Environment Committee on March 19th, 2024

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move the motion that I gave notice of on Friday.

[An hon. member]

I'll speak to that motion, Mr. Chair.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Conservatives are demanding that the Liberal government release their carbon tax analysis. It's unfair to force Canadians to pay a carbon tax without revealing direct results.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have Mr. van Koeverden and Ms. Collins.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It's a simple motion to do a study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Do you want to debate this now?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It's up for debate.

No, I just want it passed. Let's go.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I appreciate the motion by my honourable colleague, and we'll review it, but out of respect for our witnesses, I think we can adjourn debate now and resume debate when we have committee business.

Thank you, Mr. Mazier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's a non-debatable motion. We have to vote on it.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

You can ask if we have unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Do we have unanimous consent?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

We want it passed. No. We need this study done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, we don't have unanimous consent. We'll call the vote to adjourn debate on the motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

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

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I have a question, and anyone can answer it.

Earlier this week, the leader of the official opposition stated that he did not believe pollution pricing should apply to industry.

What would the impact be on Canada's emissions if pollution pricing was not in place for industry?

[John Moffet]

I will start by repeating the analysis that we've shared publicly.

We estimate that of the total emissions reductions that will be achieved economy-wide by 2030, approximately one-third will be attributable to the carbon price. If we were to remove the carbon price from the economy, we would either achieve far fewer emissions reductions or we would have to replace the carbon price with another set of measures that, in order to achieve the same reductions, would inevitably cost the economy far more.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I have a few questions for the officials who are here from Parks Canada.

Parks Canada is seeking over $37 million in operating expenditures, grants and contributions for “Funding for wildfire response requirements”. Please describe the wildfire response that this funding covers.

Are Parks Canada employees responding to wildfires themselves, or is Parks Canada funding other groups to respond?

[Ron Hallman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada Agency]

Chair, Parks Canada is the only federal firefighting force in Canada. We work on lands that we administer, and we work in collaboration with provincial and territorial firefighters at the provincial level and internationally. We have more than 300 firefighters engaged in a number of different practices, including incident command, direct fire line operations and support.

The funds that are contemplated—the $37 million-plus in the supplementary estimates—partially offset the $90 million or so that Parks Canada expended on behalf of Canadians in managing wildfire preparedness and firefighting last year.

We engage in activities to prevent wildfire through “FireSmart” programs and through prescribed burn. We do that ourselves through planning with communities and with indigenous partners to make sure that we're using knowledge and our science knowledge.

Darlene Upton is here to speak in greater detail about the firefighting program if there are more questions.

Aside from the financial cost, I would really like to draw the committee's attention to some of the human costs of these fires—not only for the communities and the indigenous partners and their families, who are on the land and experience the horrors of these fires, but for our employees. Many of them live in these communities and had to say goodbye to their families when they were evacuated. They stayed behind to help. In 2023, most of our fire team members were away from home for four to seven shifts, from 70 to 98 days—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Excuse me, Mr.—

[Ron Hallman]

—which is more than double what normally happens.

I'm sorry, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Ali wanted to give some time to Ms. May.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry.

If you could submit that, it would be great. I wanted to give the rest of the time to Ms. May.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about 30 seconds, so it's not very much, but go ahead. Give it a shot.

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

I understand I have 30 seconds, Mr. Chair.

The question I'd like to pursue.... I may get more time from Madame Pauzé, I hope.

The question is related to the Supreme Court of Canada reference case. It's clear from this reference case that the entirety of the unconstitutionality within the impact assessment regime stems from changes made under the Harper regime in the so-called CEAA 2012.

What I want to know is this: Is the department examining using the recommendations from the expert panel in order to remedy the illegalities that crept in in 2012?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Answer fairly briefly, if you can. I know it's a comprehensive question.

[Terence Hubbard]

Thank you for the question.

We're looking very closely at the recommendations from the Supreme Court of Canada. As ministers have noted, we will be advancing—