Environment Committee on May 2nd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Again, it's all about whether we're—

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

—and if they're fraudulent, they're fraudulent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I think what he said was that, the way the system works—and it's not an intention to be fraudulent—sometimes you could have a situation of double counting. However, in my view, from what I heard, the system wasn't designed to be like that. It's just a situation that drops—

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

The problem is that it's being—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

—out of the way the system is structured.

In any event, continue, but let's try not to create too much conflict. Obviously, you have a point you want to make. Make it.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Why on earth is this government giving away billions of dollars without having any idea how many emissions are being reduced, if any. To make matters worse, the government hasn't released the funding agreements to the public, so we don't even know who this money went to or why. This is absurd.

That's why I move this motion to obtain this information. If the Liberals are spending $8 billion in tax dollars, Canadians rightfully deserve to know what their money is being spent on. There is no reason why these funding agreements cannot be handed over to the committee.

The Prime Minister promised that his government would be the most transparent government in Canadian history, but we have continuously witnessed this government blocking the committee from obtaining information. Not only must we uncover the funding agreements for this $8-billion slush fund. We also need to obtain the progress report of the net-zero accelerator.

According to the environment commissioner's report, the government is also hiding the net-zero accelerator's emissions report from Canadians. He said, “The tracker is a tool that was designed to measure the Net Zero Accelerator’s progress toward an internal target set by the department itself and is not public.”

Canadians deserve to know the truth behind this slush fund. In the environment commissioner's 2023 report, he stated, “The federal government is not on track to meet the 2030 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions....”

It's very clear why the Liberals are refusing to release this information to Canadians. Their environmental record is a failure. In fact, Canada dropped four rankings in climate change performance last year despite this $8-billion slush fund and another carbon tax increase.

Chair, I will remind this committee that just last year another Liberal slush fund was exposed, so I think it's imperative that we get to the bottom of this. Last year, we learned that the Prime Minister hand-picked a chair to run another billion-dollar green fund. Canadians eventually found that the chair of the green tech slush fund siphoned $217,000 of taxpayer dollars to her own company. That green slush fund was exposed for gross mismanagement and multiple conflicts of interest. In fact, the government official confirmed that no action was taken after these conflicts of interest were exposed.

Chair, my point is that there is a glaring history of corruption and cover-ups with this Liberal government. It is essential that we get to the bottom of this, given the environment commissioner's damning report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Deltell, you have the floor.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For those tuning in, I would remind you that we're holding this debate as a result of a meeting we had five days ago here at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development with the commissioner of the environment. As everyone knows, the commissioner and his team are independent people who document specific issues and take an objective look at them. They have tabled five reports for us to look at, reports that could be the subject of political debate. That's why we're in politics, by the way. We have opposing views, and that's as it should be. That's called democracy, and our forums are the House of Commons and parliamentary committees like this one.

One of the environment commissioner's reports was on the strategic innovation fund's net zero accelerator initiative to decarbonize manufacturing industries. The net zero accelerator initiative is a program that pays companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, thereby reducing pollution. This program is not small potatoes; its budget is $8 billion. For those tuning in at home, I'll point out that eight billion of their income tax dollars, not their GST dollars, will be spent on this. I want to make that clear because we learned when the budget was tabled that $54.1 billion will go to paying interest on the debt, and that happens to be exactly how much Canadians shell out in GST. Every penny Canadians pay in GST goes to paying interest on the debt. None of it is used to fund this kind of program.

Now, has the program panned out? In our opinion, the answer is no, not at all. That's why we had questions for the commissioner of the environment. His answers were damning, to say the least. I started by asking him if it was effective and efficient, and he replied, “I'm not convinced it's effective. It might be if they're lucky, but it wouldn't be thanks to any grand plan….”

If it's luck you want, go to the casino across the Ottawa River.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

That's my riding you're talking about.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I have nothing against the place you have there, but it's not the kind of place where the government should be investing $8 billion of taxpayers' money. I think the member would agree.

Conservatives aren't the ones saying it might work if we're lucky. It was the environment commissioner himself. He and his experienced team spent days and days studying the actual results of the accelerator that the government spent $8 billion of taxpayers' money on, and he concluded that he can't be sure it's working, but it might, with luck. There's no substance. We're not the ones saying that; it's the Ethics Commissioner, or rather the environment commissioner, sorry. There's been an awful lot of talk about ethics with this government, but I meant the environment commissioner.

We asked the commissioner questions about another topic, and he told us that he had never seen the carbon tax calculation model. That's a big deal. We're all here to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, shrink our environmental footprint and cut pollution. The duly elected government chose to do that by imposing a carbon tax. We're against that, but the government is in favour of it, and that's fine. That's democracy, but we still need to know if the program is working. When we asked the environment commissioner if it's working—I'm talking about the carbon tax, not the $8-billion fund—he said that he had never seen the carbon tax calculation model.

When you institute something like a tax, which involves a certain amount of money, the least you can do is figure out if it works or not, and there are ways to calculate that. However, the environment commissioner, whose job is to audit the effectiveness of certain government programs, said that he has never seen the carbon tax calculation model. We need to get to the bottom of this, Mr. Chair.

In response to a specific question from Mr. Mazier about how emissions reductions were calculated, a departmental official whose name I don't have—I just want to clarify that it wasn't the commissioner himself—confirmed that, in some cases, the same effect could be calculated twice.

As it turns out, it's possible to count emissions reductions from the same source twice. That's not very rigorous. Once again, Mr. Chair, this isn't coming from Conservatives. There were about 30 people here. They were well equipped. They had clearly taken their work seriously and done it thoroughly.

I also want to remind the committee of something that the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development said during our discussion. He said that most of the projects do not include commitments to reduce emissions. Most of them, Mr. Chair. I can see why that might be the case once or twice, here and there, but for crying out loud, most of the projects had no commitment to reduce emissions. What is the point of these projects if they're not reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions?

This is serious business, Mr. Chair.

We're talking about $8 billion of the taxpayers' money to be sure to reduce emissions.

Let me be clear, Mr. Chair. All of us here around this table share the same objective to reduce pollution and reduce emissions.

There are different ways to address it. The government—and it has the mandate to do that—proposed a taxation on the price of the pollution. The way we see it, this is not the way to reduce the emissions, but this is the debate. This is what democracy is all about. They agree; we disagree. Well, this is what Parliament is all about, and we shall protect this diversity of points of view. However, something that is very important is to share the same goal to reduce emissions, and to see if the way we address it is efficient.

Are the emissions reduction measures effective or not? In this case, Mr. Chair, we feel that the work was not done properly and that the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not being achieved at all, as the commissioner said. He said that he isn't convinced it's effective; that if it is, it might be mere luck; that he doesn't have the carbon tax calculation model; that, in some cases, an emissions reduction had been counted twice; and that most of the projects included no commitment to reduce emissions.

That's why my colleague, Mr. Mazier, tabled his motion, which quotes the commissioner's report. It begins as follows:

Given that Canada’s Environment Commissioner reported: a. That the Liberal government …

This is from paragraph 4.72 of the report. This is important. Listen to this:

… did not effectively manage the Strategic Innovation Fund’s Net Zero Accelerator to decarbonize the manufacturing industries in accordance with Canada’s climate goals or with due regard to value for money for Canadians”;

That's not from the official opposition's environment critic. The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development himself wrote it right there in black and white in paragraph 4.72 of his report on the $8‑billion net zero accelerator initiative, which found that it was not handled properly. That's why the motion goes on to say:

b. That the emission reduction progress and results of the Liberal government’s $8 billion, Net Zero Accelerator are not public to Canadians.

The motion ends as follows:

The committee order the production of (i) the government’s complete tracker tool used to measure the Net Zero Accelerator’s progress and results, (ii) all internal Net Zero Accelerator targets set by the government, including the government’s Net Zero Accelerator emission reduction target, and (iii) all complete contributions agreements signed, to date, for the Net Zero Accelerator, within one week of this motion being adopted.

We did adopt our Liberal colleague's amendment to give the government two weeks instead of one. We're absolutely fine with that. We'll take as much time as we need, but we need to see results.

In essence, Mr. Chair, we're here because the commissioner said that the whole thing was nice and all, but it isn't producing the desired results. We're here because we want real results so we can have an actual substantive debate about what works and how to bring about real, effective, practical, non-dogmatic greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the interest of Canada's future.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. van Koeverden, go ahead.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleagues for their speeches.

I want to get some things on the record with respect to the net-zero accelerator fund. While I totally appreciate the desire for more information, I want to put in context some of these investments and what they mean for our region in southwestern Ontario, as well as for Sault Ste. Marie, in the context of Algoma Steel.

The members continually suggested that there were no earmarked emissions reductions attached to these investments, which is simply not true. For the Dofasco project on its own $400 million was announced, which will help cut carbon emissions from steel production at that facility in Hamilton by more than half. Their emissions will be reduced by 60%. This has been widely reported on. I'm not looking at a government document; it's just all of the news that came out on that great day three years ago when we were able to announce that by 2028 steel production in Hamilton wouldn't be as dirty as it always has been.

I used to work in steel in Hamilton, and it's a pretty dirty job, I have to say. My job was sweeping the floor and grinding the rust off steel that was stored outside. It's a dirty job but it doesn't have to be that dirty. It certainly doesn't have to pollute as much as it does.

The CEO of ArcelorMittal said the company was proud of the government for stepping up and that this investment would contribute to a 60% reduction in their emissions. Their emissions are very high. Both that plant and the one in Sault Ste. Marie will lower emissions by six million tonnes a year. That's really significant. Six million tonnes a year is six megatonnes. That would get us pretty close to under 700 megatonnes, which is one of those targets.

I also heard repeatedly that we're not on track to meet our emissions targets, but that's not true either. We are on track to meet our 2026 target, which is really great news.

Taking the report at face value is important, and one of the findings was that by 2026 we'll be right on target. We need to take further steps in order to reach our 2030 targets.

Let's go back to six million tonnes a year in emissions reductions. That's just carbon emissions, by the way. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into the air when we use coal to produce steel. It's going to mean a healthier environment. It's going to mean lower emissions. It's going to mean fewer upper respiratory tract infections. It's going to mean less respiratory distress in the summer.

It's the equivalent of taking 1.8 million vehicles off road. That's almost the number of passenger vehicles in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver combined. That's remarkable. That's remarkable progress, and that's the power of investing in technology with these companies.

Using technology is one of the ways of making sure we reduce our emissions. That annual reduction of three million tonnes accounts for 30% of Hamilton's entire emissions reductions. It's 30% of their emissions total. They currently emit 11 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, and Dofasco contributes almost half, 4.8 tonnes. It says 4.8 tonnes, but I'm going to presume that maybe it means 4.8 million. It might be a typo. I'm just reading from the article.

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

You don't know?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I don't know, because I'm reading from a CBC article, Dan.

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

I understand. That's CBC.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

The number's here, but it's an important number. It's 30% of Hamilton's emissions overall. I'm just doing the math in my head and 4.8 over 11 is about 30%, and it doesn't say million after the 4.8.

This is good news. It's really good news for my community. It's really good news for Clean Air Hamilton, and one of my former professors at McMaster, a professor of geography, was talking about how important this is.

Steel production is filthy. We can do something about it, and we are. By 2028, emissions from steel production at Algoma and at Dofasco in Hamilton are going to be quite a lot lower, and that's something we can all celebrate.

I welcome a vote on this so we can go to the next item.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Seeing as we have no more speakers, we'll go to the vote on the main motion. We did the amendment; there was UC.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Does anyone else have anything to say before we go in camera?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Chair, we should deal with the motion by my colleague from Victoria, Laurel Collins.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

May I read it, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, of course.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

The motion has already been sent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

She did indeed give notice of the motion.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

That's perfect.

I would like to move the motion so that we can discuss it now.

That, pursuant to the motion passed on Tuesday, April 30th, 2024, the committee summons, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), the following to appear before the committee: Mr. Rich Kruger, CEO of Suncor Energy Inc., Mr. Brad Coron, CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd., Mr. Jon McKenzie , CEO of Cenovus Energy Inc., and Mr. Greg Ebel, CEO of Enbridge Inc. to appear May 23rd, 2024 for two hours to brief the member of the committee on their efforts to significantly reduce emissions to meet Canada’s international climate commitments amid their record-breaking profits since 2021, and that the committee publish a report on its findings and table it in the House.