Environment Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Your time's up, Ms. Taylor Roy. I'm sorry about that, because it was a very interesting question.

We're going to have a very short break to bring in witnesses from the Departments of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Natural Resources and Environment.

Mr. Clerk, I'll let you take over to bring in the new witnesses.

We're suspending for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll resume our meeting.

We have witnesses from the three departments that I mentioned originally. I would like to read the names of everyone on the call, but in the interest of time you have that in front of you on the notice of meeting.

Each department has five minutes as per routine motions. However, whatever you can do to come in under five minutes would be greatly appreciated by your chair.

We'll start with the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food for five minutes.

Mr. Campbell, go ahead for five minutes, or less if you can.

[Dr. Ian Campbell, Director of Research, Development and Technology Transfer for the Charlottetown and Fredericton Centres, Science and Technology Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Honourable members, I'm pleased to be here today to talk about Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's contribution to the report on scientific activities in selected water basins by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

At AAFC, we welcome the findings of the commissioner as part of our commitment to continuous improvement. We will continue to work with our colleagues at Environment and Climate Change Canada to improve information sharing and collaboration. AAFC and ECCC will update their memorandum of understanding on science and re-establish national and regional joint science committees. For each water basin, we will work together to review our respective departmental objectives and research projects.

As well, we will closely track our outreach and knowledge transfer activities to ensure our external partners are getting the information they need. Through these joint science committees, we will identify new opportunities to coordinate our research. Our common goal is to help Canadian farmers and food processors continue to be global leaders in the field of sustainable agriculture.

Canadian farmers are an important part of the climate change solution. Farmers already contribute to safeguarding our environment and water quality through sustainable practices such as fencing, tree planting and reduced tillage.

At AAFC, we're working with farmers to help them protect our soil and water resources for future generations.

Over the past three years, we have been bringing researchers, farmers and other stakeholders together to form collaborative research networks known as “living laboratories”. Together, they develop and test sustainable farming practices and technologies that help reduce the farm's environmental footprint.

The research takes place directly on the farmers' fields. Farmers can see the results in real time and can adopt innovative practices more quickly, and they share their knowledge across Canada so other farmers can learn from their peers how to apply new stewardship tools and approaches to reducing emissions, build healthier soils, boost production and enhance wildlife habitat.

Living labs are now up and running across Canada, in Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario and the eastern Prairies. In PEI, farmers and researchers are working together to find the best ways to apply fertilizers so that they can save money, help the environment and reduce greenhouse gases all at the same time. In Quebec, farmers, researchers and first nations are looking at cover crops to reduce soil erosion; and in Manitoba, they're capturing and storing water on the farm to prevent nutrient runoff, while seeding plants that will attract pollinators.

The living labs model is also the cornerstone of our new agricultural climate solutions program, which will support regional collaboration networks across the country to develop climate-smart solutions on the farm.

The living labs approach has been endorsed by the G20 ministers of agriculture as a novel way to accelerate the development of sustainable agricultural practices and technologies around the world, and we are pleased with the commissioner's recognition of the living labs as a model for collaboration in both planning and project execution.

We will draw from the living labs collaborative approach and apply its best management practices to our ongoing projects with partners, including other departments such as ECCC.

To sum up, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada agrees with the audit recommendations. We welcome the findings of the commissioner as part of our commitment to continuous improvement, and we will take action to improve information sharing and collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

My colleague Matt Parry is also here today and will be able to address questions you might have on the department's progress in implementing sustainable development strategies.

Thank you again for the opportunity. We look forward to the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you for being brief.

We will go to the Department of Natural Resources. Is it Ms. Johnson who will be speaking?

Go ahead, please.

[Mollie Johnson, Assistant Deputy Minister, Low Carbon Energy Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

I'm speaking from Ottawa, as I mentioned a little earlier, which is the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

The Government of Canada's climate plan commits to decarbonization across all economic sectors by 2050. This includes, as you folks well know, a price on carbon pollution, strengthening existing methane regulations, clean fuels regulations, and putting a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector.

The emissions reduction fund is part of that plan and one part of the comprehensive set of tools that are going to be needed to achieve our climate objectives, to support jobs, and to grow and secure the opportunities from the net-zero economy.

The program was launched in 2020 as a COVID response measure. The program sought to ensure the continued reduction of methane emissions at a time of record low energy prices and to maintain jobs during a very difficult period. It did that. In just over its first year, $142 million was invested in 93 projects. Most involved small and medium-sized enterprises across western Canada, where they are having a positive impact on the local economies, such as Estevan, Brandon and Slave Lake. Those projects are expected to deliver 4.7 megatonnes of emissions reductions in the first 12 months after they're completed. That's equivalent to taking about one million cars off the road.

The pandemic is continuing, but at the same time we agree with the audit of the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development that thankfully many of the economic circumstances since the program was introduced just over a year ago have changed. We're going to continue to evolve. The situation will continue to evolve.

The input of the commissioner and of stakeholders, industry and non-governmental organizations regarding the program has been fabulously welcomed and valued. In fact, since the launch of the program the department has made periodic changes throughout to improve its delivery.

The audit report helped us shape the relaunch of the program that happened on January 19. We received the audit that came out in public on November 25. In particular, I would flag three things for you.

First, we narrowed the scope to only projects that fully eliminate intentional routine methane venting and flaring. Those are the projects that will come forward in the third project intake period.

Second, we strengthened the criteria applied to focus on the greatest return on investment from an emissions perspective.

The third big thing we did was to provide greater transparency to ensure that projects demonstrate reductions that are incremental to Canada's methane reductions. These changes are going to further improve the program from its foundation, consistent with the conditions we're in today.

We're really grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you about this today. This is a program that gets into some technical issues. I'm very grateful to have the director general of the clean fuels branch, my colleague Debbie Scharf, here to speak with me.

I'll end there. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go now to the Department of Environment. We have Ms. Geller.

[Hilary Geller, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of the Environment]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, committee members.

In the interest of time, let me say just two things. We, too, agree with the commissioner's recommendations. We look forward to meeting with you today and discussing the report.

My name is Hilary Geller. I'm the assistant deputy minister of the strategic policy branch at Environment Canada. I have direct responsibilities for sustainable development, including leading work across government on the federal sustainable development strategy. Also, my branch leads, through our regional offices, the delivery of various freshwater programs in the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg and the Saint John Wolastoq river.

We also lead Environment Canada's collaboration with the Department of Finance on certain specific climate-related initiatives, like sustainable finance.

I'm joined today by my colleague Doug Nevison, the interim assistant deputy minister of the climate change branch.

Finally, we are also joined by Vincent Ngan, director general of horizontal policy, engagement and coordination in the climate change branch. As a collective, we're really looking forward to answering your questions on this report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being mindful of the time we have.

We have time for one six‑minute round of questions.

We'll start with the Conservatives. Mr. Davidson will share his time with Mr. Mazier.

Go ahead, Mr. Davidson.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, Mr. Mazier, if you could keep an eye on time. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Mr. DeMarco. I appreciate your backdrop. That great picture almost looks like the Black River going into the great body of water of Lake Simcoe.

I'll have to keep my comments brief, Mr. Chair, because I have only three minutes.

I'm going to focus on report number six. Mr. DeMarco, what did you identify as the primary reason for the various departments' failing to report their progress on the strategy?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Thank you for the compliment regarding my late mother's oil painting in the background. It is an Ontario scene, so you're not far off.

I'm going to ask David Normand, who was the principal responsible for the sustainable development strategy report, to address that question.

[David Normand, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Good afternoon, everyone.

This year, we again looked at the departmental actions that individual departments were reporting on in line with the federal development strategy, and assessed the extent of progress based on the reports they provided to Parliament. For various reasons, we found many flaws in the reporting.

First off, we found that almost half of the departments in their departmental actions toward meeting the goal had not made links to the targets defined in the federal strategy. When reading the departmental sustainable development strategies, we were left asking ourselves questions as to how they actually contributed in a meaningful way to the achievement of the targets.

Even more concerning, we found that almost half of the reports we reviewed this year had reported no tangible progress toward—

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I'm sorry, I'm on limited time.

I think what you're hinting at is that it was poor. There was a lot of grey. Half the reporting wasn't done.

This is the type of stuff that's very concerning to Canadians. Again, Canadians find that a report has gone into a storage unit somewhere. There's no one held accountable and no action taken.

Is there any indication taken from the flaws that were identified that they would be addressed before 2019-22, or are we going to be waiting now until the 2022-25 strategy?

[David Normand]

All departments and agencies that were subject to this year's report accepted our recommendation to improve reporting.

For the following years, we're adopting a bit of a different approach: Instead of just looking at the quality of the reporting, we're going to also look at the actual outcomes with the audit level of assurance.

This means we're going to go into the individual programs in departments and see if we can assess and see any tangible progress on the various actions.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Just quickly, my colleague, Mr. Duguid, mentioned 26 government agencies. He can correct me if I'm wrong. Are you finding that these bureaucracies are getting so big they can't manage what they're asking for? Can the bureaucracy not deal with the amount of reporting that has to be done now?

[David Normand]

Currently, under the act, there are 27 departments and agencies that are subject to producing the reporting. This number will increase to nearly 100. Yes, this entails a lot of coordination between departments.

The lead coordination is performed by ECCC on these reports.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thank you very much.

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

I guess this question is for agriculture and environment. Under report three, has the government discussed any potential plan to limit the amount of fertilizer that can be applied to agriculture land?

[Dr. Ian Campbell]

I'm not really equipped to discuss that particular question at this time. It was not part of the audit, which is kind of what I'm—

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

It's part of the nutrients, under the nutrient management and sustainable.... Fertilizer is a very integral part of it.

How about under environment? Has any department discussed the application of fertilizer on agricultural land?

[Dr. Ian Campbell]

We certainly have lots of research on it and we have programs to help reduce it.

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

Anybody can answer this question. Has anybody in these departments talked about fertilizer?

[Dr. Ian Campbell]

Yes, of course.

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

How are they talking about it? Are they talking about restricting the use of fertilizer in Canada?

[Dr. Ian Campbell]

I am not aware of any discussions about restricting it. We're certainly working to optimize its use.

Matt Parry, do you want to jump in on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Be very brief, please.