Evidence of meeting #18 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 pipeline.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Okay.
Let's get more right in front of us the things that are in place. My colleague was talking about the two billion trees. We have the EV mandate that's on pause. We have the removal of the consumer carbon tax. We have now, as per the document with Alberta—the MOU—the oil and gas cap that will be lifted.
Collectively, have we done any modelling as to what the goal is and what the track is and what all these changes do to where we're actually planning to be?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
There's a lot of work we need to do to make sure we are securing the megatonnes that are part of the emissions reduction plan.
I would take industrial carbon pricing as an example there. There's work to do to make sure that measure, which we've learned from the lessons of implementing it, works the way we want it to work. That is something Alberta has agreed to. That's something the budget committed to: a national approach to doing that and transparency around how the backstop is going to be implemented, so that's going to get to securing the megatonnes there.
The second part is that the government is required to, and will, table the emissions reduction plan progress report this month. We'll be doing that here. That will talk about both where the government is in terms of its targets and what it will take to achieve 2030. That will provide the information that I think a number of members around this table are looking for, which we'll be very happy to share and then come back and talk about.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Okay.
You mentioned the gap and you talked about strengthening the industrial carbon tax as a way to make that up. What other big ideas is the department working on? Unless everybody else is wrong and the minister tried to say she is right, we are not going to hit these targets, and we have had a weakening of a number of policies that were aimed at achieving them.
What big idea is the department working on to try to actually achieve those targets by 2030 or 2040?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
In looking at the climate competitiveness strategy, the big thing is working with the private sector and with the investments in clean technology and ensuring it is going to take a big lift to get there and to decarbonize, but the thing we need to focus on is how we reduce emissions on these things, and that's coming from the 300 methane companies that are supporting sectors in reducing—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Are there any specific policies you'd like to mention that are—
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Investment in clean technology, RD and D—those are all things that are actually going to get emissions down while supporting our resource sectors.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Switching tracks entirely, have there been any ECCC employees seconded to the MPO?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
We have been talking about that. I'm not sure what the status of the agreement is, but we are supporting them and doing the assessments and work that they need to do.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Okay.
In terms of the EV mandate, Ms. Nichols, you had spoken last time you were here about the ability to have much more choice with the EV mandate in place. We've had other testimony that has made it clear there are 110 EV models already available without the mandate currently in place.
Could you explain to me how a future ban on gas-powered vehicles will actually increase choice for consumers?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
Oh, time's up.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
I'll start by saying that the policy is currently under review, so we are making sure it remains fit for purpose, but I would also add that while there are more and more models available, they are not yet available in all segments that are of interest to consumers, so we still have a way to go in increasing the variety of models.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
Thank you, witnesses.
My riding straddles urban Ottawa and rural Ottawa, so I get to see and spend a lot of time driving distances in the country. We have a lot of farmers in the riding, and I think it's important we note that solutions that work in built-up areas of the country may need to work differently in rural parts of the country.
I'd like you to elaborate on how some of the new estimates can be applied in rural parts of the country to help our citizens there.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I think what's important is that how the rules are applied and how things.... We heard, in terms of market availability, some of the expectations in terms of electric vehicles. One would expect that those first are going to be applied in urban centres and that there will be time and build-out. There are a number of programs, including the program for electric vehicle charging stations and some of those pieces; more retail measures available from Natural Resources Canada that would support a gradual build-out over time; and the greener homes initiative, which had significant uptake with regard to heat pumps. A number of those mechanisms, as well, also supported the rollout in urban and rural areas as people wanted to make choices.
It is about choice. People need to be able to see the opportunities that are related to the transition and to build that out over time. I think that is sort of one of the big learnings of our time in being engaged in climate and energy policy. lt's that you need to incent change and need to see a practical pathway to change. There, absolutely, is a real cost that we are facing—$3 billion per year and $9 billion to the insurance agency—from weather disasters and extreme risk. We need to find that pathway to be able to ensure that people see an opportunity to be incented to make change and to also do it in a way that works for their pocketbook—for affordability—and a path forward. Spending a lot of time in a rural community myself.... You need to take that time to build up a sustainable path forward.
Liberal
Bruce Fanjoy Liberal Carleton, ON
Yes.
One thing I've found in the rural parts of my riding is that people are very practical. They have learned to be practical. They have to be practical. If we show them a practical solution that saves money, reduces heating costs, reduces transportation costs and improves yields on the farm, then they will become converts very quickly.
One of the things that also disproportionately affect rural Canada is the impacts of climate change. In eastern Ontario—including in my riding—and also in other parts of the country, we had drought conditions. That affected crops. We've had extreme weather. Wildfires tend to affect rural parts of the country more severely.
Can you update us on some of the steps that are being taken to help build resilience in the face of some of these risks?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I was really interested to learn, when I took this job on recently, that probably the place we get the most traffic is at the Canadian Centre for Climate Services. It's a site that has a ton of data and that folks visit—I think it was something like over half a million users—to really find out about how to adapt to climate change. That's not to say that we don't want to continue to find ways to take action to reduce emissions, but it's really focused on what you can do and how you can manage yourself, your farm and your business to ensure that you have healthy land, air and water as you are moving forward. That is one really big piece of business that we at ECCC are doing to support people and communities as they are looking to respond to the changing climate that we are in.
The other piece we have is the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund that we launched in the city of Richmond, B.C. Then we also have a number of local leadership for climate adaptation initiatives. I think it speaks to the fact that we are a federal government but the solutions for these things are really quite local and for people. It's about really trying to thread that needle of having information available to support people in making the decisions that they need to make and empowering them. It goes even to the high-performance computing power that we were talking about earlier. We need to ensure that people have the information that they need to make the decisions to support themselves. There are costs on both sides of the equation. How do we get ahead of those and help people do what they want to do?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you very much.
I would like to thank the witnesses from the different departments for being here. Thank you very much. You are free to go.
We will proceed to the votes on the supplementary estimates. There are only three. Pursuant to Standing Order 81(5), these votes were referred to the committee on Friday, November 7, 2025.
Shall vote 1b under the Department of the Environment be carried? All those in favour....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Do you want to pass all three of them on division?
Is it the same for you, Mr. Bonin?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
I didn't understand, Mr. Bonin. I asked you a question. Answer my question. We're voting on the supplementary estimates.
