Environment Committee on March 24th, 2026

[Tim Weis]

The only comment is that these are the arguments I've heard all before when I was working in the Alberta government. Industry claimed they were going to up and leave, and the opposite has really happened. When you start to see this type of framework put in place.... We've actually seen a bunch of clean technology. We've seen carbon capture and storage, we've seen coal phased out to...gas. Lots of these scare tactics just have not played out when you have a well-designed policy.

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

Thanks for that.

Yes, scare tactics are often one of the strategies used.

Pembina put together a report called “The magic of $130 by 2030”. Can you provide a copy of this report to the committee and any other reports you have on industrial carbon pricing?

[Tim Weis]

Yes. I don't have it with me, but I'm happy to submit it.

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

Thank you.

I'm curious as well about this. Because you've been in this sector for quite some time, can you speak about some of the industry players—some specific names and associations—that have been actually supportive of industrial carbon pricing? Do you have a list off the top of your head?

[Tim Weis]

The industrial carbon price goes back to 2007 in Alberta. It was actually a Conservative government that put it in place at the time, and it has stayed in place since then. It was designed with industry at the table. The choice—industry's choice—was a market mechanism so the government isn't picking the winners and losers, as I said earlier.

Some of the obvious examples of industries that have been supportive of it would be when the climate leadership plan was developed in Alberta in 2015. You had the CEOs of the five major oil sands companies on stage with the heads of five major environmental organizations, all saying this is a policy that can work.

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

Big oil companies were supportive of industrial carbon pricing.

[Tim Weis]

They have been in the past, yes.

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

You mentioned earlier that you've been in the sector for quite some time, and you've heard it all. Can you speak a little bit about the misinformation and the disinformation you hear on industrial carbon pricing?

[Tim Weis]

I think probably the biggest misunderstanding is the way the OBPS itself works. It's very different from the consumer-facing carbon tax, which gives a flat tax across all emissions. Then, of course, the rebate followed.

The key difference in the industrial carbon price is that there is a free allocation of a significant amount of emissions, so we're only pricing the marginal emission. You're basically trying to get a competitor to be as good as their next competitor, so the price isn't on all emissions, but it's only on that marginal price.

When we hear that it's just going to continue to pass on costs, it's basically industry admitting that they can't get emissions down, so it's a bit of a challenge. You hear talk out of both sides of mouths that, yes, we're going to reduce emissions, but at the same time we can't.

The way that policy is designed is to encourage those incremental year-by-year emissions to ultimately be able to keep Canada competitive. This is not to reduce the oil and gas sector, but it's to protect it from things like carbon border adjustments that we're seeing in Europe or other jurisdictions. We want to make sure that Canada is going to be competitive into the future.

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

Can you unpack that a little bit more? You're talking about Canada being more competitive. You're talking about the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM. Can you speak about why the industrial carbon price mechanism is actually smart economic policy?. Can you touch on job creation and how this builds wealth for Canada?

[Tim Weis]

Yes, there are a couple of different areas there. Obviously, it helps to drive new industries. We've seen that by way of example in Alberta, where carbon capture and storage is a technology that fundamentally wouldn't exist without a carbon price. You wouldn't do it without a carbon price. That technology has been largely developed in Canada with some of the first CCS projects in the entire world. We're seeing a carbon-removal industry starting up in Alberta as a result. That's also something that you wouldn't see without a carbon price.

There are new innovative technologies, and then obviously renewable energy and energy efficiency, and all those types of things also get driven by pricing emissions.

On the other hand, as you mentioned, we are seeing Europe looking at the carbon border adjustment, which means that if we don't have emissions down on our products, they're going to be taxed as they go into other jurisdictions, so we want to make sure that we're keeping those markets open for our oil and gas.

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

Can you speak about the importance of the federal backstop?

[Tim Weis]

Having a federal system is important so that we don't end up in situations like in Alberta right now, where the supply and demand of credits gets out of whack, shall we say. We can balance it and make sure we that can be making these investments in the long run with some investor confidence. You want to have that stability. Two levels of government give an investor the ability to go to the bank if you want to do something like invest in a carbon capture and storage facility.

The other thing that, ideally, we would like to see in the future—we don't have it right now—is starting to harmonize our systems across the country to create a larger market so that we can have more innovation and more companies trading with each other across the country, almost as a nation-building exercise on clean-tech technology.

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

Thank you.

I have one last quick question for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. What percentage of your funding sources comes from Canadian taxpayers?

[Franco Terrazzano]

We don't receive any funding from outside of Canada.

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

My question was about Canadian taxpayers, so citizens contributing to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Can you provide funding sources for your organization?

[Franco Terrazzano]

Sure. I can give you some numbers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

You have about 20 seconds.

[Franco Terrazzano]

As I mentioned, we don't receive any money from outside of Canada, so all of it is from Canadians. Last year, we received 76,000 donations. The average donation was $81.40 and 99% of our donations were under $1,000.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. St‑Pierre.

Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Congratulations on your appointment.

I hope we will be able to expedite the committee's work on the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. I think you will make a great contribution to our work.

Mr. Weis, I have limited time. I'm going to ask a number of questions, but I would ask you to give short answers, if possible.

If the government reduces the carbon price during the review of the industrial carbon tax, could that jeopardize the attainment of greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement?

[Tim Weis]

Can you repeat the question?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay.

If the government reduces the carbon price during the review of the industrial carbon tax, could that jeopardize the attainment of greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement?

[Tim Weis]

If I understand the question, it's very clear that industrial carbon pricing can have the effect of reducing emissions to help Canada meet its targets. The current trajectory we're on won't get us there, and we're going to have to improve that system if we're going to be able to attain our goals.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You recommend that no public money be invested in a new pipeline or in expanding the capacity of a pipeline at this time.

Is that correct?