Evidence of meeting #32 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Also, I think the melting permafrost would also release certain things. I don't have enough time to go there. It's a fascinating discussion. Thank you very much.
Emergency Physician and Planetary Health Researcher and Policy Worker, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
It's true.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
Whose turn is it to speak? Is it Ms. Pauzé or Ms. Michaud?
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
First, I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here.
This bill was introduced before Christmas but it took a lot of time for the government to fit it into the agenda. So everyone had to “turn on a dime”, as they say.
Like Mr. Saini, I am going to ask questions about health, because it's an area that interests me greatly.
My question goes to Dr. Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers.
We have talked a lot about physical health, but climate change is also creating problems with mental health and psychological distress. I would like to hear your comments on that.
You would certainly wonder about me if I did not ask a question about the pandemic. Can you explain the links between climate change, disturbances in the ecosystems, and the risk of future pandemics?
Resident Physician and President, Association québécoise de médecins pour l'environnement
Thank you for your questions, Ms. Pauzé.
Let me answer the second one, which we have already dealt with a little. We need to understand that the environmental disturbances are many. They include the degradation of natural habitats, climate change, intensive land use and deforestation. They all have impacts on the habitats in which insects or other transmission vectors live. We are in the process of bringing humans dangerously close to sources of infection.
The most recent great viral infections, Ebola and COVID-19, are diseases that are basically spread by animal zoonotic transmission chains. The disturbances are becoming more serious more quickly, which increases the risk that incidents like those will be repeated. The future is difficult to predict, but, in a way, we are playing Russian roulette. We are taking unnecessary risks with our health.
The World Health Organization and a number of UN bodies have, in recent months, recognized that environmental disturbances played a role in the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I will let Dr. Howard tell you more about your first question, on mental health, because she has done research on the topic. Troubling mental health phenomena do occur in the context of climate change, specifically because we lose our natural reference points. We talk a lot about people feeling disconnected from their homes, their ancestral territory. But we also know that extreme climate events like hurricanes, floods and forest fires create stress.
Studies done in Quebec by public health agencies reveal that those who have gone through episodes of spring flooding subsequently show higher rates of anxiety and depression. Some even develop posttraumatic stress disorder. Of course, issues like that concern us.
Our young people are wondering what their future will be like. I am one of those young people wondering what kind of environment our future children are going to grow up in. It creates a kind of anxiety called ecoanxiety that psychiatrists, physicians and psychologists are studying a lot at the moment, in an attempt to find out the extent of the phenomenon.
These are certainly troubling questions, the more so because, over the last year, a lot of people have been isolated. There has been a lot of talk about mental health and we know that the issues are critical.
Resident Physician and President, Association québécoise de médecins pour l'environnement
Yes, I will let her—
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Actually, because you know a lot about it, I would like to ask you another question before you hand over to Ms. Howard.
What impacts on the healthcare system can we expect as a result of climate change? How can we mitigate those impacts or make our healthcare systems more resilient?
Resident Physician and President, Association québécoise de médecins pour l'environnement
That is an excellent question.
Climate change is altering many of the risk factors for certain diseases.
Let me give you a very concrete example. Heat waves cause an increase in visits to emergency rooms and an increase in the pressure on the healthcare system. They are associated with hospitalization, heart disease, heart attacks, even strokes and blood clots in the brain. That results in costs for the healthcare system, because people spend weeks in the hospital and need complex care. Climate change causes heat waves, but also forest fires. We know that those phenomena will bring about an increase in consultations, both on the front lines and in secondary centres.
In addition, a number of good studies have been done showing that extreme meteorological events, like forest fires, can put the healthcare system itself at risk. When a hospital is located in an area that has to be evacuated, access to a healthcare network, essential though it is, becomes limited. During the Fort McMurray fires in 2016-2017, around 20 healthcare facilities and long-term residential care establishments had to be evacuated. When people are in residential care, they already present with a number of risk factors, and climate events cause additional stress that can have an impact on their health. We know that the healthcare system is not ready, because it is already at full capacity. Last year, we saw—
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
I would like to hear from Ms. Howard, because the clock is ticking.
So we will need major health transfers.
Ms. Howard, could you talk to us about mental health?
Emergency Physician and Planetary Health Researcher and Policy Worker, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
What really worries us as doctors.... I've worked with humanitarian organizations, and I had the honour of helping to produce the first brief between Doctors Without Borders and the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change. We worry about the limits of adaptation. What I'm describing is already a challenge. We already have to urgently evacuate emergency departments in a matter of hours, and we know that we're going to continue to warm until at least mid-century. If we continue along the high-emissions pathway we're currently on, what.... My prior boss at the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, Dr. Nick Watts, who's now in charge of decarbonizing the National Health Service, has described that as catastrophic.
What I am telling you as a physician is that we cannot guarantee that we will be able to continue delivering the services for health that you would expect as citizens of a high-income country through to the end of the century. Not only is this a critical risk to the health of today's children, but it is a critical risk to the health systems they depend on.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the comments we've received already from our panel.
I'd like to begin with Ms. McLeod.
I thought your comments about intergenerational equity were particularly well put. I wonder if you could talk a bit about Bill C-12 in that context. If there was one change to Bill C-12 that you feel would best reflect that obligation we have to future generations, what would that change be?
Articling Student, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
In the youth brief that I submitted to the committee, I recommended that clause 8 of the bill be amended to require that the minister consider the responsibility of Canadians toward future generations. This is language that the MP for Winnipeg Centre, Leah Gazan, put forward in Bill C-232, which is the climate emergency action act. It calls for the minister to consider “the responsibilities of Canadians toward future generations” in developing a climate emergency action framework.
Considering the responsibility of Canadians toward not only the present generation but also future generations will put at ease people like me who are wondering what the future looks like for our future children and future generations.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Ms. McLeod.
I'll turn now to Mr. Gage and Mr. Andrews.
You spoke a bit about this in your introductory remarks. We've seen a number of countries and subnational governments pass climate accountability legislation over the past decade. I wonder if you could expand on your opening remarks in terms of how Bill C-12 stacks up to those international examples.
Specifically, what improvements—and you noted some of these—do we need to make to Bill C-12 in order for it to really reflect the international best practices in this area?
Climate Program Director, Ecojustice
I just want to check. Is the sound okay for the translation service?
Liberal
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Don't speak too slowly though, because we only have six minutes.
Climate Program Director, Ecojustice
In short, and to be frank—and I'm looking to Andrew to develop my answers—it doesn't stack up well compared to international examples. We've heard a lot about the U.K. I'd also mention New Zealand as a more recent and possibly better example.
Some of the key criticisms we've already heard about. I won't elaborate further on the lack of detail in plans, but that's one obvious area of improvement. Similarly, Andrew mentioned the need for a bigger runway—a bigger lead-in time—between the targets being set and the plans developed, so that we have better advance warning that allows adaptation and innovation.
Finally, I'll talk about the advisory body. There are various amendments that could be made to take Bill C-12 closer to the U.K. model in order to better insulate that advisory body from the political process and give it that cross-party consensus that's been so successful in the U.K.
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
They've come in just this morning or maybe it was yesterday, so I don't think they've been translated yet. When they are available, I'd refer you to the submissions from us, Ecojustice, Climate Action Network and Équiterre.
We identify five pillars. They are early and ambitious action; mid- and long-term certainty; credible and effective plans and reports; accountability; and science and expert advice. I think that in all five areas the bill does not stack up compared with what we've seen in other legislation. There are clearly some pieces related to each of them, but they just don't gel.
It's really difficult to say.... There's not one change that needs to be made. There are a number of amendments that need to be done to really bring this up to snuff.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
On the topic of carbon budgets, you've heard the back-and-forth with the minister comparing the U.K.'s carbon budget approach to the approach he chose to take with climate targets. I believe the words he used were “dancing on the head of a pin”. Maybe “potato, potahto” would be a better comparison.
I'm wondering what your perspective is on this. Are these essentially similar approaches just phrased differently, or are there key substantive differences between the carbon budget approach and the climate target approach?
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
I would say that there are substantive differences, but done well an approach involving targets can achieve many of the same functions that a carbon budget approach takes.
One of the key points is the one that I mentioned in my opening. Carbon budgets have always been established going out a number of years, with carbon budgets covering different periods of time as opposed to one at a time. There are no examples of carbon budgets being used internationally a single budget at a time.
The other thing is that carbon budgets I think are actually better for a jurisdiction like Canada in that they express the emissions over a multi-year period in terms of how much we can emit as opposed to reductions relative to a base year. There's more opportunity for businesses, local government or provincial governments to take ownership over how much they're contributing and to see how that fits within a broader conversation.
I don't agree with the minister that carbon budgets are not well suited for Canada. That being said, if the government has decided to go with a targets-based approach, if it does it well—and currently BillC-12 doesn't do it well—it can certainly achieve many of the same goals.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
We'll go now to our second and last round. I have Mr. Redekopp, Mr. Baker, Madame Pauzé, Mr. Bachrach, Mr. Albas and Ms. Saks. If that's not correct, please let the clerk know.
Mr. Redekopp.