Evidence of meeting #139 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 recording is available from Parliament.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
We would disagree on that.
Mr. Cameron, you said that, per capita, Canada is probably number one in the world. How is that calculated? Is it based on how much we emit in Canada or by the production of the products that we export? It's not. It's calculated, I believe, in a way that may not be realistic or fair to meet the global targets.
Executive Director, Clean Prosperity
It's based on our domestic emissions divided by either population or GDP. The methodology is the same and it's been applied around the world in every country.
Executive Director, Clean Prosperity
It does. If we sequester carbon, that would be included.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
It doesn't. It does not include sequestration for Canada, the arboreal forest—it does not include that.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
It includes all the emissions of the production of oil and gas that we export out of Canada. Is that not true? All the emissions...what we export out of Canada.
Executive Director, Clean Prosperity
No, it's only our domestic.... For our exported oil and gas, those emissions count against the country where they are consumed, not the country where they're produced. It's our production emissions that are recorded in those statistics, but these guys know more about that.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
I stand to be corrected.
Coming from British Columbia....
Associate Professor, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, As an Individual
The protocol you're looking for is land use, land use change and forestry as part of the emissions inventory. It will probably be right near the bottom of the table where they account for sequestration, forest lands and land use, including agriculture, by the way.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
Talking about agriculture, we had canola as a witness here a couple of weeks ago. It was before Christmas, a couple of meetings ago. They have reduced their emissions based on no-till. Production is way up and they're world leaders. They're talking about the carbon tax encouraging them to reconsider relocating to the U.S. It can be grown down there. The science is Canadian, but there's no carbon tax in the U.S., while a carbon tax is going to be imposed in Canada, and they're saying it's hurting them and making them less competitive. That's what they're saying. That is what they testified to the committee. Would you disagree with that?
Senior Fellow, Smart Prosperity Institute
I would say I'd love to see the data and take a look at it. As I said, we do facility-level analysis and farm-level analysis all the time. Sure, there are costs and there are risks and some folks are on the edge, but we'd like to see the data.
I find people tend to get a little muddled as they're learning about what carbon costs and carbon exposure actually are, and when it comes to farms, there is a lot of confusion out there. I just got off a call last week with some folks and there's some confusion.
I think there's a need for some education. Sure, there are some risks, but a lot of their emissions are unpriced and unaffected. That's not to say there's not a competitiveness risk, but I'd like to get my HP out and take a look and help them get their heads around it.
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
I come from British Columbia, where the price on carbon was $30 and it went up to $35. It's no longer revenue-neutral. It's revenue-generated from British Columbia. Emissions in British Columbia—and I've lived there my whole life—were going down, for multiple reasons, but I believe efficiencies were a major factor that helped. Cars, as of 2011, emit way less than what they did pre-2011, along with appliances, and there's the home improvement tax credit and on and on.
Has the carbon tax been effective in British Columbia? The argument here is that it has been. My argument is that it has not been. It has not changed behaviour. But that's my opinion and you have your opinion.
My question for you is this. Right now, at $35 a tonne, it's 112% tax. There's provincial sales tax at 7%, GST at 5%. The carbon tax is 112%. It is 112%, on natural gas.
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Natural gas—
Langley—Aldergrove, CPC
It's a carbon.
My question is, how high does the carbon tax have to go to be effective, to cause a change in behaviour? The change in behaviour we're talking about is people getting out of their cars and not heating their homes. How high does it have to go?
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
I'll let anyone who wants to take a crack at it do so briefly, but we're out of time on this one.
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Right. There's a lot to unpack there.
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
First of all, the research has consistently demonstrated that the price on carbon in B.C. has reduced emissions. There have been at least half a dozen studies that reach the same conclusion with a lot of different datasets and approaches.
In terms of how high it has to get, as Mr. Beugin mentioned, each increment in the carbon price will cause an increment in emissions reductions. I wouldn't expect any carbon price to see wholesale elimination of heating in buildings or driving. I think we'll see different technologies and fuels used for both of those activities.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
With that, we'll leave that round of questioning and we'll go over to Ms. Dzerowicz for her six minutes.
Julie Dzerowicz Davenport, Lib.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for the excellent presentations. I'm the member of Parliament for a riding called Davenport, which is downtown west Toronto. There's a mix of extraordinarily passionate environmentalists who want us to move much faster than the current pan-Canadian framework allows us to or wants us to. Then there's a whole group who, I would say, believe climate change is happening but they're not quite sure what the impacts of the price on pollution will be.
The first question I was going to ask is the one that my colleague Darren asked. Will they be left holding the bag? We hear this quite a bit, that it's going to be so expensive and it's going to make their lives more expensive.
Mr. Cameron, you mentioned that eight in 10 will be better off. Who are the two in 10 who will not be better off?
Executive Director, Clean Prosperity
The two in 10, really, it depends on your behaviour. This is looking at averages. You could be a billionaire but drive an electric vehicle and live a very modest lifestyle and you'd save money, or you could be a low-income family and decide you want to spend all your money, I don't know, lighting coal on fire in your backyard, and you'd pay more.
Relatively speaking, the two out of 10 would tend to be upper-income households that have larger emissions profiles, but it's based on your own individual and household behaviour.
Davenport, Lib.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Competitiveness is obviously something of concern for everyone. It has been mentioned by all of you, and I think it was you, Mr. Beugin, who said that any type of carbon pricing should be designed to protect competitiveness and protect low-income residents. In your opinion, does the carbon backstop legislation that we've created address both of those elements?