Environment Committee on June 9th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Good afternoon, everybody. This is meeting number 43 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. This is a meeting that is public for the first hour and in camera for the second hour.

For those attending in person, please follow the health and safety guidelines as per the cards on the table to prevent audio or feedback incidents for our interpreters.

Before we begin, regarding Bill C-244, the committee is still scheduled to meet with the sponsor of this private member's bill and government officials on June 16, which is next week. We deferred this decision, and we need to decide if the committee would like to meet as planned next week and then proceed with the clause-by-clause review of the bill in September. If we do that, we would need to set a deadline to receive written amendments to the bill, and a suggestion for that deadline is 4 p.m. on Monday, September 14, 2026. The committee could also choose to postpone the entire study until September, including the meeting that we have scheduled for next week, but then we would have a gap next week.

Is it the will of the committee that we proceed as planned with listening to the sponsor, having amendments due in September and then continuing from there?

Go ahead, Mr. Leslie.

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

I'll quickly reiterate that I think it's a little disjointed. I think we should come back and start with witness testimony. I'm sure we could find something to fill our time. There's still a number of outstanding motions. If we are going to move ahead, I'm not sure September 14 or whatever date you said is.... It's quite early. I think we might need a little extra time to get amendments in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this?

We'll vote on this. All those in favour of proceeding as planned next week and hearing from the sponsor, please raise your hands.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

I see agreement with proceeding as planned. Thank you for that.

This afternoon, we have former members of the net-zero advisory body here to speak with us as per a past motion of this committee.

We have Dr. Simon Donner, professor at the University of British Columbia, with us by video conference. We also have Catherine Abreu, executive director of the International Climate Politics Hub.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

I think you have opening statements, so you each have five minutes to make a statement.

We will start with you, Ms. Abreu. The floor is yours for up to five minutes.

Thank you.

[Catherine Abreu, Executive Director, International Climate Politics Hub]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Ms. Abreu.

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

[Dr. Simon Donner, Professor, University of British Columbia, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for the opportunity to appear on your screen here today.

I am a professor at the University of British Columbia, as you've heard, and I'm speaking to you today from Vancouver, which is situated on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh nations. I believe a member of one of those nations is here today. I think so. It's hard for me to tell on the screen.

I resigned from my role as co-chair of the net-zero advisory body last December, and I did so with a heavy heart. It was a real honour and privilege to work with the other members, including Ms. Abreu, to provide independent advice on pathways to net-zero emissions for Canada. I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the people and I remain grateful to the federal government for the opportunity to do that work.

As a legislated body, as we've just heard, the net-zero advisory body can provide a unique service to the government. Unlike all the other voices that seek to influence climate and energy policy, the NZAB and its members have no vested interests: You fire the members and they all go back to their day jobs.

Countries around the world, as was alluded to in the last statement—and this includes the U.K., across the EU, Korea and Australia, all these countries that Canada is trying to build stronger economic relationships with—benefit from similar legislated climate councils, similar bodies that also have no need to curry favour to gain access to power. They're going to be honest with you.

The NZAB structure, to be honest, however, was never ideal, and after last year's election, a series of structural yet manageable challenges, which had plagued the NZAB from its creation, expanded into full-blown crises. I'll highlight three of them here.

First, the NZAB's work—and this should be obvious—is pertinent across government, yet the body serves only the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, who often, particularly in the current government, is not leading the relevant policy file. For example, last summer, we completed research on industrial pricing and on equivalence agreements with the provinces that was highly relevant, well beyond ECCC. We volunteered to brief people across government and received no response from the Prime Minister's Office and nothing but an acknowledgement from the office of the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

The second point is that in successful climate councils, the work is aligned with government policy timelines. This was the exception, not the rule, for the NZAB, with the one key exception of the 2024 annual report, I'll say, in which we gave advice on the 2035 emissions target and what can be done to reach the 2030 target. However, the gap with government policy timelines worsened under the current government. We were not informed of policy decisions under way nor asked to provide advice on those decisions.

If you add in the ongoing structural challenges we had, like procurement rules slowing our research process and just the awkwardness of the staff for the secretariat being ECCC employees who were being asked to work with us at times to critique the government, it became very difficult for us to produce any work of value.

The third point I'll highlight is that the member appointment process is extremely arduous, and the government simply did not plan adequately in advance. Last summer, the NZAB was down to six members. Despite repeated requests from me personally, I received no answers from the minister's office about a timeline for future appointments. By late fall, it had become evident that due to government inaction, I would have to continue chairing an understaffed body without a francophone counterpart for at least another six months, and I have to say that this is a workload that was completely unsustainable for me last year.

When the Canada-Alberta memorandum of understanding was released and the private briefing on our annual report scheduled for the next day was cancelled by the minister's office, I concluded that the NZAB's work had become performative.

To be clear about this, I was comfortable chairing an advisory body whose advice was considered but ultimately rejected by the government because, after all, we're not elected representatives like the rest of you. I was not, however, comfortable with the process becoming performative, in which we had little or no opportunity for our work to actually inform policy.

In addition, as the chair of the NZAB, and the sole chair at that time—and by rule, then, its spokesperson and its liaison with the minister's office—the MOU represented a direct challenge to my professional integrity, because I wasn't just the chair of the NZAB; I'm a scientist. I was inundated with requests for my professional judgment on the content of the MOU and the government's intentions with the MOU. I felt pressured to soften that assessment because of this uncertainty and the lack of conversation with the minister's office. That softening of my assessment is incompatible with my responsibilities as a scientist and a professor at a public institution. I simply can't do that. That's not my job.

Scientists like me only earn a seat at the table because of the integrity of our discipline, and I felt I could no longer serve people whom I felt were not being honest and forthright themselves. Therefore, I submitted a private resignation letter to the minister and then immediately afterwards informed the NZAB members. I announced that decision publicly a couple of days later.

I'll just conclude—thank you for the time—by saying that I'm a scientist and that this experience taught me that the goal of net-zero emissions is about so much more than fighting climate change and so much more than climate science. It's about building a prosperous future for Canada. Much of the world is rapidly transitioning to clean energy, as we just heard, and if we don't change our strategy, we really risk being left behind.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you so much, Mr. Donner.

We will now turn to questions by committee members. I believe we are beginning with Ms. May of the Green Party for six minutes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I want to start by making sure that anyone watching this publicly knows that I'm only able to ask these questions because the Conservative party decided to give me six minutes, for which I thank them.

First of all—because I know you both—I want to extend to you my thanks for your hard work on the climate issue for so many years. I want to thank Dr. Donner for standing for scientific integrity, and I want to thank both of you for a really tough decision. I know it cost you personally and emotionally more than you're able to share before a committee.

I want to put my question to Dr. Donner.

I'm also informed that the Prime Minister has never once met with his prime ministerial science adviser, Dr. Mona Nemer.

Do you sense that this government understands the importance of science writ large? You spoke of scientific integrity. Do you have any comments on that matter? How much does this new government understand the importance of science?

[Dr. Simon Donner]

To be honest, I feel like I can't answer that question because I never had the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister or hear anything from the Prime Minister's Office.

I want to be clear about this. I'm just one of many scientists in the country, but I was chairing the advisory body. The NZAB serves under the minister of ECCC, and I did have a liaison I met with in the minister's office. There is no obligation for the Prime Minister's Office to meet with the NZAB, but I find it highly strange that they wouldn't be interested. We were doing research with the Canadian Climate Institute that was directly relevant to the decisions that were just made on the MOU.

I'll be clear about it: Basically, the results of the work that the NZAB has done and our advice would have said that the way they've changed the industrial pricing system.... I don't mean just the changes in the headline price and the price floor, which are what have gotten all the attention. It's also the details: the changes in the tightening rate for the benchmarks and the grandfathering-in of old permits under Alberta's system. We would have been telling them that this is not going to work and that we could tell them this based on modelling that was done by the Canadian Climate Institute and based on our own analyses.

Would they have taken our advice? I don't know. Why they don't want to hear it, I also don't understand. If you don't want to hear from advocates on all sorts of issues, that's your choice, but this is just research evidence. As I said, the NZAB has no vested interest. We're not lobbying for anything in particular. We're just passing along advice based on the best available research.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I have a further question for Dr. Donner.

I'm deeply troubled by the most recent research that's come out on what's now estimated to be a fifty-fifty risk of the collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation system—which has to be the worst name for anything scary in the history of time. Could you just talk directly to Canadians about what's at stake if we don't move quickly?

We're talking about science here. How would you explain to the average person that fifty-fifty risk of collapse of the Gulf Stream and the circulatory systems by mid-century?

[Dr. Simon Donner]

I'm going to say a couple of things.

The first thing to know is that the projections for the future, what's going to happen over the next many decades, are uncertain. The choices that people make are the number one driver of that uncertainty. This is data that comes straight out of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I can pass along a figure, if people would like.

Which scenario we're going to be in and how high our emissions are going to be are really up to individual people. It's up to governments, but the choices we make about the emissions we put up into the atmosphere and how much the planet is going to warm are the number one thing controlling what our future is going to be.

Some of the biggest risks that come with future climate change are that the more the planet warms, the greater the risk of some sort of run-on or cascading feedback events. Examples would be some really disastrous things like a slowdown of the ocean circulation, as Elizabeth May mentioned, or other sorts of severe impacts and run-on feedback events.

I will say that the risk of overturning the circulation in the Atlantic in this century is still fairly low. That is something that's debated. Sometimes there is a case of a debate from within the scientific community popping up in the media, and then you only hear parts of it. I don't want to say that the risk of it is exaggerated, but maybe the statistics that people present on the likelihood sometimes get pushed a little bit. It sounds a little bit more likely in the media than it does in a scientific meeting.

That doesn't change the fundamental issue here that the choices we make are determining the climate for many generations to come. Some of the molecules of CO2 that you put up in the atmosphere are still going to be there in 10,000 years. This is a really permanent decision we're making, and that's why it's so important to act early.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you.

To Catherine Abreu, if you could give advice to this government right now, what advice would you give if they were open to listening?

I think I have less than a minute for your answer.

[Catherine Abreu]

I would start with two things.

Number one, keep the existing environmental protections that we have. Bill C-30 is currently being debated in the House, where we're talking about rolling back decisions made by Health Canada about potentially harmful toxic chemicals. Keeping those kinds of protections in place in this uncertain world that we're entering into, which Simon Donner spoke about, is absolutely critical.

The second piece of advice is to make a plan and tell Canadians about it. That's what the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act is all about. It's about making a plan and transparently communicating that plan to Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Ms. May.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Watchorn for six minutes.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to extend a special thank you to my Conservative colleagues for their generosity toward the Green Party. I've never seen that before. I find it very interesting.

I would also like to acknowledge my colleague Elizabeth May, as it's her birthday today. I therefore wish her a happy birthday. I know she's not listening to me at the moment, but that's all right.

I would like to say a few words about prosperity. Mr. Donner spoke about prosperity and how the country is going to become prosperous. We are fortunate today to have two experts with us who, I hope, will share their views on projects that are important to Quebec.

One of those projects is the high-speed rail project led by Alto. I was surprised today to hear the leader of the Bloc Québécois say that he was opposed to this project. I couldn't believe it, given that it's a project that is very good for the climate. I would like to hear Mr. Donner's views on electrified rail systems in Canada.

Mr. Donner, what do you think of this project?

[Dr. Simon Donner]

I'll say that, in general, I actually quite like the concept of the Major Projects Office. I like the idea that there are projects that are in the national interest that we need to put ahead. Those projects need to align with getting to net-zero emissions.

Some of the things we need to do include electrifying transportation and electrifying how we heat and cool our homes. I'm from Toronto originally. It sounds like a wonderful idea to have an electrified rail line, ideally going from Windsor all the way to Quebec City. I would say that the plan that was put in place was probably too limited.

As to why people would or would not support this, that's a debate for all of you to have amongst yourselves. I don't want to be used as a sort of narrative device in that debate.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

I understand very well, Mr. Donner.

Ms. Abreu, I think you've already discussed electrified rail projects. What do you think of the concept of an electrified rail project between Quebec City and Toronto?

We're also hearing about a project that may be moving forward in Alberta. I think electrified public transit systems are one of the good things we can do for the environment.

What's your opinion on this?

[Catherine Abreu]

Maybe you've heard of the competition that's happening among countries right now between petrostates and electrostates. There's this idea that many of the emerging economies that are becoming most competitive globally these days are heading towards electrification. Indeed, with the annual UN climate talks coming up, Turkey has now put it on the agenda to talk about a global goal of increasing electrification by 35% by 2035.

This trend toward electrification, making use of Canada's clean energy resources to electrify our homes, our businesses and our transportation, is definitely a conversation that we need to be having. When it comes to specific projects, that conversation has to happen in context with the communities that are involved and might be impacted.

Perhaps part of what you're raising here, from my perspective, is the need for us to be having conversations about these kinds of projects in Canada versus having the oldest, most boring conversation I can possibly imagine about how we're going to build another pipeline. This subject sucks up so much of the energy, the attention and the political and financial resources in this country, preventing us from having these kinds of important conversations about projects that will actually take us forward.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you very much for giving us your opinion on that.

A second project that is very important to me is the new interconnection project that forms part of the government's national electrification strategy. I'm thinking in particular of the expansion of the Churchill Falls generating station and the Gull Island project, which will provide clean energy to Quebec for the coming decades. It will also allow for a more equitable partnership between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec.

How do you see major clean energy projects in the context of electrification?

Is this a positive direction for our energy strategy?

I'll start with you, Ms. Abreu.

[Catherine Abreu]

I'll make a distinction in terms of projects that are about better connecting the electricity grids across Canada, west to east, which is absolutely essential. We have far better connections north to south in Canada than we do across the country. We need to have those connections east to west in order to balance the clean energy resources that we have across the country and serve those parts of the country that might not have those resources.

I actually had the experience of cutting my teeth in Nova Scotia as the Muskrat Falls project was being developed. That's where I met Ms. Miedema.

I slipped into using your first name earlier—my apologies. It's because we have our history, Madam Chair.

I realized at that point that the interconnection and clean electricity that the Muskrat Falls project would provide was essential to helping get that part of the country into a clean electricity scenario, as long as the project was undertaken with certain considerations in place.

There are other questions to be asked about the further developments of that project. Hydroelectricity has significant environmental implications and significant implications for the communities that surround those projects. Again, this is another area where some very robust conversation is needed among governments, workers and communities, to think about what projects are required to take us into that clean energy future and to grow our clean electricity grids.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Watchorn.

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

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us.

Mr. Donner, give the current situation, could you tell us whether Canada is on track to meet its net-zero goals for 2030-2035?

Do you think Canada will achieve these targets?