to more green energy, at least a number of us talk about that.
Have you looked at a time frame in terms of when that might make sense and how we would actually go about that transition? I was watching a CBC panel the other day and one of the panellists said, I thought very bravely, that people need to know that oil is not the future, that the future is different from the past, so we need to start thinking of a different kind of future.
Do you have any kind of idea around time frame? You mentioned 2030 a couple of times. Is that when we should be producing more biofuels than oil on our various pieces of equipment?
4:25 p.m.
Director, Policy and Regulations, Advanced Biofuels Canada
There's a lot of data on the timelines and the different technologies to replace our fossil fuel dependence. Most of the studies are looking in the 2040 to 2050 period to achieve the 80% reductions, in that timeline. B.C. just released a CleanBC policy document last week. They're going to mandate a percentage of zero-emission vehicles by 2025, by 2030 and then by 2040 when there will be 100% zero-emission vehicles. That is going to substantially eliminate the internal combustion engine, so that's a gasoline-powered platform.
On the distillate side, we're going to be more dependent on diesel fuels and low-carbon fuels like advanced biofuels, renewable diesel, etc., because those platforms are not as easily electrified or switched to hydrogen. Ships, locomotives and airplanes will use renewable fuels and distillate fuels a little longer.
4:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
We're looking at 80% green fuels, let's call them, by...?
4:25 p.m.
Director, Policy and Regulations, Advanced Biofuels Canada
That's 80% GHG reductions by 2050. To get there, really, the transition is going to be at 2030, 2040, in terms of diminishing our dependence on fossil fuels.
4:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
I met with the renewable fuels group about a week ago, and they seemed to indicate that a price on pollution—some would call it a carbon tax—could be a carrot for innovation rather than a stick. Would you like to speak to that?
4:30 p.m.
Director, Policy and Regulations, Advanced Biofuels Canada
If you're buying fuels and the carbon tax is designed properly, lower-carbon fuels should pay less tax. That's a carrot.
We are on the same side as other trade-exposed industrial facilities in that we're concerned about our competitiveness. If there's a carbon tax applied to our energy inputs that makes us uncompetitive in Canada, we need to address that and the output-based system design. We've done a lot of work with provincial and federal governments on pricing facility emissions.