Environment Committee on May 19th, 2021

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

What I think I'm more discussing, though, is the state of, let's say, Canada's forest and its other nature-based inventory, because much of that is either Crown land or is under direct policy control of government. That's really what I'm getting at—not necessarily the offsets, but just the state of nature in Canada. We're the second-largest landmass.

I'm going to go to Professor Meadowcroft just briefly.

Sir, you mentioned electrification particularly when it comes to transportation. Again, this bill is silent on electrification. While individual provinces do decide what policies they'll pursue on the electrical grid, I think we all can agree that there's a growing role particularly around electric vehicles and the change in the greening of our grid. Do you not agree that there should be some sort of summary as to the state of Canada's electrical grid so that the public knowledge of this can be improved?

[Prof. James Meadowcroft]

I'm slightly hesitant to prescribe in too much detail the exact headings under which reporting should be done in this legislation as it goes forward, but I completely agree with your substantive point that the state of Canada's electric grid is a critical issue. Canada has coasted for quite a while on the fact that we have a kind of 80% decarbonized grid. That's great and it's the envy of many countries, but east-west connections are weak and even north-south connections. There's enormous potential to accelerate decarbonization both in the United States and in Canada by increasing these interties, making the grid more resilient and increasing distributed generation in order to power the electrification of both transport and heating.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I didn't mean to put you on the spot, sir, because I do know you said you weren't here to talk about amendments to the bill. I do have limited time, so I'm just going to move to Ms. Joseph.

[Prof. James Meadowcroft]

Yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Professor.

Ms. Joseph, you mentioned that the advisory board and the people who are put on to that report are going to bring in different views. Right now it's completely at the discretion of just one minister. Do you think that's the right approach? In a country as big as Canada, I would imagine there are lots of qualified people with varied backgrounds, and it would be difficult for any one department or any one minister to know all of the people it should be representing to flesh out Canada's net-zero future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 20 seconds for a brief response.

[Shannon Joseph]

I agree that it should not be one minister. In our view the Governor in Council and a diversity of ministers—the industry minister, the finance minister, and the employment minister—should have a role in determining who is at that table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Am I correct that it is Mr. Bittle who will be batting cleanup today?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I believe so, but if my colleagues want to prove me wrong, they're more than welcome to jump in.

I will start with Dr. Khan. I was wondering if you could respond to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and their suggestion that economic targets need to be baked into this legislation.

[Dr. Sabaa Khan]

If we are to talk about economics in general, I think we can't hide the fact that there's a huge divestment happening from the fossil fuel sector. BlackRock investments, the biggest asset manager in the world, came out with research recently showing that $15 trillion has been divested from the fossil fuel sector from different portfolios over the last decade. Yes, if we're thinking about economies, we have to face the fact that the fossil fuel sector is in decline.

Fossil fuel companies are investing in renewable energy. Is that out of goodwill, or do they see that decarbonization is inevitable? If we're talking about jobs in the fossil fuel sector, Jim Stanford released a report for Environmental Defence in January 2021 showing that there were about 170,000 jobs directly tied to fossil fuels. Since 2014, 33,000 of those have been lost. Since COVID another 17,500 jobs in the fossil fuel sector have been lost. Is that because of climate policy or because of other fluctuations in the economy? Between 2014 and 2019 for every job lost in the fossil fuel sector, 42 were created in other industries. I think if we're going to talk economics, we should be clear and we should make visible where the jobs are growing, where we're losing them and why we're losing them. As I said before I don't see economy and environment as being separate. The federal budget clearly placed a climate lens at the heart of the economy. We don't think about just GDP. The federal budget placed a well-being quality of life framework to assess what our economy really is. You know there is an expansion happening, and we have to take that into consideration.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Chair, can we pause for a minute? I believe Madame Pauzé has a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes. I just got a message from the clerk as well.

It's about the translation, Madame Pauzé?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Yes, that's it exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Obviously, we will pause here and see if we can get the interpretation back on track.

Is it working now, by any chance? Can some of you hear me in French?

Can you hear me in English?

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I appreciate the answer, Dr. Khan, but with respect to this bill, do you think this is the appropriate legislation to do that in, as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers suggests in terms of an—

[Dr. Sabaa Khan]

This is not an innovative bill in the sense that it follows other national climate framework laws. In that respect, I don't see the rationale of including an economic objective. I see net zero as an investment opportunity.

For instance, if we look at the U.K. example, what has an assessment of the first 10 years of the U.K. legislation given us? Well, it's been hugely influential in terms of investment security for the renewables. It has unlocked huge capital investments that needed to be made, because they are carbon budgets that are planned for five years and planned for 10 years. That's visibility, and that is an economic stimulus. That's what we need. That's what is holding Canada back at the moment.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'd ask you to comment again on Ms. Joseph's comments with respect to having many different sector representatives on the panel. I don't know how many dozens of people this could include. Does there need to be sector-specific individuals, or are other individuals, climate scientists, able to provide insight on how best to advise the government even across different sectors and across the economy?

[Dr. Sabaa Khan]

Again, I have to say that we have to take into consideration the political and legal culture of Canada. A minister never decides on their own that they're going to take this. The statutory duty of the minister should be interpreted in light of our legal culture as well. Even though we're talking about a statutory duty, it's basically about how to steer the cumulative conduct of a wide range of actors in the best way they can.

Really, if you look at other jurisdictions, it's not just a single person sitting at a desk doing this work. In reality, this happens across the board. The minister will be constrained, obviously, because certain powers and financial influence, economic powers, sit in different ministries. It's actually naive to think that this is how the process will play out in practice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're pretty much at the five-minute mark, Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have arrived on time. It's 5:29 p.m.

I want to thank the witnesses for a really interesting discussion this afternoon, both this panel and the one before. I want to thank all of the panellists for being here. We do know that it requires a lot of preparation and that a lot of work goes into this. Thank you very much.

Thank you, members, for your stimulating questions. We'll meet again tomorrow afternoon—same time, same channel—and next week we will go into clause-by-clause on the bill, well informed by the testimony we've been hearing.

I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't see anyone objecting to that. I will therefore bring the meeting to a close. Thank you.