Thank you, Shannon.
Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting us to be here with you today.
I'll share my story about why I resigned from the net-zero advisory body.
I resigned when it was clear to me that this government would let divisive politics and the interests of a wealthy few, who represent a fraction of the economy, wash away any progress we had made on climate in the last decade in Canada and, with it, any hope that we might end the decades of broken promises on climate in this country.
I started working on climate in 2010, fresh out of university. I've dedicated my entire career to the study of climate change, to proposing and advocating for policies that live at the intersection of climate and address people's lived realities, and to building political and social consensus to take action on this crisis.
I learned very early on that Canada had never delivered on a climate commitment it had made, despite the fact that by the time I started working, Canada had been making climate promises for decades. Canada now remains the only G7 country where greenhouse gas emissions have gone up since 1990.
Six years into my career, when I took the helm at Climate Action Network Canada, I started the movement to stop the legacy of missed targets and to get Canada to pass a comprehensive climate law. It took us five years to help build what then became the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, and in 2020, I was really honoured to accept the invitation from the then minister of environment and climate change to join the advisory body that act created.
I'm sharing this story to impress upon you my personal and professional conviction that the act and the climate governance regime it builds are essential pillars of any effort in Canada to protect current and future generations and to be a responsible global citizen. It was very difficult for me to realize that the act is not being respected and that I therefore had to step down from the advisory body that is mandated to advise the government on its legal obligations.
There are 61 other countries that have similar climate framework laws in place, and there are 28 countries that belong to the International Climate Councils Network. It's clear from the examples of these countries that climate governance regimes informed by science and independent expert advice are a growing global norm in a world that's rocked by floods, fires and fatal extreme weather events.
The shredding of environmental policy that this government has undertaken means that Canada is now on track to violate its own law and fail to attain net-zero emissions by 2050.
The shredding of those environmental policies, of course, began with capitulation to what I believe is irresponsible and inaccurate rhetorical politics around the consumer carbon price, which was scrapped as soon as this government took office.
Then the climate competitiveness strategy repealed or weakened virtually every climate policy and regulation Canada had developed in the last decade. Our clean electricity regulations for 2035 have been set aside in favour of a national electricity strategy that's delayed to 2050 and opens the door to new gas-powered electricity plants, which makes a mockery of the abundant clean energy resources that should be a very celebrated economic advantage in this country.
The oil and gas emissions cap has disappeared, making room for the government to use Canadian taxpayer dollars to build new major oil and gas projects and grow what's already the largest and least-controlled source of pollution in the country. As well, of course, zero-emissions vehicle mandates have been significantly delayed and weakened, contributing to a dramatic drop-off in EV sales in Canada right at the moment when soaring gas prices are hurting Canadians who are struggling to fuel their gas guzzlers.
Speaking of those soaring fossil fuel prices, rather than discussing a tax to harvest some of the $100 billion in windfall profits that Canadian oil producers are set to make from the Iran war, this government is proposing to grow its subsidies to the industry, extending taxpayer dollars to cover enhanced oil and gas recovery and capitalize a fake sovereign wealth fund.
With these decisions, we knew there was no hope of Canada meeting its 2030 or 2035 climate goals. Now, the Ottawa-Alberta MOU weakens and delays methane regulations for Alberta, even though methane is arguably the cheapest and easiest greenhouse gas emission to control, especially in the oil patch. Most devastatingly, it takes what has been described as a sledgehammer to Canada's industrial carbon price, and that puts net zero by 2050 firmly out of reach.
At no point has the expert advice of Canada's legislated advisory body been sought or considered in these decisions. Let me be clear: There's room to change and update climate policies and regulations, and, in fact, doing so is often necessary. Part of the function of the net-zero accountability act and the net-zero advisory body is to identify where course correction is needed and provide advice on how to get there, but that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about the elimination of policies with no alternative policies or pathways being put in place.
It's not just the net-zero accountability act. There are other pieces of legislation that have been put into the crosshairs. It really seems that all of the environmental laws and some of the human rights protections are up for grabs for the sake of building fossil fuel projects that rely on public subsidies because no private investors are interested. These projects will likely wind up as stranded assets when the vague Asian markets that are often referred to inevitably fail to materialize.
Politics south of the border and desire for economic growth are the reasons given for these devastating decisions, but taking a moment to look up from a narrow view of the U.S., we see the rest of the world is moving ahead on climate. It's a big risk for Canada's economy that our government has decided we won't try to keep up. Canada needs to make climate policy a priority again if we want to stay competitive. The OECD's Canada 2025 economic survey pointed out that “Canada's productivity growth has been lagging [behind] best performing OECD countries for many years.” That's not because we haven't been building enough pipelines; it's because we haven't been investing enough in green and digital transitions.
Thanks.