Evidence of meeting #10 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Which cities in Canada would you say are leading and which ones are lagging in meeting our 2030 targets?
Spokesperson, Elbows Up for Climate
The city of Montreal is at the top.
Montreal is doing an excellent job.
Toronto was leading by virtue of a city-based climate strategy and the closing of the Lakeview coal-fired plant. Toronto's greenhouse gas emissions were more than 30% below 1990 levels as of 2024, I think. That was independently verified. It's an interesting example, because Toronto in that time period boomed economically—in fact, perhaps too much.
Vancouver has also showed historically very good leadership, particularly around buildings, as I mentioned before.
Spokesperson, Elbows Up for Climate
I also have to mention Halifax. It's superb.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I have a minute and a half left. If it's okay, I'll cede that time to my colleague from Halifax.
Liberal
Shannon Miedema Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you.
Thank you, witnesses.
Mr. Miller, I was just going to forgive you for not listing Halifax, so thank you for doing so.
Coming from a city and working really hard to use science to set a target, I don't think we can say these targets are random or illogical. They are absolutely what we need to do. Otherwise, we're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and we're not getting to the actual required goal.
Mr. Miller, could you speak to that and the importance of actually having ambitious targets, whether we are perfectly tracking or not, and how that's going to help us get where we need to go in terms of our 2050 target?
Spokesperson, Elbows Up for Climate
My work is for C40 Cities, a coalition of the mayors of the world's largest cities representing probably about 900 million people in their urban regions. Each of those cities has a scientifically based climate plan with targets that are based on their fair share of doing what science says is necessary. It's true that not all of them are on track. Most of them are ahead of their national governments, and they're reducing emissions on a per capita basis because they relied on science and set their targets based on science—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you.
For two and a half minutes, we have Monsieur Bonin.
Mr. Bonin, you have the floor.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, too, Mr. Miller. It's good to hear from someone who has vision and ambition.
I'd like to hear your opinion on the possible suspension of the federal government's contribution to the active transportation fund. Its contribution was $400 million over five years, and it ends in 2026. Do you think the fund is important for active transportation? Should the federal government maintain it?
Spokesperson, Elbows Up for Climate
Yes, it's important to support active transport. I think one could make an argument that perhaps even more significant investment is needed. Active transport matters because you change the nature of a city or a town if it becomes built in a way that does not require the operation of a vehicle. If we think about things like addressing Canada's aging population and many other issues beyond climate, building that sort of city or town for people to be able to live healthy, active lives produces other significant public policy benefits as well. Absolutely, the concept is good. On whether the money's adequate, I suspect much more would be welcome.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
In your remarks, you talked about building of two million energy-efficient non-market housing units to create affordable housing, as well as how important it is to renovate homes and buildings. Could you talk a bit more about that and whether the federal government should be doing more on that front?
Spokesperson, Elbows Up for Climate
Yes, I'm worried that in a push to rapidly address our affordable housing crisis, poor quality housing is going to be built. By the way, all of the mayors and councillors who are part of our coalition are worried about the same issue. Housing that requires little or no dirty energy to operate is actually housing that, over time, is inexpensive to use. When you think about building housing, they last for a very long time. We need to think about the long run, not just about the immediate cost.
It's an extremely important issue that federal housing programs, first of all, produce enough affordable housing, and secondly do it in a way that the buildings are sustainable and therefore operate at low cost and are affordable for the residents.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you, Mr. Miller.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony today.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
The clerk tells me we can go for another five minutes.
The time was up for Mr. Bonin. Next would be Mr. Bexte.
You have five minutes.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
We lost a witness along the way. I'm sure my Conservative colleague wants to ask a question.
Conservative
David Bexte Conservative Bow River, AB
I do, absolutely.
Ms. Savage, again, thank you for being here.
Alberta's been a leader in energy of all types and a leader in economic growth. The province has recognized the need to reduce emissions while still growing the economy. I feel it's important to note that there are no prosperous high-cost energy jurisdictions in the world, so the price of energy to the consumer is important.
However, much of Alberta's emissions are industrial, far more than other provinces. What opportunities does that create for Alberta?
Senior Counsel, BLG, As an Individual
The emissions profile from Alberta is different from most of the other provinces. If you look at the emissions profile, you see that over two-thirds of our emissions in Alberta—a little over 250 megatonnes—come from the industrial sector. It's the flip side of lots of other provinces where only one-third comes from the industrial sector. The rest comes from consumer uses and individual uses.
That creates both some challenges and some opportunities for Alberta. I've heard it in the committee quite regularly that Alberta's a laggard. Well, we're not. It's a very different emissions profile with the industrial emissions. It can be challenging to reduce those emissions, because a number of these industrial sectors are in hard-to-abate industries, whether it's oil and gas, heavy industry or petrochemical production. Those are trade-exposed industries. If you challenge them and make them uneconomic, the investment, the projects and the wealth will just shift to other jurisdictions.
However, I'm always trying to be positive. I believe it also creates opportunities, because reducing the emissions in these types of industries can attract investment in things like CCUS, hydrogen and clean, sustainable aviation fuel. Attracting that investment creates jobs. That's why I always look at climate policy. If it's done right, if it balances the economy and emissions reduction, if it's done at a pace and scale so that technology, capital investment, regulatory process and supply chains can support the emissions reduction, it becomes good industrial policy, attracting jobs and investment and improving the economy.
That's why I say our emissions profile in Alberta is both an opportunity and a challenge.
Alberta's doing a very good job of reducing emissions, and it has for a very long time. It was the very first jurisdiction in North America to put a price on carbon. That was in 2007. It was also the very first jurisdiction in North America to bring in methane emission reductions. We got completely off coal-fired electricity generation in 2024. All of those policies were facilitated through provincial action, not federal action, and through working collaboratively with the federal government.
Alberta is doing its part. Our emissions profile is highly in the industrial space. I just wanted to point out that it's a challenge and an opportunity.
Conservative
David Bexte Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you very much for that.
Do we have another witness back yet?