Environment Committee on June 9th, 2026

[Dr. Simon Donner]

With respect to the 2030 and 2035 targets, no, Canada is not on pace to meet the targets. At this point, no analyses, even the analyses done by the federal government's own modellers, would find that.

I can't give you specific numbers because there is yet to be any really detailed modelling of the impact of the Canada-Alberta deal and the change in the industrial pricing system across the country as a result, but I can point to some previous numbers that might be helpful. Even modelling that the NZAB did, again, with the Canadian Climate Institute, found that we were looking at about a 19% reduction by the year 2030 with the existing policies in place. Some of those existing policies have since been weakened.

The methane target for 2030 has been lessened a little bit. We've seen changes in electric vehicle rules, etc. It would be unlikely that we would even get to a 19% reduction below 2005 levels, which are less than halfway to the 40% reduction target. That modelling is very similar to the result in the government's own 2025 progress report that was released in December for the emissions reduction plan.

I want to point out something else. The other people who do modelling on this are from the Canadian Energy Regulator. If you look in the Canada futures report that they put out, their own modelling shows that we're nowhere close to the 2030 target, even with policies that were in their modelling, policies that have since been cancelled. They also model all the way out to 2050, and they find that, even with the implementation of things that have been cancelled, we'd only get to, at most, a 35% reduction by 2050.

That is why I've been quite outspoken and was quite clear, whenever I had the chance, with the government. You can't be saying that these deals are still compatible with net zero by 2050. They're not. The deal is not compatible with it, and I think it's paramount for the government to be honest with Canadians about this. If you're going to pass deals like this, be honest about the implications.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Ms. Abreu, the former minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, said that the current government was going further than Stephen Harper in addressing climate change, but in the wrong direction, of course.

Do you share his view?

[Catherine Abreu]

I'm not going to compare this government to former governments. I will say, however, that we are seeing an evisceration of environmental protections across the board. It's not just what I observe as the contravention of the legal obligations under the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. It's also the discussion paper that was recently issued on getting major projects built. It proposes some really significant undermining of some of Canada's longest-standing environmental laws and protections.

This question of the extent to which we're willing to lose this infrastructure is not one that's being put to Canadians. I agree with Dr. Donner that it is critical to transparently communicate to Canadians that this is the decision we're making, this is why and these are the protections that you're going to lose as a result.

We're not having that kind of open conversation. Instead, things are being obfuscated with misleading language, including claims that we will continue to meet our net-zero goal, when that has clearly been put out of reach with recent decisions and with misleading language like “decarbonized oil and gas”, which is something that I hear this government say regularly and is actually just a complete contradiction in terms.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'd like to come back to the former minister of the environment. He also said that, by the end of the year, Canada's record on climate action could be worse than that of the United States under Donald Trump.

Do you see the situation in a similar way?

[Catherine Abreu]

I mentioned earlier that Canada is the only G7 country where emissions have actually gone up since 1990. The United States is also a G7 country. We have seen emissions in the United States drop by over 20% between 2005 and 2026, and emissions are actually, believe it or not, projected to continue declining in the United States, even under Trump and the rollbacks to environmental and climate policy. That's because they have locked into their economy a certain amount of transition. With the Inflation Reduction Act and the investments that were made in renewable and clean energy through it, the transition to clean energy continues apace in the United States. The increased investment in renewables versus fossil fuels also continues apace in the United States.

Yes, it is true that despite all the rhetoric we are hearing and despite the very damaging decisions that have been made by the U.S. government around environment and climate, they will continue to perform better than Canada over the next number of years.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

In your view, does what we've seen over the past year represent the worst setbacks in Canada's history when it comes to addressing climate change?

[Catherine Abreu]

There are, of course, other countries that have different kinds of resources acting on the crisis, and they have different track records. Certainly, among Canada's peers in the G7, yes, our performance is the worst.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Bonin.

We'll now turn to Mr. Johns for five minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimonies, Ms. Abreu and Dr. Donner, and for your courage in standing up for climate action.

Canada won the Fossil of the Day Award in 2025 at COP30. Do you think Canada will win again this year?

[Catherine Abreu]

My first COP was in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was struck. I never witnessed Canada getting the Fossil of the Day Award because they didn't get one in that entire decade between 2015 and 2025. It was not because Canada was perfect, but because they were showing up in the international space openly, honestly and with a constructive attitude. Because this was not the case in Brazil, Canada won the Fossil of the Day Award.

Again, we will see how Canada's performance is spelled out at COP31 in Turkey, but I expect, given its rollbacks in climate policy and ongoing commitment to continue building fossil fuel projects, that it will indeed be on the slate for the Fossil of the Day Award at COP31.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

You talked about our international partners leading with a low-carbon agenda. We see that the European Union has its carbon border adjustment mechanism. We were told that if we removed carbon pricing, we would pay the price there. We've heard the Liberals talk about this prosperity agenda, and the Prime Minister comes in and calls this a prosperity agenda.

Given the wildfires we've seen in the last five years—kids being told they can't go outside—and the damage to the environment, can you speak to what that prosperity agenda looks like and its impact on our economy due to our walking back on climate action?

[Catherine Abreu]

We are seeing billions and billions of dollars in damages from climate impacts across Canada every year, and those numbers and impacts are always mounting. My Canadian family is from Nova Scotia. I recall 2024 when that province entered a state of emergency three separate times—first for fire, then for floods and then for extreme weather. This is the case across the country. Canadians are feeling the impacts of climate change.

We are being forced into this false dichotomy between the environment and the economy, as if we can trade one off against the other when in fact the two go hand in hand. What economy do we have in an environment that is not able to function and provide the ecosystem services we rely on? I think it's an absolutely rhetorical position that Canadians are being put in. These are the kinds of divisive politics I was referring to in my opening statement.

Let me talk about prosperity for a second.

In 2022, for the very first time, Canada decoupled greenhouse gas emissions from our GDP. This has been a hallmark of success for the United Kingdom and the EU. Separating GHGs from GDP has been a huge part of their growth, prosperity and green economy in the last number of years. In 2024, we could already see that this was stagnating—that the separation between GHGs and GDP in Canada was stopping. I expect, with the decisions we've recently seen, that this trend will only continue.

We're seeing that our most prosperous counterparts in other parts of the world have figured out how to make money while reducing emissions. If Canada can't do that, we're going to keep being stuck and left behind.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thanks.

Ms. Abreu, you stated that the net-zero advisory body wasn't informed of policy decisions under way, and that you weren't asked to provide advice on those decisions.

Can you identify the most significant decisions that the advisory body was excluded from?

[Catherine Abreu]

Under the net-zero accountability act, it is mandated that the net-zero advisory body be consulted when a climate plan is being developed. The so-called climate competitiveness strategy—noticeably missing the word “plan”—was developed, again, without consulting Canada's net-zero advisory body. Because it's not called a “plan”, they weren't legally mandated to consult on those decisions.

Obviously, all the decisions taken have unwound many of the policies we advised on in previous years. They contravene the advice we prepared, pre-emptively, as a new government was coming into place. We said, “Hey, we get it. You might want to make some changes. Here are some suggested new pathways you might consider.” Again, we were not consulted on the climate competitiveness strategy, despite its looking much like a plan but isn't. Our advice on how to make changes without doing away with so much of the progress made was not taken into account.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

You're all done your five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We'll now turn to Mr. Fanjoy for five minutes.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you, witnesses.

I'd like to talk about building retrofits. I know there are a lot of things that go into addressing the climate challenge. This is one.

Can you talk to me about what policies have been most successful, which you've seen in other jurisdictions or even the previous program here in Canada, in encouraging building retrofits?

I'll start with you, Ms. Abreu.

[Catherine Abreu]

Over the course of my career, I have witnessed several examples of a program rolling out and then being cancelled abruptly with celebrations of its success. Some of the programs that were being offered at the federal level to support building retrofits faced, unfortunately, a similar story. They were cancelled very abruptly, with press releases that mentioned the great success they had when they were in place. It's always a sad tale when those are rolled back.

I will say that the previous federal supports we had for building retrofits were making a difference. In particular, they were making a difference for renters and for lower-income communities where it can be a lot more difficult for folks to access these kinds of programs.

I'll offer an example from my experience working in Nova Scotia. We actually developed a stand-alone energy efficiency utility. This is one approach I've seen that works very well for incentivizing these kinds of home- and business-based retrofits. It can create a huge workforce and can train up that workforce. A lot of the conversation we need to have is not just about making money in Canada but also about creating jobs.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Dr. Donner, can you weigh in on building retrofits?

[Dr. Simon Donner]

I'm happy to.

What I can comment on is some of the work that the net-zero advisory body had done. Among the key things we tried to advise the government on last year.... Again, this is a report that I sent to the Prime Minister's Office and the energy minister's office, and I got no feedback on it. They didn't request it, but I offered a briefing on behalf of the net-zero advisory body.

Among the modelling we did—we did this work with the Canadian Climate Institute—we looked at the industrial pricing system and how you could tighten it to make it work better, which this deal that's been arranged has failed to do. We also tested other policies that would make a lot of sense, like building programs.

For example, here in British Columbia, the zero-carbon step code is probably the state of the art for building codes. In the modelling, we tested what would happen if you adopted that across the country, and we gave some advice around that. We also tested the idea of having consumer incentives for heat pumps, particularly for low-income households. Those are in the models, and they basically came at little economic cost to the government but, by 2035, with a pretty good bang for your buck in terms of emissions reductions.

Again, this is advice that was there. There was no conversation about it, and there was no response from the government.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

In your opinion, would a program such as this help to engage the broader Canadian public in the importance of taking the measures that are available to us to address climate change?

[Dr. Simon Donner]

The way I think about it is that if you look in the polls, there are a lot of people in Canada who want to take action, who themselves want to do something to reduce emissions and to respond to climate change, but it's costly for them unless governments set the incentives right. Better building codes, the zero-carbon step code and certainly a program, particularly for low-income households, to help get heat pumps installed.... They are net financial winners in the long term and give you cooling in places like British Columbia, in Vancouver, where very few people have air conditioning, myself included. These are really sensible policies that the government could be working on right now.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I'd like to move the following motion:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development holds no less than six meetings to conduct a study on the opportunity for home energy and adaptation retrofits to improve energy efficiency, affordability, and resilience of Canadian homes, and the role of public policy in creating the conditions to realize these benefits, including:

a. the opportunity of home energy retrofits and adaptation measures in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy affordability for Canadians, and fostering local economic and job growth;

b. accessibility of home energy and adaptation retrofits for low-income Canadians who are disproportionately impacted by high energy costs and climate change;

c. accessibility of home energy and adaptation retrofits for renters and landlords;

d. accessibility of home energy and adaptation retrofits in all types of communities and regions in Canada, including rural, urban, northern, and Indigenous communities; and,

e. the barriers that impede Canadians from undertaking home energy and adaptation retrofits, including financing, program accessibility, supply-chain limitations, workforce availability, and regional variations in housing stock.

That the committee present a report to the House on its findings and recommendations; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Fanjoy.

I believe this motion was on notice. Hopefully, we can proceed quickly so that we can continue with our witnesses.

Mr. Leslie.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Parliament is ending for the session. I can't believe how gutless this is. Clearly, you don't like the testimony that is happening in this place. You asked a question about the program and it turned out that one of the witnesses went to the minister and was rejected, was rebuffed; they wouldn't even talk about it. It turns out that this entire program has always been delivered by Natural Resources Canada. It's not even under ECCC.

This is something that, sure, maybe we want to talk about this in the fall, but for you to sit here and read out the entirety of the motion just to kill time is so shameless.