Environment Committee on May 21st, 2024

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

As I said earlier, we've entered the era of climate change, and most of us, but not all of us in this room, believe that climate change is a very important issue, one that's deserving of all our attention and all of our efforts. We've adopted in the last few years an unprecedented rate of measures, and we've adopted investments that we've never seen in the history of this country to tackle this very issue. In fact, Canada just received an award from the Climate Scorecard, which rated us and gave us a score of 70% for what we've been doing on climate change. We're not perfect, and some are ahead of us, but we've certainly come a long way from where we used to be pre-2015.

You've spoken about the cost of climate change. We've seen the insured cost of climate change go from an average of $400 million per year in Canada to about $2 billion. The last two years were about 50% higher than this $2 billion a year of insured costs to Canadians.

Perhaps I may use a bit of a parallel. A very incredible Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, when faced with a similar challenge—ozone depletion—decided to tackle this head-on. Imagine if in 1987, Brian Mulroney would have said that we don't believe in ozone depletion. We're not sure it's caused by humans. We don't really believe in the modelling. It's going to be too expensive to do anything about it.

MP Bezan from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman spoke about skin cancer today, before question period, and what we need to do. If we hadn't tackled ozone depletion, skin cancer in Canada would be through the roof with the cost to the Canadian health system, the incredible cost to Canadians. I would hope that the Conservative Party of Canada could use the same wisdom and foresight in dealing with climate change and say that this is a really big issue but they're going to roll up their sleeves and work together to tackle this issue, as they did as a party in 1987 when it came to fighting ozone depletion.

No one talks about ozone depletion. When you ask kids who are 20 or 25, they've never heard about ozone depletion. Why? It's because it's largely being solved. The ozone layer is doing better and should recover by 2060. Imagine, if the Conservative Party of Canada did that for climate change, where we would be as a country. One can only hope and dream, I guess.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You still have 30 seconds.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Great. Then I will continue with my next question.

In particular, when you're looking at the cost of climate change, there's a lot of talk about not being able to estimate accurately what's going to happen, so we don't always see that balance. We know what it's going to cost—we can look at the price on pollution—but we aren't always able to estimate what it will cost if we don't take action.

How do you address that, and how does the department try to encompass those costs that can't be completely—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry, but we're really out of time.

I'm going to break now so we can vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We now go to Mr. Trudel for two and a half minutes.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, picking up on our discussion, I would say that the big problem in Canada is oil production and the fossil fuel subsidies.

I knew you before you entered politics, and I know this is an issue you are committed to. However, you're not in the right country to be Minister of Environment and Climate Change. You're in a country where oil production carries on. You can come up with all kinds of strategies, but the fact remains that oil and gas accounts for 31% of Canada's overall greenhouse gas emissions, up from 28%. That's even before the opening of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which cost us $34 billion, by the way. That money could have gone towards building social housing.

I'm not even talking about the Bay du Nord project, which could generate 116 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. You approved that project, Minister.

You can play with measures and half measures all you like, but, I repeat, the big problem is the oil industry. Earlier, we were talking about $50 billion in direct and indirect subsidies that Canada is giving the oil industry. In 2022, the five biggest oil companies made $220 billion in profits.

How can you consider giving one red cent to those people? How does a country that's producing more and more dirty oil reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, or ever hope to?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you for your question.

In fact, we are already reducing emissions. They decreased by 7% between 2019 and 2022, which puts us among the top G7 countries for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over that period.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that there's a tremendous amount of work to be done in the oil and gas sector. That's why, for the first time in Canadian history, we have put in place a clean fuel and methane standard. There are the clean electricity regulations and the transition to a net-zero electricity supply by 2035 for—

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Why did you approve the Bay du Nord project?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I will try to answer your first question before I answer your second one.

The cap on greenhouse gas emissions will ensure that, regardless of the level of greenhouse gases produced, emissions in the oil and gas sector will decrease over time.

We're working with other departments to put that cap in place. We want to ensure that the oil and gas sector does its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like all other sectors of the Canadian economy. Methane emissions, for example, have also started to go down in the oil and gas sector.

I agree with you 100% that more needs to be done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll have to stop there and go to Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

How many minutes do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 2.5 minutes.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

We are talking about the windfall profits tax. The PBO has said that if we implemented a 15% windfall profits tax, we would generate $4.2 billion for the government over five years. The U.K. has implemented a 30% windfall profits tax on oil and gas.

Can you answer if you are in support of this idea? Are you looking at it? Are you advocating internally for a windfall profits tax so we could tax corporate greed and put that money into climate solutions?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

As I said earlier, I'm not the finance minister. This is a question you should ask the finance minister.

As I said to our colleague in French just a minute ago, I am in favour of putting in place measures to ensure the oil and gas sector does its fair share when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

One of those policies is the emissions cap. We know there are so many loopholes in that proposed policy that the oil and gas sector is not going to be doing their fair share when it comes to reducing emissions. Allowing for offsets....

Do you think delaying this as long as you have and then allowing oil and gas to reduce their emissions less than other sectors of the economy is actually putting the burden on everyday Canadians and other sectors to do the bulk of the emissions reductions?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I respectfully disagree with your characterization of what we're doing on the oil and gas cap, as well as other measures. Offsets are an internationally agreed-upon mechanism of the Paris Agreement, and it's a recognized way—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

The target is 40% by 2030.

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

I believe it's 40% to 45%.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Yes, the low end is 40%, yet the oil and gas sector will only have to do about half of that with your emissions cap.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That's not correct. We're aiming to get the oil and gas sector, as per the emissions reduction plan, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 31%.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

However, with offsets, they could reduce it as little as 20%. Is that not correct?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We're still working on presenting the draft regulations in the coming months, so I can't give you—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

The proposed ones outline offsets up to about 20%.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That's not the case. We haven't proposed anything yet, since the draft regulations aren't out yet. They will be in the coming months, but they're not out yet.