Environment Committee on March 24th, 2022

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

That's good to know. So, those funds will be going into the protections.

[Andrew Campbell]

They go directly into those.

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

Thank you very much.

I was also wondering about the funding to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the transportation and methane waste sectors. I'm not sure where that question should be directed, but I think there's an additional $9 million in funding requested for that area.

Could you share with me how the committee is going to be ensuring credible reduction in greenhouses gases as a result of that investment?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We're doing a lot of work on trying to shift Canada's economy from a linear economy to a circular economy. That certainly includes waste management. We're putting a big emphasis on plastics, for obvious reasons. We're looking at the whole waste equation. It's work we're doing with the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.

Landfill methane emission is one of the few low-hanging fruits we still have in terms of emission reduction. Technologies are very mature. We know how to do that. It's being done in many parts of the country. It's relatively easy to count the emission reduction. Nothing is easy in this file, but this is an easier category of the non-easy things we have to do.

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

Do you expect to see very positive results in that area?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes, absolutely, and I expect lots of collaboration with provinces, territories and municipalities.

Everyone agrees that these emissions shouldn't be going up into the atmosphere. They can be captured and transformed into biogas, and you can burn it to produce electricity. There are a number of things we can do, rather than let it go up and contribute to global warming.

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

Great, thank you.

The third question I have is about the national parks funding for urban parks. I'm very pleased to see that there's going to be funding for additional urban parks across Canada. I think they're incredibly important, especially with extreme climate events. We've seen that it makes a huge difference, having green space in urban areas.

Is there an allocation of funds to help municipalities or regions create urban parks? Can they be created from existing protected spaces that aren't urban parks?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Andrew, would you provide some detail on that?

[Andrew Campbell]

Yes, certainly. I'm happy to do that.

There are funds that are going towards national urban parks that help. Because of the three things that urban parks are trying to do—one of those is reconciliation with indigenous populations in the urban centres—there are funds available both for the municipalities and for indigenous groups as we move forward. We are in the process with the minister of signing agreements with mayors and indigenous groups all across the country at this point, and we have those in place.

The last part of that was on....

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

It was about existing protected green space.

[Andrew Campbell]

I'll use Colwood as an example. Colwood will probably be brought together from a lot of existing different protected areas, including some that are already in the federal family.

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

Okay, and what about agricultural land?

[Andrew Campbell]

We are looking at that as we move forward.

As MP Carrie probably well knows, in places like the Rouge there is an agricultural component, and we certainly see that as part of how we would move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to give myself a question or two, and I don't need long answers.

I've had some mail from constituents who are concerned about the Trans Canada Trail and whether funding for that will be extended. Do you have any insight on that?

Also, I know you're looking closely at the land around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport and doing what you can to preserve as much of that as possible. I encourage you to keep us in mind in the West Island around that issue.

I don't know if you know whether there's been a request to extend funding for the Trans Canada Trail. It's a very technical question, and I don't mean to put you on the spot.

I don't know who would like to answer that.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Andrew can answer on the Trans Canada Trail for sure.

[Andrew Campbell]

The Trans Canada Trail funding was funding that came in a previous budget and is sunsetting. I think we will all be waiting to see as we move forward in the federal budget.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, please, Minister.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We are having ongoing conversations with the Minister of Transportation, Aéroports de Montréal, as well as the City of Montreal to try to find a project that we can all agree on regarding the land—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Wonderful, thank you very much for your attention to that.

Yes, Mr. Dreeshen, go ahead.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I know that we had Mr. Carrie on for the last question.

I'm wondering whether—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't have his name here. I'm sorry about that. I would have tried to accommodate it.

Minister, thank you for your appearance. Thank you for a lively and informative discussion. I think we all come away from this with some new information and insight, and we look forward to seeing you again.

Members, we're going to take a very brief break to bring in some new witnesses. Then we'll get going for our second hour.

Thank you again, Minister.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to members of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I call the meeting back to order.

We'll start with a six-minute round for Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to say thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I see a few familiar faces.

I was a little disappointed, Mr. Chair. I didn't have a chance to ask my questions of the minister, but I'm sure the officials will be able to give me some good answers.

Like my colleague, I wanted to talk about a few things that are important to my local riding. One is the canal system, and the other is the automotive sector, coming from Oshawa. I was a little disappointed to hear the minister. I guess he can get around in his government-provided car, but most people in my community need a car. They commute back and forth to work. When the government moves towards an electric mandate, what's really important is the infrastructure. We heard from the minister that there is something going on there.

As many of you know, we manufacture cars in Oshawa. The automotive industry is asking what the plan is to eliminate unnecessary regulatory and trade barriers between Canada and some of our competitors, particularly the United States. When they make investments in Canada, they're looking 10 years down the road, and they want to make sure there's no uncertainty there.

Could you please answer what the plan is to eliminate these unnecessary regulatory and trade barriers, particularly between Canada and the United States, and could you frame it around a competitiveness lens? We were working toward a convergence of regulations, and now we're seeing many regulations differ between Canada and the United States. That will affect our competitiveness and our ability to attract that new investment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Should I assume that Ms. Hogan will be answering that?