Natural Resources Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

There are a number of questions I wanted to ask each of the stakeholder government organizations, and I'll read them out. Some of them are going to be answered in writing. I'll come back to Mr. Peterson about the StatsCan portal in a second.

With respect to energy information, how frequently are we currently disseminating the information that we collect? What's the international best practice currently for disseminating the information? In the case of the user groups, how frequently do they need the information to be disseminated to achieve their policy goals?

Next, how many people in your organization are currently involved in energy data exchange? How many people do you expect to need in order to meet the frequency of distribution to achieve your organization's goals? Have the standards for data exchange in your sector with respect to energy been determined, or are they still being developed?

Would you consider your organization to be a user, a key stakeholder or a data collector—or someone who could supply the back end? I guess that's StatsCan now, as we're seeing.

Are there regulatory changes that would be required to compel energy data exchange to your organization or from your organization in order for us to have an energy data portal that meets the international best practice?

In terms of quality control, if your organization is responsible for collecting and disseminating the data, which independent organization of yours should be responsible for making sure that this data is of a suitably high quality?

We're going to get the blues. Those questions will be prepared in both languages by the back engine of Parliament, so we'll be able to send them to you. I just wanted to make sure that would happen quickly, because it will inform questions that we ask to future visitors.

I've just gone to the StatsCan portal The Daily, and I love it. I just got a password. It's set up very similarly to the Energy Information Administration's page, the U.S. one that I visit. It's all of StatsCan's data, not just energy data.

If there were going to be other stakeholders involved in creating such a portal, Mr. Peterson, who do you feel should be involved? You said there were other stakeholders in your transportation portal—which I wasn't able to find, unfortunately.

Who would you consider to be the key stakeholders that you would work with to make sure that StatsCan could develop this portal for energy?

[Greg Peterson]

For certain, the initial focus would be for the departments and agencies that have been here this morning—the NEB, Environment and Climate Change, and Natural Resources Canada. They are the key users and key producers of information.

Given the joint nature, the shared jurisdiction, that energy has, in very short order we'll need to do this in collaboration with the provinces. I'm sorry to harp on the transportation model, but in that model, we started very quickly with getting our federal act in order. We have started working with provincial ministries of transportation to start creating a space that they could load their information in as well.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Ms. Gonçalves, in your organization, what type of additional information do you think the public would need or your own department would need that you're not already getting to allow the former to make more informed climate change decisions and for us to achieve our Paris commitment goals?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

In terms of the responsibilities that I have—and maybe Derek can jump in about what he does—we essentially collect information based on the UN's IPCC guidelines, which are strict guidelines on the types of sectors and type of information we need to collect in producing our inventories.

Right now, there is an ongoing effort to ensure that we are collecting information that accurately reflects the industrial processes that generate GHGs so that we can fulfill our mandate to the United Nations, in particular, in terms of the overall UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

We work within that framework, and our focus is really on historical data. We collect information from 1990 up to our latest report, in 2018, which is to 2016. Every year we add on a new one. So really, our focus in terms of data gathering and informing—

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Let me go to that. It seems that when I want to make decisions, I don't want to base my decisions today on 2016 data. I would like to have the 2017 data. Is your agency capable, over the course of the next two years, of getting to monthly reporting? What would be the path to getting to real-time monthly climate change-related data within your organization?

I appreciate that you might say “preliminary April 2018 data”, and then at a certain point in time—maybe a quarter or two quarters later—that preliminary data would become final data, so at least everyone has access to what's considered the best estimate at the time, until it becomes final. It's never final of course, because somebody might get other information that comes back to check it, but at least you can say this is how confident we are.

How quickly do you think your organization could get to monthly, or is that really a role that another agency should play?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

It's really challenging to get that kind of really up-to-date or I guess what you would call almost real-time information. We rely on some very involved and very heavy processes that actually require feeding information from a variety of sources, because it's not just the energy sector that feeds into this.

We have been trying to move the yardsticks in terms of getting data out in a more timely fashion. For example, this year we published preliminary data for the first time, but again, it's preliminary data that is about 18 months back.

We continue to try to push the envelope, but there are some real methodological issues that go into collecting that information in a way that would be—

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thanks, Ms. Gonçalves. If I had more time, I would have asked the same question of Mr. Peterson.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You may have yet.

Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming here this morning. I appreciate the information you have shared with the committee.

I have lots of questions I will try to get through here.

Ms. Gonçalves, in your presentation you said 75% of greenhouse gases are attributable to the use of fuel, and that you get that information from fuel statistics. Do those statistics include also the types of vehicles and the types of engines that are consuming the fuel?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

I may have to rely on my colleagues from StatsCan to talk about what—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Do you get your information from Stats Canada?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

Yes, we do.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Really? Okay. Does the information that is being provided take into consideration the type of vehicle and the type of engine that is burning the fuel, or does it work strictly on volume of fuel?

[Greg Peterson]

The data we're referring to is from our annual report on energy supply and demand. In that report, we're looking at the production and use of fuel by fuel type and by user: electric versus oil versus—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Right. We have just gone through a series of emissions tiers over the last many years where, effective January 1, we've moved to tier 4 emissions on commercial vehicles and automobiles. Your calculation of greenhouse gases is not based on the different types of engines or different tiers of emissions that are being installed on vehicles—which apparently reduce greenhouse gases—but simply on volume. You have a metric or a standard that you make and use as a conversion in calculating greenhouse gases, based on a litre of fuel.

[Greg Peterson]

To be clear, we're not making that calculation. We are producing the estimates of fuel consumption.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Right, but in calculating greenhouse gas emissions, it's based on volume, not on type of engine or how it's being consumed. It's based strictly on volume.

[Greg Peterson]

In the data we're producing on energy consumption, that's correct.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I don't mean to say that your work is bogus, but the information, or the conclusions being drawn with regard to emissions or the volume of greenhouse gases, is really not accurate.

[Greg Peterson]

Okay, but I would turn to my colleagues at the Department of the Environment and Climate Change, who are making that calculation based on the energy statistics we are producing.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

That was my original question. Do you make those calculations based on the amount of tier 4, 3, 2, and 1 vehicles that are on the roads today, or that are in industry, or the types of jet engines that are being used on commercial airliners, which all produce different amounts of greenhouse gases? Is all of that information factored into your production of greenhouse gas emissions data?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

There is a breakdown in the types of fuel consumption that are fed into the calculation of the greenhouse gas equivalents. I don't have the breakdown all the way down to the end, but it's certainly something we can provide to the committee.

For example, there are differences between transportation fuel consumption and stationary fuel consumption at facilities, whether it's the oil and gas industry, or whether it's another type of production.

There is a delineation in the type of consumption it is, within—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay, thank you. You've kind of answered my question. You're not actually quantifying how many tier 4 emission vehicles are out there or how many pre-tier vehicles at all are consuming the fuel, which we're being told reduces greenhouse gases.

You're using a standard that, when diesel fuel is consumed, there's so much greenhouse gas emitted, and when aviation fuel is consumed, there's so much greenhouse gas emitted. It doesn't take into account at all the carbon emissions being produced by various types of engines. In other words, to me, when you're giving me a greenhouse gas emissions number, it's not accurate, because you don't take all the information into consideration. Yet you said that 75% of our greenhouse gases are contributed by fuel use.

Does your data also suggest that, as the price of those fuels increases, the behaviour of consumers changes? Does the volume go down based on price, or is the volume consistent and actually increasing every year?

[Jacqueline Gonçalves]

I'll just clarify how we collect the information and use it. We are responsible for producing a national inventory that actually accounts for all of the potential sources of greenhouse gases and greenhouse sinks. When we collect the information on a national level, we are looking at collecting information that essentially covers all of the possible sources.

What I can't give you an answer on right now is the level of delineation or how detailed within that particular sector, how far down we go. What we do capture is how much has been emitted and how much is a sink. I'll have to ask my folks who actually work with the data.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Can you provide that data to committee, because I think it's very—