Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here, and welcome to your House of Commons committee. Good morning, colleagues.
Like all Canadians, we recognize that climate change is real and that it has a real impact on the lives of the men and women who live here in this country and around the world. Because humans are partly responsible for this situation, humans bear much of the responsibility for fixing it. There are several ways to measure our impact and, more importantly, to achieve our emission and pollution reduction targets.
In that regard, Report 5, “Emission Reductions Through Greenhouse Gas Regulations—Environment and Climate Change Canada”, is quite intriguing, to say the least. I'd like to read what I think is the most striking part of it:
Overall, we found that Environment and Climate Change Canada did not know the extent to which the greenhouse gas regulations we examined contributed to Canada’s overall emission reductions. This was because the department’s approach to measuring emissions did not attribute emission results to specific regulations. As well, we found that the department was too slow to develop the Clean Fuel Regulations, jeopardizing the pace of Canada’s emission reductions.
Reading that makes me wonder why the current government has spent years doing things if it doesn't even know the outcomes. Spouting lofty principles is one thing, but when there are no results to back them up, that's another. Plus, when they can't even figure out what the results mean, it's a waste of time. This is not a new issue. We've all known about climate change for 25 or 30 years now, and we're aware of the need to take action.
Can you help me understand why, after all these years, Environment Canada can't even perform a rigorous scientific analysis of the effects of our policies and the impact of pollution reduction, which is what all Canadians want?