Environment Committee on June 11th, 2024

[Julian Kanigan]

Thanks for the question.

Similar to Kate's answer, we're looking for increased support for research and monitoring, and for pursuing shared, collaborative objectives.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

What role do you believe the Canada water agency can have in ensuring we're prepared for the impacts climate change is having on our freshwater resources?

[Julian Kanigan]

I think it relates back to my comment that what we're seeing, in terms of climate change, is across the entire Mackenzie River basin. The Canada water agency, if it's situated to look at things on a basin scale, is in a unique position to address those basin-level effects, and then disseminate that information collaboratively among jurisdictions.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I'll put that same question to the Government of Yukon official.

[Heather Jirousek]

Thank you for the question.

We have recommendation number 9 in our brief, which says, “ensure that work towards a National Strategy on Flood and Drought is informed by realities of northern and small jurisdictions and understands the importance of supporting network expansion to meet data requirements for forecasting.”

That's similar to what the others were saying.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Is there anything else you want to add on the Yukon side regarding how the federal government should assist or support you in tackling climate change-related concerns you may have?

[Heather Jirousek]

Leveraging what jurisdictions are already doing in that arena is important.

There is a federal role in what we're doing with transboundary work right now. Transboundary is an area of federal jurisdiction, as well. How can we work together on those things, particularly at a watershed scale?

From a climate change and networks perspective, flooding has been impacting us in the last several years. How can the federal government support us in leveraging what they're doing? We know we have support from Environment Canada and NRCan when it comes to flood mapping. How can they continue to support us in those sorts of things—forecasting, flood mapping, the things we're seeing, the hazards that are impacting Yukoners right now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

That brings us to the end of our witness testimony for this study.

I thank the witnesses for wrapping up our deliberations. I would also like to thank the committee members for their co-operation, enthusiasm and many interesting questions. The witnesses are welcome to stay, if they wish, since the meeting is still public. Once again, I thank them for being with us.

I have a couple of housekeeping items to discuss with members.

For Tuesday, we had planned to hold a four-hour meeting, divided into two two-hour periods, first to hear from the minister and then to discuss documents related to the net zero accelerator initiative. I have two things to say about that.

First, the minister will not be able to join us after all because he has to make a presentation to the cabinet. We can still meet with his officials for an hour. I'll open that up for discussion in a moment.

Second, the net zero accelerator initiative documents won't all be ready by June 18, because everything has to be translated and it's very complicated. I spoke to Mr. Mazier about this, and he agreed that we should look at this issue as soon as we come back in the fall. We would put it on the agenda for our first meeting. At that point, all the documents will be available in both official languages. Also, because the documents were supposed to be ready three days before June 18 so committee members could review them in camera, if we do it in the fall, they'll have more time to do that. Mr. Mazier agreed.

So what do we want to do on Tuesday? Do we want the officials without the minister?

I'm open to suggestions.

Mr. Leslie, you have the floor.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will defer to Mr. Mazier and your conversation. I think it is reasonable to take the time necessary for official bilingualism to be respected and to have the documents properly translated. I think that's a reasonable perspective.

In terms of your question about what we might do at Tuesday's meeting, I certainly don't think that we should just take the day off, because we're heading a bit closer to summer.

I think it's worth reminding this committee that Simon Kennedy, the deputy minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, from whom we have now been in receipt of two letters.... The original letter was a blatant disregard of the original motion seeking the production of documents relating to the net-zero accelerator initiative.

When a committee orders the production of documents, deputy ministers don't get to pick and choose what documents they are allowed to send over to that committee. There are numerous Speakers' rulings related to the production of those documents. I mentioned them before in a previous conversation when we had the government overrule our ability to access documents.

In summary, whether it be Speaker Rota, Speaker Milliken or House of Commons Procedure and Practice, on numerous occasions it has been highlighted that it is not only our duty and our obligation to ask for documents as a committee, but it is a right that we inherently hold as parliamentarians.

Now, the deputy minister has his own obligations. He's the deputy minister of a department, and his job is to defend the minister—and the government, more broadly speaking—but he can't just deny what a committee asks for or demands in terms of production, no matter what his arguments are. There was a recent example of the arguments he laid out, particularly in the second letter, as to why he is unwilling to provide the documents this committee has requested. The easiest comparable example is that, recently, Iain Stewart, the president of the Public Health Agency, was called to the bar in the House of Commons for failing to provide the Winnipeg lab documents. Now, Iain Stewart made the exact same arguments that the current deputy minister of Innovation—

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Zarrillo.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm sorry. How long is this meeting going? I was under the impression that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have until 7:07 p.m. Then we will have to adjourn the meeting. The resources will have run out.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Leslie.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was just saying that Iain Stewart made those exact same arguments that Simon Kennedy is now using. I think we don't need to look far as to where that got him in terms of his own career and being reprimanded by the Speaker in the House of Commons.

The rural member for Milton is the parliamentary secretary. He's under a bit of a different obligation, so I understand where he's coming from, but he had the gall last meeting to openly criticize members of the Conservative Party for moving forward with a special meeting to deal with the government's failure to hand over those documents that we had sought originally. During that meeting, the member said our efforts were “silly and totally not necessary”, which, again, I believe was insulting to us but also to Ms. Pauzé and to Ms. Collins. We were talking about $8 billion of taxpayer money that went to large companies. I think it was entirely reasonable for members of this committee—

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

If my quotes are going to be used out of context, then I'd like the opportunity to address them.

I said that an emergency meeting was not necessary, because it is not. Here we are—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's a point of debate.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor] half of this meeting talking about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's a point of debate.

What I would say is this. As I understand it, it's not that they don't want to produce the documents; it's that they can only get half the documents by the 18th. It's more productive for the committee to just get all the documents and have time to look at them in camera. I think that's the issue here.

I'll let you continue, Mr. Leslie, but I believe the department is quite open to sharing the documents. They just need to be translated.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Well, I hope that's true. However, from the correspondence that we as a committee have received, that has not been the indication of the letters from Deputy Minister Kennedy. That may have been your direct correspondence with the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

What did he say that made you doubt that they want to do that?

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

The first letter said that basically they're not handing any of this over, that it's cabinet confidence and that it has to be redacted. We came back with a second set of recommendations.

All of that is to say, Mr. Chair—