Environment Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Since 2019, when most of our emissions reduction policies began to take effect, we have made significant progress in reducing Canada's emissions. This actually shows the difference that can be made when government takes these actions to reduce emissions.

With regard to the comparable G7 nations over that time frame, since 2019, can you confirm that Canada's emissions have actually declined faster than those of some of our G7 peers, including Japan, the United States and Italy?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

In our exhibits in this year's report and last year's report, we use the two baselines of 1990 and 2005, 1990 being the baseline year for the UN convention and 2005 being the baseline year for Canada's current NDC for the 2030 target. However, if you look at more recent data—essentially, if you put in another graph for just the last few years—you will see a drop in Canada that is not as bad relative to the other G7 countries as it is if you look at these two baseline years. That's partly not that surprising because many of those countries made deep reductions already, so they're now at the point where it's difficult to do further reductions. Canada didn't do any reductions since 1990. Its emissions are up, so it still has the ability to bring it down, more of an ability to bring it down in absolute terms than some of those other countries. I would have to look at the various factors involved to see exactly why there have been changes.

The long and the short of it is that we're only down by around 7% or 8% since the 2005 level. We have to get to 40% to 45% in just six years, so there's a long way to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We will begin the final round of questions.

Mr. Deltell, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. DeMarco, the net zero accelerator initiative has resulted in a lot of money, hope and expectations but, to date, little in the way of results or targets met.

Do you think Canadians are getting value for money?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

You're asking me whether Canada—

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

I'm asking you whether Canadians are getting value for money.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I didn't understand that expression.

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

When you pay, you receive something that you appreciate the value of.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We get value for money. Is Canada getting value for money?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Pardon me; there wasn't any sound.

As I said, the department hasn't shown Canadians that resources have been optimized. It's possible to do so, but I'd like to see more transparency. I want assurances that we're going to optimize resources because this involves a significant amount of money for taxpayers.

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

Absolutely.

Just allow me to say that your French is impeccable and that you needn't be embarrassed at all. I want to thank the interpreters for the job they do, which really isn't easy.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I'm using the floor channel, not the interpretation channel, and there was no sound when you spoke.

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

No problem.

What we understand is that there aren't enough transparency, accountability or targets in the case of the net zero accelerator initiative, all of which undermines the project's credibility in citizens' minds.

Something else that can undermine credibility is the lack of ethics. As we all know, there's another fund to combat climate change, and that's sustainable development technology Canada, or SDTC, a green fund for sustainable development. We know that the Auditor General, an officer of your rank, has looked into this. I'm not talking about us, the Conservatives, but rather the Auditor General, who found that more than $390 million out of a $500 million budget wasn't ethically allocated. The board members voted and allocated the money to their own businesses. That happened in 186 cases. The Auditor General concluded that nearly four out of every five dollars hadn't been spent in accordance with ethical rules. A business must act ethically, particularly when the money comes from taxpayers. Some $500 million was involved in this case.

There's a lack of transparency with regard to the net zero accelerator initiative, which doesn't inspire people's trust. Do you think the ethical issues surrounding SDTC also undermine the trust of Canadians, who are being asked to make a financial effort to combat climate change?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

The concerns and findings of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada differ with regard to those two funds, and our concerns are considerable in both cases.

As regards the net zero accelerator initiative, we're concerned about resource optimization, the absence of any horizontal industrial decarbonization policy and, in many agreements, the lack of any guaranteed reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The problems are different, but parliamentarians and Canadians should be concerned about both funds.

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

All right.

Mr. DeMarco, I'm going to ask you a question that I asked a few months ago. As Canadians, we're all aware that we need to cut emissions. However, everyone has to do it. Our neighbour, the United States, is one of the major CO₂emitters. How can Canada be sure that the efforts we make to reduce our emissions aren't nullified by what might come to us from south of the border?

As you very well know, the automotive industry in Detroit generates a lot of emissions. We're on the other side of the border. Can Canada fall victim to the pollution of other countries, particularly that of our neighbour?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 10 seconds left to answer that question.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

That's a collective issue. It's possible that one or many countries aren't doing their share. That's all I can say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Taylor Roy.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you again, Mr. DeMarco, for your comments.

I want to carry on from the line of questioning Mr. Deltell had.

Would you say that other countries not doing their part to meet emissions targets is a reason Canada shouldn't be doing ours?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

What I was about to speak to is collective action problems. You're probably familiar with the term “tragedy of the commons”. It goes all the way back to Aristotle, I believe. It's about human society not necessarily looking after the commons properly, and the incentives there are to destroy the commons in individual actions that add up to the collective destruction of the commons.

That's true of a lot of things. Canada is not big enough to be a large player in just about anything if you look at the fact that there are about 200 countries in the world. We have a special responsibility with respect to water, forests and several things of which we have a large share, but yes, we're all in this together. It's a whole-of-planet problem.

There is the potential for certain countries to choose to adopt what's called a free rider approach to the detriment of others. If too many of them adopt a free rider approach, we will unfortunately not meet our Paris targets and we will have a tragedy of the commons.

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

I am sure no one wants Canada to be a free rider. That's certainly not our reputation internationally. I know we've always done our part to try to address international crises and to make sure that we maintain peace globally. I think this is an important part of that, so thank you.

It's also not just south of the border. It's global. It doesn't matter if it's the United States, the U.K. or Germany, emissions are emissions and they're going to affect climate change globally, so it's irrelevant who's making them.

We've heard a lot of concern about the government not reaching its targets right now. We know, as you've mentioned, from the analysis that was done by Navius—there have been other people who have also done estimates—that right now, the climate policies will prevent 226 megatonnes of carbon pollution. That's roughly equal to the total annual emissions of Ontario and Quebec.

That says that without the programs we have in place—not just federal programs, but provincial programs as well, and even municipal programs—our emissions would be more than 40% higher in 2050 than they're currently on track to be. We have a huge gap. Even if we haven't met the targets—we put in place more aggressive targets for 2030 when we saw that we were on track to meet the 35%—these policies that are in place are still making a huge difference.

As the opposition rightly points out—they're very concerned that it's not enough—we have to do more to fight climate change. If you were to look at this and ask yourself what Canada could do that would really make a difference right now to meet these or even more ambitious targets, what would you say?

You've studied all these programs and you've looked at all of these policies. What could we do on a large scale that would really make a big difference?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I could look at that from two perspectives. One is what we should we do in a thematic sense. Those are the eight lessons learned from the report. The other is that we could look at it from a sector point of view. What do we need to do to prioritize?

Surely, oil and gas and transportation, given how large a chunk of the pie they occupy in Canada...if we're going to meet the targets, we need to address those.

Comparing sectors to others—say, oil and gas to electricity, as I've done today—or comparing Canada to other G7 countries that have some similarities shows that it can be done. I don't want to be taken as being entirely negative about this. I still believe we could meet the 2030 target. However, we would need to bring down that oil and gas curve and make progress in all of the other sectors, especially transportation and building.

It has become such a race now from 2024 to 2030 that we're going to need help in all sectors, but those are the ones that I would say need to be targeted most significantly if we're going to have any chance to meet 2030.

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

To address the concerns of the opposition, you're saying that oil and gas has to bring down their emissions somehow, whether it's through capping production—and the provinces can do that; obviously, that's not our jurisdiction—or bringing down emissions. The cap on pollution from the oil and gas sector, whether it's exactly the right policy or not, is the right direction. We have to bring down emissions from the oil and gas sector to get there.

Transportation—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Maybe the commissioner could answer that question with a yes or no or something similar, and then we can go on to Mr. Fortin.

Do we need to bring down the emissions? I guess that's the question. Do we need to bring down the emissions from gas?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

This is not just my saying it because, as I indicated, I'm not a policy adviser. There are other bodies for that, but the government's own plan relies on all sectors contributing.