Evidence of meeting #15 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was parks.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I asked at the beginning if the minister would be here for the whole time, and you answered yes. We're at the very end, and I'm the only member left to ask a question. It would take two and a half minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
There are two others after you.
The idea was that he would be here until one o'clock. That meant those two hours, but we started late.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Chair, I had some really important questions about the clean fuel standard.
Liberal
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To the department officials, the much-delayed clean fuel standard is a critical part of the emissions reduction plan. As it stands, it's shaping up to be yet another fossil fuel subsidy.
Under the draft regulations, fossil fuel companies can meet compliance in part by selling products like asphalt, sulphur and plastic bags, which have nothing to do with transportation and artificially improve the economics of crude oil. Even worse, this undermines the economics of actual clean energy and clean fuels, such as electricity, advanced biofuels or green hydrogen.
These subsidies have real impacts, and in this case they're displacing the clean fuels that are so critical to a safe climate. Will the department be removing the standard's provisions that clearly subsidize the fossil fuel production but also displace real clean fuels?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I'll start, and then John Moffet can take a bit of it.
I would just note that we would disagree with the characterization of the clean fuel standard as a fossil fuel subsidy, recognizing that it is a term that requires some agility to define.
We would note as well that the clean fuel standards will come out in the springtime. This has been on the regulatory forward agenda for some time. It's a complicated package that we have been working on with really extensive consultations with the sectors, including the biofuel sector as well.
It has as its objective to decarbonize and reduce the carbon intensity of clean fuels—
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Do you want to answer, John, just on the specifics on threshold—
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Just for some context for John, no other jurisdictions that have clean fuel standards, such as B.C., California, Oregon and Europe, allow fossil fuels to earn credits when they're exported.
Not only does this do nothing to reduce emissions from the fuels we use in Canada, but every exported fossil credit is a credit that does not support real clean fuels.
Are you going to be addressing this loophole?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Who is answering?
We have very limited time, but please take a stab at it for 15 seconds or so.
John Moffet Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
I'm not sure I would characterize the issue as a loophole.
As our associate deputy minister explained, the goal of the clean fuel regulation is to reduce the life-cycle intensity of fuel. If we reduce the carbon intensity of the production of fuel in Canada, regardless of where that fuel is used, then we have reduced the life-cycle intensity of that fuel, and that's what we will be crediting.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Three megatonnes of reduction is largely because of double-dipping. Experts have said that the clean fuel standard should be reducing emissions about tenfold that amount. Because of these loopholes, because of this kind of double-dipping when these actions are happening anyway, the standard is not having the impact that it could.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll have to go to Mr. Dreeshen, who will be splitting time with Mr. Seeback. I'll let both of you work out the proportions.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Of course it does make me a little nervous when I hear non-scientific terms coming from the minister, such as tar sands, which of course they are not, but perhaps that was just something that was lost in translation.
He talked about how he hadn't made it out to a farm to take a look at what agriculture is about, and of course there's quite a bit of concern there, and also to the oil sands, I think everyone has to realize—it doesn't matter which one of us as MPs—that if there happens to be a chunk in our riding where we'd like to see an open-pit mine in order to get the rare earth minerals that are required, then we'd better go up to Fort McMurray to see what a reclamation program looks like, because that's where the world-class expertise really lies. That's where my question comes in.
I really want to know if this government has a real vision for the future, one in which the mining and processing of rare earth minerals takes our world-class reclamation expertise and our human rights records and deals with that, or when the time comes, is that too going to be politically demonized, as we hear when everyone says, “Oh, you can't do this in my backyard”?
