Mr. Chairman and honourable committee members, thank you for inviting the Green Budget Coalition to speak to you today.
The Green Budget Coalition, active since 1999, is unique in bringing together the expertise of 23 of Canada's leading environmental organizations collectively with over one million Canadians as members, supporters and volunteers. Our mission is to present an analysis of the most pressing issues regarding environmental sustainability in Canada and to make a consolidated annual set of recommendations to the federal government regarding strategic fiscal and budgetary opportunities.
As the chair mentioned, I am pleased to be joined today by three of my expert colleagues to help answer your questions. They are the coalition's two co-chairs—David Browne with the Canadian Wildlife Federation and Doug Chiasson with WWF-Canada in Halifax—and Vanessa Corkal with the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Saskatoon.
In November we emailed each of you copies of this document, the Green Budget Coalition's detailed “Recommendations for Budget 2022”. It provides more detail, refinements and additions to the recommendations we submitted to the committee in August.
As hopeful signs appear that Canada is slowly emerging from a painful two years beset by the COVID‑19 pandemic, it is now critical to focus more attention on addressing the related climate and biodiversity crises and shaping a world that is equitable, carbon-neutral and nature-positive for current and future generations of Canadians and people worldwide.
The Green Budget Coalition much appreciated the major federal funding announcements advancing climate and nature progress over the past 16 months, and urges the government to continue to act to seize this opportunity to transform society to address the twin climate and biodiversity crises, to create sustainable jobs, and to ensure enduring prosperity and well-being for all.
Canadians want ambitious action on environmental priorities. The government has repeatedly committed to make progress on climate change, nature conservation and equity—at COP26 in Glasgow, in the throne speech and in the mandate letters most recently. These commitments need to be implemented with funding in budget 2022.
In this context, the Green Budget Coalition has five feature recommendations for budget 2022 that address the three feature objectives of net-zero emissions by 2050, full nature recovery by 2050, and environmental justice.
For climate change, the Green Budget Coalition is featuring two recommendations. The first is for an energy-efficient renovation wave, in partnership with the provinces, with annual investments of $10 billion to $15 billion per year for 10 years. The second is prompt action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, with a robust definition, and to reorient public finance in line with Canada's climate change commitments.
For a full nature recovery, the coalition is particularly recommending a $1.3-billion investment in a pan-Canadian approach to fresh water, and permanent funding for protected areas starting at $1.4 billion in annual A‑base funding, and rising.
For environmental justice, we recommend establishing a new high-level office of environmental justice, learning from a model already in place in the United States since the early 1990s.
Finally, in our document we outline a number of complementary recommendations regarding transportation, renewable energy, nature restoration, fisheries management, action on toxics, sustainable agriculture, and environmental data and science.
Implementing these recommendations together would lead to dramatic progress in advancing a healthier future for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
To conclude, I would like to thank you again for inviting the Green Budget Coalition to appear today. We are also looking forward to meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister later this week to discuss our recommendations.
We look forward to your questions. Thank you.