Environment Committee on Dec. 5th, 2017

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

The commissioner talked about, at a much broader level, being able to standardize the meaning of the STGs in particular. On your specific side, given that you have a mandate over the 90 departments in this specific area, is it your goal to standardize across departments how we can better achieve our carbon reductions?

[Nick Xenos]

The nice thing about looking at carbon, of course, is that it's very measurable. The committee will be happy to know that we can easily measure it and measure progress against it. Now that we'll have a larger set of departments reporting on it, it will formalize it, make it more standard and easier to understand the progress of each department, and so on.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

You said there were two different round tables that you had organized. The second one brought together partners, business, and academia to learn from their experiences in greening procurement and adopting clean technologies.

What did you learn out of that exercise and that round table?

[Nick Xenos]

We learned several things. One is that there are many good solutions out there. We've seen that industry has a lot of solutions on which they can partner with us. I think also that what was made clear is that we need to go with our requirements as well. Departments are facing certain challenges to greening their operations, and the more we can crystalize these requests and go out to find solutions for them, the better. I think we have willing partners in Canadian industry, NGOs, etc.

There are also many different models out there for greening, so we learn from the best practices, from what various entities are doing. I think that was really helpful. Real property and fleet are really where most of our emissions come from, so we learned a lot, in terms of procurement of real property and fleet, about what's being done.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

You said you had a number of administrative policies and instruments that you can utilize in greening operations. Can you describe some that you're using already and the impact they are having?

[Nick Xenos]

First is open data reporting transparency. Being able to make the Government of Canada's inventory of emissions public has been really helpful in tracking emissions. In terms of reporting and transparency, I think it's a really important one.

Treasury Board holds various administrative policies: the policy on real property, on fleet, on the investment plans. Departments come forward, of course, in major real property investments, which come forward to Treasury Board. We see the Treasury Board submissions on those. These are all policies and instruments that we can use.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

What about enforcement, though, to ensure that we do go down the proper path? What are the different enforcement mechanisms that you have at hand to utilize?

[Nick Xenos]

Key to the enforcement side is, of course, that through all of these instruments, things come forward to Treasury Board. Whether it's an investment plan, proposals for particular projects, or expenditure authority for the projects, they have to come to the board. We can thus provide advice and work with departments to make sure they include a carbon lens.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

If they don't, are you going to send them back to do a better job, or can you just say outright, that it's complete garbage and to come back?

[Nick Xenos]

Well, of course, Treasury Board is a committee of cabinet, so the board can make decisions, approve or not approve items, and we can provide advice to departments.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Before I question our witness, I want to clarify something Mr. Bossio said regarding sustainable development as a development concept. The Brundtland commission was very clear that poverty causes environmental degradation, which is why the concept of sustainable development was created in the document, “Our Common Future”.

Mr. Xenos, you made the point that between 2005-06 and 2014-15, government greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 19%. Those dates, I notice, were under the Conservative government. I assume you're measuring government greenhouse gas emissions on a yearly basis. Are they declining at the same rate from 2015 to the present?

[Nick Xenos]

We've requested the information from departments from the last two years and are tabulating that information now. We're going to come out with the results, I'm hoping, shortly. As soon as we have the results we're going to publish them.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Well, again, a 19% reduction is something that our government was very proud of.

Your definition of clean electricity, when saying you want the government to use 100% clean electricity, is basically electrical generation that minimizes the greenhouse gas emissions. Is that fair? By your definition, does nuclear energy count as clean electricity, given that it does not emit any greenhouse gases?

[Nick Xenos]

Currently, nuclear electricity, because it has low emissions of carbon, is included—Ontario's, for example, or New Brunswick's, etc.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Good. That's a nice clear answer. I appreciate it.

You talk about your remit as the centre for greening government, yet your only criteria for greening government and your only criteria as environmental indicators are greenhouse gas emissions. There are many other environmental factors out there. Does your remit include looking at water quality, for example?

[Nick Xenos]

Right now our focus, as you can see in the current FSDS, is really on carbon.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It's clearly misnamed, because when I look at issues such as water management, the work of the International Joint Commission, biodiversity, invasive species, federal government polices related to the management of fish stocks, shouldn't all those be under greening government?

[Nick Xenos]

One thing I will say is that the focus of the centre for greening government is really on government operations. We're focused on government buildings, government fleet, etc. Carbon is obviously the focus, as you see in the FSDS.

We are looking at water and waste and looking at exploring options in that area and at what we can do in other areas. Really, right now, as the current FSDS says, we're focused on low carbon, but of course we're very interested in greening operations overall, again looking at government operations, not—

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Well, again, your organization, the centre for greening government, is clearly misnamed. It's not your fault, but this is clearly misleading.

I look at this as a biologist. I see the state of some of our fish stocks; those are directly related to the federal government's management of marine fisheries resources. I look at cross-border water management issues, which are clearly handled through the federal government under the International Joint Commission biodiversity conservation, for example, or the federal rules under the Species at Risk Act, which are not being followed in alternate energy developments, such as wind generation.

Can you explain why you have “greening government” in your name, yet huge swathes of what is the real environment are completely outside of your purview?

[Nick Xenos]

Again, the centre for greening government is focused on government operations: stuff we own and stuff we operate. When we talk about such things as fish stocks or species at risk, etc., the departments that have the mandate for those are the bodies that deliver on those things. We don't have the mandate or expertise to look at fish stocks or things beyond greening government operations.

It's really the government footprint. Other departments, of course.... Parliament has given the mandate to other ministers and departments. We respect that, of course.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Well, then the name should be the centre for green government buildings, because the name is misleading.

Again, this is not pejorative towards you, by any means.

Getting back to the notion of clean electricity, would you consider wind-generated electricity as clean since it doesn't emit greenhouse gases? Yet, given the species at risk—many bat and bird species suffer high mortality rates from wind turbines—how would you rate electricity generated by wind turbines, given their effect on endangered species?

[Nick Xenos]

We look at the overall target for the government in reducing emissions, etc. We don't assess particular projects or look at particular wind or solar projects or whatever. We're really focused on the overall goal of the government. Of course, departments as they move forward with their initiatives look at the particulars of each initiative.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You're out of time, Mr. Sopuck.

Ms. Duncan.