Environment Committee on March 19th, 2024

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

With all due respect, I don't have much time. That wasn't my question. My question was whether you are looking at the expert panel chaired by the former chair of BAPE, Johanne Gélinas. Are you looking at those recommendations to fix the errors that crept in in 2012?

[Terence Hubbard]

The focus is primarily on responding directly to the recommendations and advice put forward by the Supreme Court.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go now to Madame Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I will give all my time to Ms. May, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Go ahead, Ms. May. You have two and a half minutes more.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you so much, Madame Pauzé.

I hated to cut you off like that Mr. Hubbard, but the reality is that the expert panel report would, if enacted even now in remedying the environmental impact assessment regime, provide a full, comprehensive, legal and constitutional response that would remedy all of the defects identified in the reference case.

Given the time I have, I can't go through my annotated copy of the Supreme Court decision. What I'm asking is if Environment Canada, the Impact Assessment Agency and the Department of Justice will consider using Madame Gélinas' report now to completely repair the environmental assessment regime.

[Terence Hubbard]

The report and recommendations of the expert panel and Madame Gélinas were leveraged and utilized to support the development of the Impact Assessment Act.

At this point in time, we are reviewing very closely the recommendations from the Supreme Court and we will be responding directly to the areas in which the Supreme Court identified shortcomings.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

With all due respect, Mr. Hubbard, the expert panel report was completely ignored by the agency and by the minister. Had those recommendations been accepted, we would be back in the four corners of federal jurisdiction from 1975. We've been paying a lot of tributes to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, and certainly when the Mulroney government passed the environmental impact assessment regime, it was completely constitutional.

If we had returned to the advice of the expert panel—and we still could—then we would have a completely constitutional regime that would also deal comprehensively with federal projects, whereas currently a great number of them are no longer reviewed at all.

I mention, just for the committee's benefit, paragraph 242 of the referenced case, which pointed out that in the past, thousands of federal projects were reviewed every year, but that after the passage of the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, in 2012, that number dropped to 70 a year. In other words, the government was doing less while being found by the Supreme Court to be conducting itself in a way that was ultra vires.

I don't accept at all your evidence, Mr. Hubbard, that the department used or leveraged the report of Madame Gélinas, and I would urge you to consider it now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have to go now to Ms. Collins.

Ms. Collins, do you cede your time? No?

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

I want to follow up on the question around costing the climate crisis.

I am curious. Right now with the modelling you do, you mentioned disaster by disaster, but are you doing yearly reports on the cost of the climate crisis in total? Is that something your department is tracking?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

The Canadian Climate Institute actually did release a report on this, so you may want to look at it. Their assessment, if I remember well, was that by 2025 the cost per year would be around $20 billion to $25 billion, which is more than $600 per capita in the country. Those are numbers that are out there and that have been developed by people.

I don't think we have a report in Environment Canada that actually tackled this, but there are reports out there that are doing it.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

The minister talked a little bit about at-risk whales and some of the numbers in terms of how we're protecting land, air and water.

Can we get an update specifically on land? I heard 14% or 15%. When the minister says that we are actually on track to meet those targets, what are the next steps the department will be taking in order to ensure that we'll meet those targets by 2030?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

We have different projects. There's been an increase of 32% over the last years in terms of protection of lands. That's why we are now at 13.7%, if I remember well.

We continue to work with groups. We continue to work with indigenous people. We also develop agreements, province by province, as you may have seen. We have tripartite agreements with B.C., including with first nations groups.

The objective is to look at areas where we can increase and actually protect more biodiversity across the country at the same time that we are conserving lands. That's the process we're in.

We're also advancing the PFPs with indigenous peoples. We're working on four of them. They received $800 million. The minister referred to one of them—

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 10 to 15 seconds. You have time for a statement.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Please finish your thoughts.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I was just saying that we are also working with indigenous leaders on the PFPs. The minister mentioned the one million square kilometres in the north. Those are projects on which we work with provinces, territories, indigenous groups and the private sector or foundations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Kram for five minutes.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

With the time I have left, I would like to give notice of the following motion:

Given that the provinces of:

Newfoundland and Labrador,

Nova Scotia,

Prince Edward Island,

New Brunswick,

Ontario,

Saskatchewan, and

Alberta,

have formally asked Justin Trudeau to cancel the Liberal government's plan to increase the carbon tax by 23% on April 1, 2024; pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee invite all seven premiers to testify on their request to the federal government, within one week of the motion being adopted.

I'm just tabling the motion at this time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're not moving it.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'm not moving it at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Since you're just tabling it, you can go ahead with your questions.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to follow up with Mr. Moffet on an answer he gave a while ago about the methodological differences between Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Mr. Moffet, if I understood you correctly, your department has a model that links the carbon tax to the effect of Canada's CO2 emissions on the change in global temperatures, and the change in global temperatures to Canada's GDP. Did I understand that correctly?

[John Moffet]

I don't think our model draws a straight line between global temperatures and our GDP.

It is an economy-wide, computable general equilibrium model that can estimate the GDP impacts of various issues, including climate change or any new measure, such as the carbon price, regulation X or program Y.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Does the model take into consideration the annual increases in the carbon tax and figure out what effect that would have on extreme weather events or the change in temperatures? How would you have a positive effect on the economy with the carbon tax?