Environment Committee on May 20th, 2021

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

You mentioned the creation of the Réseau intersyndical pour le climat. You're really proactive about this and always show sensitivity to workers to ensure support.

Do you think the government is ambitious enough and willing to put forth the necessary effort, not only through Bill C-12, but also in its approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to show support for all sectors and all players in the field, as you say, out of concern for the workers you represent?

[Denis Bolduc]

There is no question that the target needs to be higher than 35% or 40%. Many set the target at 60%. In my view, it should be as high as it can be, as long as it is achievable and the efforts are made with a view to a just transition, as I said earlier, for workers and communities.

The Unifor union, which is affiliated with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, or FTQ, still represents several thousand members in the hydrocarbons sector. The union is not shy about calling on the government to set a target of 60% by 2030.

Therefore, I think we need to be ambitious and give ourselves the means to achieve our goals. Many have said it, and the FTQ agrees, the longer we wait, the more painful it will be.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I agree. Thank you, Mr. Bolduc.

Ms. Anand, I would like to hear from you on this. I could see you nodding and saying earlier that, for Bill C-12, the Minister of the Environment has to rely on the expertise of scientists and what they say.

At the moment, the target range that the government has set for itself is a 40% to 45% reduction. I think the scientific community is talking more like 60%.

Is the fact that the targets are in the bill important to you? In your opinion, are they sufficient?

[Dr. Madhur Anand]

I think it would not hurt to have the targets in the bill. A lot of the discussion about what they should be has already taken place. It's true that if we look at international panels and agreements, the targets are higher for Canada, and certainly I agree with the comment that targets should be achievable. However, this is a matter of articulating in the plan a target that is achievable. I think the higher the target, the better, and 60% should certainly be what we aim for. It will get us there faster. That way, if we do fall short to 45%, it's better than falling below 45%.

In terms of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead for another 10 seconds.

[Dr. Madhur Anand]

Okay. In terms of hearing from scientists, yes, there should be an ongoing discussion. In the development of the plans for this bill, we need to have some more scenario planning and modelling that includes the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, thanks. It's a tough job to cut people off. It hurts me more than it hurts you.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

I'll direct my first question to Dr. Burch.

Dr. Burch, something you said in your introductory remarks caught my attention. You mentioned this idea that modest efficiency gains are not going to be enough to get us even to the 2030 target. It made me think about the way we talk about the magnitude of change that's going to be required. The question in my mind is whether the sense of urgency and the way that government communicates it to the people of Canada are sufficient to really give them a sense of what's going to be required over the next nine years, which to me seems like a blink in time.

Do we need to convey more of a sense of urgency and really be honest with Canadians about what a 45% decrease in emissions would like in our country? Is that a clear question?

[Dr. Sarah Burch]

It is, yes. Thank you.

I would say that we need to be much more creative and, as you said, honest in conveying the depth of change that's required to meet targets of this ambition level. As we all have reflected already many times, we've failed to meet targets in the past, so deep changes are required.

I think this comes down to essentially our vision of the future. What does a decarbonized Canada look like? There are a lot of different ways it can and should look. There isn't just one vision. I think it's really important to open up that conversation so we have a broader diversity of visions, not just of the end goal, but also the pathways to get there, so those visions don't end up being sort of deeply conventional. I'm concerned that when we talk about what the future looks like, we essentially want to retain the fabric of our communities, the structure of our cities and our lifestyles exactly as they are, but we flip the switch and the power is produced a different way.

What we're describing here in terms of a net-zero Canada by 2050 is a much deeper transformation than that.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thanks for your answer. I agree wholeheartedly.

I'm curious about the balance between short-term actions and longer-term policies. It seems there are some policies that take years to put in place. The price on carbon, as you know, we've been talking about for many years now, and it's only just starting to take effect. Of course, it will take a while for it to really kick in at levels that make a substantive difference.

When we look at a 2025 target, the idea is that we need ambitious action over the next four years, which is like a heartbeat. What are the actions that you feel the federal government needs to focus on in order to make a substantial difference in the next four years? What are the policy areas that can spool up that quickly?

[Dr. Sarah Burch]

Thank you. That's a tough question.

I really appreciated the conversation that came prior to this, about burden sharing between the federal government and the provinces. I would also add to that, of course, municipalities. There's a crucial role for cities to play here in taking short-term actions to help deal with transportation and residential emissions. We need to start thinking about the fact that every new building we build has a 30- to 50-year or greater lifespan, so every decision we make on the building front that locks us into a high-carbon pathway is a failure. That's a challenge we have to then undo later on.

In the building sector, for instance, it's not just about those new builds. We have to scale up retrofits of existing buildings to a pace that is completely unheard of. The existing building stock in residential and commercial buildings has to be transformed within the next decade to deliver these deeper reductions by 2030.

That is crucial. Supporting municipalities that have these tools like land-use planning and zoning, and provinces that work on the building codes, to really target those transportation- and buildings-related emissions is crucial.

Others, such as Professor Mousseau, might talk more to the energy system.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I have a lot of questions about that specific topic you're talking about, home retrofits. I just retrofitted a 1968 split-level house to zero-emissions heating and cooling, and the process made me think a lot about how far we are from achieving the acceleration in the rate that we need to be at to retrofit a substantial percentage of the housing stock. It's a little bit depressing to think about how far we have to go in order to actually really make that happen.

Perhaps next I'll turn to you, Mr. Bolduc. You mentioned the just transition, and I'm wondering, first, if you could speak to how you feel Bill C-12 should be amended specifically to reference the just-transition elements, and, second, whether it's enough to add some amendments to Bill C-12 or whether we need the government to deliver on its promise to create a stand-alone just-transition act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Please respond briefly, Mr. Bolduc.

[Denis Bolduc]

Thank you for your question.

Currently, in Quebec, we are working jointly with the Conseil du patronat du Québec to convince the Minister of the Environment to create a working group on just transition, which would include union partners, employer partners and, obviously, some of the ministries involved. This is an important part of putting in place just transition measures.

On the ground, the FTQ is trying to organize laboratories that we call “just transition laboratories.” For example, we are currently approaching a microbrewery about how we can capture CO2 back into production to produce a carbon neutral beer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

This sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, I have to interrupt you, but I'm keeping your carbon neutral beer idea.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I liked where he was going, Mr. Chair. I think I'll—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, so did I, but there are rules, Mr. Bachrach, even in those cases.

We'll go to the second round, starting with Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As much as I'd like to continue to explore that, I have other questions for the witnesses.

I do want to start with you, Dr. Henry. You got cut off in your opening comments right as you were about to talk about, I believe, the targets set by provinces and how those are managed. The chair has a difficult job. We've been at this now for nine hours, I believe. He's doing a good job at managing all this.

I'm hoping you can perhaps expand on what that provincial element contains.

[Dr. Aaron Henry]

Thank you so much for the question.

Yes, absolutely, we've already seen in the design of Canada's climate policy that a number of policies get designed federally that do have provincial implications. In some cases, there are duplications, as well. A few examples include the work that went into creating methane equivalencies. There were the cases, for instance, in creating a federal clean fuel standard and provinces already have clean fuel standards of their own. There were the differences between the federal output-based pricing system as well as provincial systems for heavy emitters.

All those are cases where it's actually quite important to coordinate with the policy frameworks that are put in place in provinces. The one risk, if there's a lack of coordination, is duplication. You might end up regulating and essentially pricing, in some cases, the same molecule twice, which of course is a challenge. It also goes back to these principles of accounting that skew that.

The other issue that I think we're trying to see ahead on is that there is a lot of growth here in terms of trying to establish carbon markets. One key component of carbon markets is that we do need a national protocol that makes it clear what the conditions are to create an offset credit. One thing that does come into play is lists of technologies that are included in a base business-as-usual scenario—these are not considered able to produce additional carbon credits or emissions, simply because they're going to happen anyway because that technology's been tagged—versus technologies that are eligible for credit creation.

If there isn't certainty around that between the federal government and the provinces, it actually creates a lot of risks for the investment environment. You're going to have a hard time attracting companies based on that portion of the business model if there isn't certainty that those carbon credits can be guaranteed and recognized by both provincial and federal governments. That's an example of the potential complexities there.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

That transitions into what I thought was your other point, which I'm hoping you could expand on.

I think you touched on those paradigm swings in policy-making and the potential financial and political risks in your opening comments. Can you expand a bit more, so we have some good balance in testimony to go from?

[Dr. Aaron Henry]

Absolutely. I think when we approach something like Bill C-12, that's something everyone is looking for in the business community. They're looking for more confidence in terms of what these decarbonization strategies will look like. They're looking at the ability to know what sorts of emission reductions they're going to have to make as an industry, and then as an individual company.

I'll be honest that one thing that's stuck with this conversation is to set the limit as high as we possibly can. I think that's great for an ambition side, but that's really challenging policy for any company to know what they need to do to actually meet those regulations and make those reductions. It is simply going to be a swinging or moving target.

I think the challenge we face is that, of course, if the measures are not in place and agreed upon and we can't actually achieve them, we might find that more stringent measures get introduced by a successive government that's playing catch-up on the mandated target. If we get into that world, the policy environment is going to change radically.

We've been very happy to see a convergence around, potentially, the types of tools that can be used as effective climate policy amongst the federal parties, understanding that different parties might use those tools in different ways. Having that kind of consensus is very helpful for businesses as they look ahead.

When businesses look to something like Bill C-12, they are hoping for greater clarity on that policy regime and that there's not going to be a sudden shift. If we're not actually realistic—it doesn't mean not ambitious—in grounding this in what we can do in these sectors and instead we're creating floating targets, that is going to knock business confidence significantly, which means the capital's not going to be there to make these projects run.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Because I gave the chair a compliment at the beginning, I think he'll have a bit of leeway in my final 10 seconds here.

I want to quickly ask a follow-up from my colleague Mr. Albas's question.

Do you think there's merit in amending the bill so that cabinet makes the decisions in terms of who belongs to the panel, and to go a little further and include departments like Industry, Labour and Finance at the table?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Give a quick answer, please—a yes or no.

[Dr. Aaron Henry]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, good.

We will go to Mr. Bittle, for five minutes, please.