Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, and thank you to the support staff as well, who are diligently working behind the scenes, I notice.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
The Sierra Club, Atlantic Canada chapter, has a presence in four of the Atlantic Canadian provinces: Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. We have over 1,000 members, friends, and supporters who are working at the grassroots level to promote the values of sustainability for the future.
One of the first recommendations we make to this committee is that we begin to put a cost on carbon. This is so important that I'm going to say it again: we have to start putting a price on carbon that we emit.
On Monday, environment minister Baird announced in the House of Commons that a rise of two degrees Celsius in the earth's temperature as a result of human activity contributing to global warning is, simply put, unacceptable. Mr. Baird has stated this, and international panels of scientists have indicated that we really need to make severe cuts in our emissions if we are going to not get beyond that two-degree increase in global temperatures.
What we are asking for is carbon pricing at $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted. That's $30 per tonne. How the committee decides to put that value on carbon is a decision, I believe, that you will make as a group, either through carbon levies or through a cap-and-trade system or some combination of the two. But again, we need to put a price on the carbon we are emitting.
Of course, the impact on low-income Canadians of any price put on carbon needs to be taken into account if the prices are going to impact those Canadians. Ontario's Low-Income Energy Network is advocating a lifeline rate: targeted subsidies that will prevent low-income Canadians from paying above 6% of their income to utilities. This type of equality needs to be factored into any price put on carbon. Of course, any moneys raised should also be put into renewable energy sources. Currently we are only using between 0.7% and 3% of our renewable energy potential. We can do a lot better.
Second, we need to enhance our capacity to promote sustainable resource use that results in an equitable distribution of wealth and does not deprive future generations of their ability to meet their own needs. We need to incorporate the principles of sustainability.
There are lots of ways we need to get there, but what I'm going to emphasize today is that we have to make departments such as the Department of the Environment and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans a priority.
Cuts to grants and subsidies to communities that are doing on-the-ground sustainability work need to stop. From 2004 to 2007 we've had about a 50% cut in those grants and subsidies, and for the Atlantic region this is devastating.
We have here the Atlantic coastal action program, which works in coastal communities doing monitoring that Environment Canada estimates would cost 12 times more if the government itself carried it out. Between 1997 and 2001, $6 million was invested in these Atlantic coastal action programs, for which there are 14 organizations in Atlantic Canada. That would be $72 million, if the government had to carry out those same projects with the same results. In addition, these projects have resulted in hundreds of jobs and $22 million in direct and indirect feedback into these communities. These are really important projects. The cuts have to stop.
These cuts also do not, of course, reflect the priority that Canadians in general place on the environment. When it comes to Fisheries and Oceans, we need to stop subsidizing fisheries that are not sustainable. I need to highlight that right now we are undergoing a reassessment of the Fisheries Act that will, we fear, result in privatization of a publicly owned resource. This is a huge subsidy to certain parts of the fishing industry, and this committee needs to re-examine this.
There have also been studies showing that there are heavy subsidies that result in over-exploitation of fish stocks to the tune of $163 million per year. I would like the committee to re-examine these subsidies so that only fisheries that are sustainable are being encouraged by the government.