Environment Committee on Sept. 21st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Go ahead, Madame Chatel.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Good morning, colleagues.

I just want to tell you how honoured I am to sit on this committee. Obviously, we're facing a climate crisis that will have an impact on us, on our children and on their children. This crisis is a reality not only in Canada, but around the world. This committee and its discussions are of critical importance. I am therefore very happy to be able to contribute by working together with you all as a team.

Speaking of teams, I think we all agree with Ms. Taylor Roy that the climate crisis and pollution do not recognize borders. That means this isn't just a federal government issue, nor is it just a provincial and municipal government issue, nor is it just a citizen issue; everybody has to be in this together. We have to talk to each other. That means we have to invite the right people to this committee. I look forward to hearing my Conservative colleagues' other amendments.

Thank you, and I'm so pleased to be working with you on this fine committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Chatel. It's a pleasure to have you here this morning.

Mr. Kmiec, you have the floor.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to disagree, obviously, because one sentence in a statement made by the premier doesn't prove it. The parliamentary secretary is wrong on that. The premier has been very clear that she believes that federal attempts to legislate utilities in our province and our targets are unconstitutional. They are unconstitutional now. They will be unconstitutional in the future.

You can't say you respect provincial jurisdictions and then try to encroach on them through the back door, sideways or by any other means possible.

The Supreme Court—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm getting to that now, because I have it right here. I'll even read it into the record, if you interrupt me again. As for the reference regarding the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, it was a 6-3 decision, Chair, as you know. It was a 6-3 decision. Those are the best kinds: 5-4 and 6-3.

You know the best laws are made in dissenting opinions. That's what a lot of lawyers have always told me. I am not burdened with a legal education, thankfully, but that's what they've always told me. In those decisions, the three dissenting judges, with different opinions, explained why. It was because they thought it would be a Trojan Horse and that, in the future, the government would again make the claim that the environment is a shared jurisdiction and, therefore, because it is, you can then get into the business of the provinces through that back door. This is the back door now.

Now utilities will be legislated by the federal government making a claim that, because carbon travels in the atmosphere across provincial jurisdictions.... Of course, I agree with that. That makes absolute, common sense. However, in this one that we're talking about, the original intent of this motion, I think, was to call a specific CEO for his public statements.

I'm all for it. Go and do it. In fact, you should call more of them, which is why the natural resources committee's motion adding the words, I believe, “to call other energy executives” was a smart idea. You should call as many of them as you wish to before this committee. Call all of them if you want to, one after another. That's totally up to you.

However, on this particular point—provincial jurisdiction—again, my amendment is very simple. I'm just trying to make the motion make sense grammatically, I hope. English is a third language, so I'm trying here. I'm trying to make it grammatically correct.

The Minister of Energy and Minerals is wrong. The minister doesn't own any companies. He's not the one responsible for the moratorium that has been called. There are good technical reasons for doing it. If you want, I actually have the technical report for it, which I could read into the record. That will all depend on how the rest of this debate goes before we proceed to a vote.

I will mention that the AUC, the Alberta Utilities Commission, said only 13 projects have been put on hold. That's the totality of projects that are affected by the temporary pause. It's not a stop; it's a pause. There is no disagreement between the OIC—the cabinet order that was issued—and the legislation. The OIC was issued so that the government can fulfill its legislative obligations, which the legislature passed and the legislation forces them to do.

The OIC was made under the Alberta Utilities Commission Act, and it is a direction. It's a directive now to the regulator to proceed with an inquiry so that, especially in these rural communities.... I have the statement from the Rural Municipalities of Alberta on exactly what their issues are with how the regulations are spelled out right now.

That's what I'm trying to address in my amendment. That's what I'm trying to fix here. It's so that we can proceed with something whereby they could come in and explain the environmental targets and their plans. You can't talk about environmental plans without talking about the targets. They go hand in hand together.

The last thing I was going to mention here, because even the AUC and the government recognize in the public statements they made.... I'm going to read this part. It reads:

While Alberta has already reduced electricity emissions by 53% from 2005 to 2021, our province does not have enough non-emitting base load electricity, like hydro or nuclear. Wind and solar are intermittent sources that do not provide consistent power to keep our grid reliable during our cold winter months.

It goes on to mention that Alberta has, based on regulations, a target “to have a net-zero grid by 2035”, and then they have legislative targets for carbon neutrality by 2050. Those have not changed. Those are all still there, which is why you should have them come in and talk about the targets and the plan, so that it's all consistent as an entire image and an entire profile that you get. We're far ahead.

Alberta has been very clear. It considers the federal attempts to get involved in our provincial jurisdictions unconstitutional. We should all be trying to defend our provinces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't have any more speakers on the amendment.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I was on the list for a while. Did I drop off, or did we switch lists because—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're on the list, but I didn't know it was on the amendment of Mr. Kmiec.

You're on the list for when we get back to talking about the motion. Do you want to speak to the amendment?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Perhaps I could just add that Mr. Kmiec is joining our committee partway through this illustrious discussion. He's correct that some of the grammar might not make sense. It's probably an artifact of previous amendments. Cleaning that up I think is a separate issue from the question of who we're inviting and why. It's that question that I really think we should be focused in on.

I'm agnostic when it comes to whether we include a long preamble, but I do think it would benefit our invited guests if they knew what topic they were being invited to discuss. Perhaps somewhere in conjunction with their names in the invitation there could be a short summary of the topic.

My preference, perhaps straying a little bit from the specific amendment that we're debating, is that we invite Suncor CEO Rich Kruger regarding his company's turn away from climate ambition to focus on profits; and invite Alberta's Minister of Energy and Minerals, Brian Jean, regarding his government's moratorium on renewable energy projects. I take Mr. Kmiec's....

Now I'm just making all the points I was going to make previously, Mr. Chair, but you're so generous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're not proposing an amendment right now—are you?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Maybe I'm leading up to one.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No, I'm not. I'm just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I was just thinking that procedurally we should deal with this, and then we can come back to it.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Fair enough—as long as I'm on the speaking list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes. You're on the speakers list now and later.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Wonderful.

[An hon. member]

Can we vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have Madame Pauzé, so we can't vote.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

To be clear, I'm going to vote against the amendment because it distorts the meaning of the motion. What we want to know is why these companies are backing down from their objectives, among other things. That's my position on the amendment.

I would also like us to take a break, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, we'll take a break, and then we'll go to Mr. Deltell.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Let's resume where we were.

Mr. Deltell, you were on the list.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To show our good faith, I'd like to thank the parliamentary secretary and congratulate him on his earlier remarks about Quebec being a hydro power leader. He's absolutely right, and we're very proud of that tradition. I would also like to remind everyone that that's exactly what I was saying earlier. I was just going over the history of hydro in Quebec, and the parliamentary secretary felt that I was straying from the subject, but, as it turns out, I was endorsing what he was about to say a few moments later.

So, not only are we taking inspiration from each other, but we're also working well together because we all recognize that climate change is a serious issue and that we need concrete, realistic, responsible solutions as soon as possible. We all have different ways to achieve these objectives, but we all want the same thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I've reached the end of the list of people who wanted to speak to the amendment. I think we're ready to vote. I assume members want a recorded vote.