Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you very much for welcoming us to your proceedings.
I'll just note for the translators that I'm going to switch between French and English.
I lead Climate Action Network Canada, which is a coalition of over 180 organizations, and not only those in the environmental sector. It also brings together private and public sector unions and first nations from coast to coast to coast.
Today I want to talk about competitiveness. In 2025, competitiveness means ensuring that Canadian workers, industries and citizens are fully equipped and well positioned to thrive in global markets that are shifting, as Normand was saying, to the technologies of the future.
Canada's being competitive does not mean we should move back on our existing climate commitments, including our 2030 targets and our 2035 ones. The United States may have capitulated to the interests of oil and gas lobbyists and executives. President Trump may be clinging to the technologies of the past and bullying the world into further dependence on volatile fossil fuels, but it would be very ill-advised for Canada to follow suit.
Instead, we should be paying attention to where a majority of countries are going, scaling up renewable energy and electric-based technology. The European Union, our second-largest trading market, has a carbon border adjustment mechanism that will become fully implemented in 2026. It's already targeting some key sectors of our economy. China is rapidly dominating key sectors of industry, such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar photovoltaics, which are rapidly taking off across the world.
To realize this economic potential, we must redouble our efforts to meet our targets rather than weaken them. Businesses and industry sectors need certainty rather than increased instability.
Canada's greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan provides clear direction for the economy as a whole and for each of its sectors. This will enable us to increase our innovation performance and boost our exports in high value-added sectors, rather than perpetuating what I would frankly call a “colony-trading post” position in an increasingly underperforming North America.
The latest data on greenhouse gas emissions paint a very clear picture: We are not on the right track. GHG emissions are stagnating in Canada due to increased emissions from the oil and gas sector, even as other sectors of the economy are making efforts to reduce theirs. For example, there has been a reduction in greenhouse gases in the building, electricity, and heavy industry sectors.
Mathematically, we cannot pull megatonnes of GHGs out of a hat. Therefore, there can be no backtracking on capping emissions from the oil and gas sector without putting forward an alternative solution that will allow us to make up for the delay that this sector is imposing on all Canadians and the world.
We are nowhere near achieving our goals. The latest modelling from the Climate Institute of Canada shows that, if the trend continues, we will reduce our GHG emissions by about 20% to 25% by 2030, whereas the target set out in the law is a 45% reduction. Now is not the time to backtrack on policy.
The ERP not only is a legal obligation that we have collectively set for ourselves but also is key to Canada's future planning and Canada's competitiveness, not just in this unprecedented treacherous moment but also in the long term. With the high geopolitical turbulence and economic uncertainty, Climate Action Network Canada hopes that MPs across the aisle in this committee and beyond, as well as policy-makers across jurisdictions, will help guard against the risk of Canada being left behind in rapidly changing global markets and will also seize the opportunity before us to transform our economy for the better in a way that benefits citizens, workers, industries and the planet.
Thank you so much.