Natural Resources Committee on June 7th, 2018

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

It's for no more than 10 minutes.

[Greg Peterson]

I think what you've described is in essence the future of official statistics. I think that as an organization, we've come to the realization that we don't have to collect everything, we don't have to own everything, we don't have to be the custodian of everything, but if we can develop frameworks that allow us to better access information that's being held by others, maybe we can process what we need within their own environment and then bring that back into a secure environment in Statistics Canada for our purposes. That, in fact, is the direction we want to go towards.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

We talked about not having that advisory body that would have the various stakeholder interests to provide an input about the kinds of outputs that the statistics would need to be from a gathering standpoint and from a usage standpoint.

Can you talk a little bit about what that could look like as it relates to energy data and usage data that will be helpful on the environment side? I've certainly asked a lot of questions about how information is gathered and gets out there so that consumers are able to understand how their behaviour, their usage, and so forth will help us as a country to achieve our climate goals.

Maybe both of you could take a stab at that answer.

[Greg Peterson]

We've had advisory bodies that have worked really well in the case of the agriculture statistics committee, for instance. We draw constituents from industry associations, from academia. We have a separate table for provinces—they're not at that table but a separate table—and we also include AAFC. This body provides guidance to us in terms of how we can make improvements to our program. We've addressed issues such as accessibility and relevance of data, and we've addressed some issues of prioritization.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Ms. Gonçalves or Mr. Hermanutz, would you comment?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

We currently have a number of bodies that help us gather feedback from stakeholders. CEPA has a national advisory committee that is composed of a variety of stakeholders, and we sometimes use it. We also often put out our products for public comment. We receive commentary and feedback through those processes. Certainly, working in collaboration with StatsCan, we can explore if there are other ways that we can enrich our mechanisms to get advice.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

That's in a future state. That's what we're hearing, right? You're doing one thing and another one is doing something else, so where's that opportunity so that it isn't the two of them and it really is a collaboration within a framework?

Would we agree that this is the future, and that's where it needs to go?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

Yes, in particular where our work overlaps. We are having those discussions now about what that could potentially look like in terms of governance.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

All right. Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Hermanutz, thank you once again.

Out of curiosity, when you talked about the report that mentioned the potential reduction in GHGs as a result of the nationally imposed carbon tax, when was that study undertaken and when was it completed?

[Derek Hermanutz]

I don't recall the exact date that it was published, but the work that was done was based on ongoing work that the department does.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

When it was published and when it was completed could be two different things, potentially.

[Derek Hermanutz]

Yes.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

When was that study actually completed?

[Derek Hermanutz]

I don't have a precise date that I can give to you right now.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay. We as the opposition were asking for quite some time for that information—

[Derek Hermanutz]

Right.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

—and it was never adequately provided to us. That's why I'm curious. We know when it was published; what I would like to know is when it was completed. That is very important for us.

Based on the information you have and the data that has come out, do you see Canada meeting its Paris targets?

[Derek Hermanutz]

Yes, we do.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

That's even though the reports that have come out from the UN say that Canada will not meet that without shutting down major sectors of its economy.

[Derek Hermanutz]

Our report, which is required to go to the UNFCCC every two years—it was released in December of last year—shows 232 megatonnes of progress since the previous report two years ago. It shows the policy measures that have been announced that comprise that 232 megatonnes. It identifies an additional 66 megatonnes for which measures are under development, but we don't have enough information to properly model that yet. Then that shows the distance from the previous BR, the biennial report, to the Paris target in 2030.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Is that based on the current forecast with the $50-a-tonne carbon tax? Is that not increasing? We had a report from, I believe, Environment Canada, that said in order to hit these targets, you had to increase the carbon tax up to $200.

[Derek Hermanutz]

That's not in our projections. Our projections only take into account policies that are currently legislated or funded or in place.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

How are these two so far off?