Thank you.
On May 11, the Prime Minister announced the large employer emergency financing facility, or LEEFF, yet we still do not know how much total financing will be available through this program.
LEEFF recipients will have to commit to publishing annual climate-related disclosure reports.
Équiterre believes that the LEEFF program must, at minimum, require the companies receiving this financing to prove that their business plans are in line with the Paris Agreement target to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.
The government must also ensure that the recipients do not simply set a target of zero net emissions with a faraway date, but that they commit to consistently lowering their emissions from now until 2050. There must also be strict accountability measures.
In general, we believe that the government should, as a rule, attach binding environmental conditions to any public assistance to ensure that the assistance is consistent with its climate commitments.
We share the government's objective to support workers in the oil and gas sector, but we have concerns about how this support is being provided. The approach could increase the number of environmental liabilities and expose taxpayers to the financial risk of a sector that, as this crisis has illustrated, makes our economy extremely vulnerable.
We also believe it is important to learn from past mistakes. The Auditor General of Canada noted the following in 2014, regarding the auto sector bailout in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis:...it was impossible for us to gain a complete picture of the assistance provided, the difference the assistance made to the viability of the companies, and the amounts recovered and lost.
We must do better this time.
All of these developments are happening while Canada has committed to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. The government reiterated its commitment in the most recent mandate letters. However, Canada is still struggling to complete the peer review it committed to two years ago with Argentina.
We recommend that the government implement transparency and accountability mechanisms to ensure that the total amounts available to the oil and gas sector and the transactions made by EDC and the BDC through the LEEFF program are made public. This includes the new loan required for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, granted by EDC.
We realize that emergency financing measures are designed to stabilize the economic sectors, but we believe that any federal intervention in the economy should be focused on a fair recovery, in particular by prioritizing workers and their communities, and increasing resilience to prevent future crises.
We urge parliamentarians to keep this in mind when designing policies and programs regarding our country's economic and social stabilization and rebuilding.
Mr. Chair, members of Parliament, thank you for your attention. We are happy to take your questions.