Environment Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Your time has been stopped, so don't worry about that.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

I would also like to note for the committee that it was my esteemed colleague from Newfoundland who brought up security earlier in this session. The issue is security, and I'm making the point that addressing climate change is a matter of national security. Perhaps it's the greatest matter of national security, as we see impacts all across the nation, including in her riding and in many of our ridings.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You're conflating the issue.

We were talking about the EV mandate in relation to what the minister is here for. This is a security issue for EV mandates around the world. Now you're talking about petitions and you're talking about our leader and everything else. Now you're trying to twist it into the security of the national climate crisis.

We're supposed to be here on behalf of our membership and our ridings. These are important questions—I agree with you on that point—but this is not for our political interests, our parties or our leaders; it's for the people of Canada in terms of where our country is going. Conflating the issue is not helping.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. Ross, do you want me to respond to you, or do you want—

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, through the chair, of course, because I'm not clear on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Who would you like a response from, me or the member?

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The member.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Before I let the member speak, I just want to note that we've already put five minutes on this. If we're talking about time with the minister, I want to bring you all back to the reality that she'll be leaving some time shortly. I understand that this is an important issue. I don't want to steer it in any direction, but I want to bring us to reality with respect to time.

Mr. Fanjoy, the floor is yours to respond to Mr. Ross's point of order.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Unless I'm mistaken, my time is my time to use as I see fit.

I understand that this is an issue that makes my Conservative colleagues uncomfortable. They should be uncomfortable about it. The petition, which was launched less than a week ago and which was initiated by an individual in the riding of Carleton who had a career in national security investigations, already has over 34,000 signatures. This is a matter that is of great interest to people not just in Carleton, but all across the country. We have people signing from across the country.

Minister, I congratulate you for calling out that hypocrisy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. Fanjoy, I'll bring you back to your time.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, thank you very much for joining us today.

Since administrative and equivalency agreements will no longer be automatically renewed after five years, how will the government make sure that environmental protection standards do not weaken and that they continue to reflect the best available science?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I want to clarify that one of the challenges we have right now is that we have a five-year hard stop and then we have to start renegotiating. You don't start renegotiating at five years; you start renegotiating before that. It means that there's this constant cycle of negotiating.

The most important piece—if I was going to talk about how equivalency works and why it's important—is to get the same outcome. The whole point is to get to the same outcome. In fact, that's strengthened in the wording of this BIA. What happens now is that there is a longer timeline that can be applied to that. In some industries, especially, it might make more sense to have that longer timeline.

When we talk about climate competitiveness, this is at the centre of what we're talking about. We are working co-operatively with the provinces and territories to make sure we can build the economy of the future. As you said, climate is a national issue for so many reasons. I've said this before. We might be there because we care deeply about the future we're going to give to our children, as we should, but it is also an economic imperative.

That's what's so frustrating, when I see a bill like this being obstructed, because there are opportunities in this bill for clean technology investment tax credits in electricity that would help us build more interties and help build out the backbone of the clean economy future for our country. There are also other investment tax credits in here for manufacturers that will expand and create more of those opportunities. Because of the obstruction we've been facing, we can't move these forward. We really need to move past the obstruction that we've seen and actually be able to put forward these really important climate-focused tax credits that are also economically important to our country.

I believe we have everything it takes to have the strongest economy and a low-carbon economy future, but if the Conservatives keep holding us back from being able to move in that direction, they're not just holding back our future on reducing emissions, but they're holding back our economic capability. That's going to impact workers in all of our communities.

If we all want that bright future, and I think we do, with good-paying jobs, by reducing emissions so that we have cleaner air in our communities and by reducing the impact of natural disasters.... We hope to have a future where our homes are heated in a way that is cheaper, because we're using electricity, heat pumps and solar panels, etc. That future of being able to get around in electric vehicles that are cheaper to maintain and are cheaper in day-to-day use, all of that, is a brighter future for our country. We just need to move past the Conservative obstruction and get to the point where we can have it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

I would like to thank the minister for her presence.

We will suspend for the next panel.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. Bexte, you start first with a big six minutes. You've lost a minute already, but it's okay.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you for round two, witnesses. I appreciate your time today. We'll endeavour to be a little more calm.

Provinces like Alberta have demonstrated that the industrial carbon pricing system, such as the TIER program, with a 100,000-tonne threshold and free credit markets, can reduce emissions while maintaining competitiveness and flexibility for smaller facilities.

Why does your department's discussion paper propose constraining these proven provincial systems, increasing compliance costs and eliminating free credit markets? The notion of going down to a 10,000-tonne threshold especially is going to capture a lot of facilities.

[Megan Nichols, Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment]

Thanks very much for the question.

Certainly, the discussion paper was put out in December and recently the comment input period closed. We're just in the process of reviewing all that input. At the same time, we've been talking to provinces, territories and stakeholders to get their views.

The very intent of the discussion paper is to solicit input on the parameters for an updated carbon pricing benchmark. Carbon pricing is a pillar of our approach to climate change, but there's a recognition that it could be working more effectively in terms of making sure that it's actually incentivizing the investments in decarbonization that are intended.

We are seeking input on what the appropriate threshold is. The one thing that is different is that when the fuel charge was in place, all facilities were subject to some kind of carbon price, whether it was the fuel charge or industrial pricing. It's really about making sure that industrial pricing continues to cover a broad range of emissions.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

The question at hand, then, is what the prescriptive range is.

I have some trouble with the notion of equivalency agreements. It's about clarity and making sure that we're maximizing economic opportunity to generate wealth for the nation and trying to meet an objective. If the objective is made clear for a province or jurisdiction to pursue, then stay out of it, as long as they're meeting their objectives. I have some concern, then, that there's a push to go to smaller facilities.

I'm wondering if you can best estimate how many facilities would be impacted in Alberta and Saskatchewan by going from 100,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes.

[Megan Nichols]

I don't have those numbers in front of me, but we can provide that. We've kind of looked at what it would mean for 10 kilotons, 25 kilotons and 50 kilotons, just so we have that full picture.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Do you have granular data, like company names and locations of plants?

[Megan Nichols]

I'm not sure we have that level of data, but we do have an idea of numbers, so we can certainly provide that.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I would really like the granular data, so that we can understand what geographic impact it will have and what sector impact it will have.

I have some more questions about the mechanics of this. In the absence of an automatic expiry, what will the process be for addressing changes to the agreement by one or both parties? Is it just a notice period? At the five-year expiry, you had to renegotiate and you could take into account changes in circumstance, which would be incorporated. How is that going to happen now?

[Stephanie Lane, Executive Director, Legislative Governance, Department of the Environment]

The statutory changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act will simply remove the five-year mandatory time frame. There were already protections in the act that set out a series of steps that the government had to take in advance of finalizing an equivalency agreement and making an equivalency order, which stands down the provisions of a CEPA regulation. Those agreements are negotiated with provinces and territories. In some cases, that five-year or six-year time frame, or any sort of time frame, might be appropriate, and that would be included in the agreement.

The agreements also include provisions that speak to a mandatory review period and things like that. Those provisions about how the parties will come to an agreement—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

In the regulations, then, there are review periods and opportunities to institute changes.

[Stephanie Lane]

They are in the agreements themselves, yes.