Evidence of meeting #6 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was money.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Do you think farm families are better off with the carbon tax?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Oh, sorry. I thought we were at six-minute rounds. You are done with your time. I was giving you six minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thanks to the clerk. He brought that to my attention. You don't have time.
Mr. Saini, go ahead for five minutes.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Minister, for coming. Also, thank you to your very capable and highly enlightened officials for coming here this morning and discussing a topic that I think is very important to Canadians.
Right now, as you are aware, we are currently facing a biodiversity crisis around the world due to numerous factors like habitat loss and climate change. I'm glad there have been a number of investments in my riding of Kitchener Centre to help improve biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Funding programs like the 50 Million Tree program, which the federal government rescued last year, is crucial to achieving this goal.
How will projects like this help to improve biodiversity and protect wildlife across Canada?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
The issues around biodiversity are extremely important. People will have seen the World Wildlife Fund report last year which showed that the world has lost 60% of its biodiversity in just the last 40 years.
Keeping our forests healthy is one of the best ways to protect biodiversity and fight climate change, because they provide habitat for a wide range of species, but they also absorb carbon pollution and protect against erosion and therefore help mitigate floods. That is why we invested $15 million over four years in the 50 Million Tree program that you mentioned. It will benefit communities across Ontario. It builds upon the $1.3-billion historic investment we made in Canada's nature legacy in budget 2018.
We also have committed to 25% marine and terrestrial protection by 2025 and 30% by 2030. We are very, very focused on trying to stem the biodiversity decline and to ensure that we are improving the condition of our natural environment.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The second question I have is about the low-carbon economy fund. As you are aware, it's being used to fund electric bus programs in many municipalities, for example, Brampton. Transit is key to reducing our GHG emissions and meeting our climate targets.
I've seen how successful this program and these investments have been with ION and LRT in Kitchener Centre. I'm glad to see that this investment is continuing in lower-carbon transit.
How will this investment help to spur innovation and move our transit networks towards carbon neutrality, which is the ultimate goal for 2050?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
Transportation is critical to being able to move towards net zero. It accounts for almost 25% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing pollution from transportation is essential to fighting climate change, but also to supporting healthy communities. Through the low-carbon economy fund, we have invested $7.6 million towards the largest global deployment to date of battery electric buses and chargers in Brampton, Ontario.
By deploying these kinds of investments, we are helping with the public transit system, improving livability within our urban environments and cutting climate pollution.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
My final question is about plastics. This is an issue that's of high concern to my constituents in Kitchener Centre, who are really worried about the amount of plastics we're using. One thing they're concerned about is how widespread single-use plastics are and how they're choking our waterways and damaging our environment.
I'm glad to see in the supplementary estimates there's funding to reduce plastic pollution, because we need action, and I think all of our constituents want action on this issue.
How will this funding help achieve the goal of limiting plastic waste in Canada and move us towards a circular economy?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
Certainly plastic pollution is an enormous challenge not only in Canada but around the world.
However, in Canada, we have the longest coastline in the world and one-quarter of the world's fresh water, so the emerging implications for Canada are quite significant. We made the commitment to ban harmful single-use plastics, which we intend to do in 2021; to move towards extended producer responsibility, putting the cost of plastics in plastics packaging back on the producers; and to enhance things like the recycling content so that we're closing the loop and moving towards a circular economy.
This is extremely important from an environmental perspective. I would tell you that Canadians are far ahead of their governments on this. Canadians are demanding action on plastics, and we intend to take it.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I have one final question.
When we look at what we're doing domestically, how do you think the impact will be internationally? When people make certain decisions, they often look to what Canada is doing.
We can do whatever we want here, but internationally there has to be an impact. How do you think what we're doing here is going to have an international impact?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
I think it will be another model for countries to consider. Certainly some of the European countries have moved on this as well.
I would also say there is enormous opportunity for Canada, in the same way that it has worked on climate issues around leading the Powering Past Coal Alliance and those kinds of things, to work with developing countries in particular, to help to develop solutions, which may be different from the solutions we implement here, that will enable them to address the plastics issue.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Thank you, and welcome everybody.
My first question is about staffing, which I believe is an operating expenditure.
I was digging around in the departmental plans for 2019 and 2020-21, and I found that this fiscal year, you projected 6,648 full-time equivalent staff. The actual number looks like it's coming in at 7,163, which is about 415 more or 6% higher.
What did we get for the extra staff?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
The first thing I would say is that we are all very fortunate as Canadians to have such dedicated staff working for us in these departments, irrespective of partisan affiliation. These public servants are extremely capable folks.
I will turn to my deputy minister to perhaps answer the specific human resources question.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Thank you very much for that question.
As you know, over the course of the last year, there were some increases in the full-time complement at Environment. We also include in our numbers seasonals and students, and all of these things accumulate to demonstrate an employee count of over 7,000.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
When you forecasted this 12 months ago, didn't you anticipate this?
That's a 6% difference. How do you manage the department with changes like that?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
These were anticipated changes through the influx of resources that were allocated in budgets 2018 and 2019. We manage our growth accordingly, and against results and commitments that are made in the main estimates.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Let's turn to spending, Minister.
By the way, I was formerly an accountant, so it's coming out, I suppose.
Along the same lines, the original estimates for this fiscal were $1.828 billion and the current ones with the supplementary (B)s are at $2.006 billion, so that's $178 million, a nearly 10% increase. Can you explain the difference?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
Between the main estimates and the supplementaries? The process, as you will know as an accountant—although I would say that Parliament operates in a slightly different fashion—is that the main estimates are produced typically before the budget and the supplementaries are used to pick up budgetary items.
It is not abnormal to see increases in the supplementaries. I would say that the increases in these are actually pretty modest.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
I suppose another way to look at it is that the spending from the previous fiscal was very similar to the original estimates.
I realize that the climate action incentive payments increased the budget by about $110 million, but there is still another $70 million or so, which is about 4%. Are we getting value for our money in that?
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
As I said in the remarks I made earlier, the vast majority, as you have rightly said, is the climate incentive, which is essentially returning funds back to Canadians and to small businesses in a way that ensures we are addressing affordability.
A number of the other pieces of that were articulated in the comments, which were things such as the electric bus trial in Brampton and funding for plastic pollution. I would say that with respect to those items I think Canadians would say, yes, we're getting good value for our money.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
On the climate action incentive, I did some quick math. For $109 million, $400 a family, maybe, is a very reasonable number. That's 275,000 families. That's barely Saskatchewan. Where are the rest of the climate action incentive rebates? That doesn't seem like enough.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC
The climate action incentive applies only in jurisdictions where the federal backstop is in place. There are many jurisdictions in this country that have chosen to implement their own price on pollution. That would include British Columbia, Quebec and a range of other provinces. This only relates to those.
The amount of money that is actually returned depends very much on the jurisdiction in which you live. We return all of the money from every jurisdiction back to that jurisdiction. The payments will be higher in Saskatchewan, for example, than they will be in Ontario.