Evidence of meeting #4 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cap.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Of course.
Is there any reason, though, that you would say we shouldn't do it at the same time?
Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Do you mean at the same level? Yes, because—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
No, I mean at the same time, not at the same level,.
Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
If it's at the same time, then no.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay, that's great.
We also need complementary measures during this period of transition as the cap is implemented. Some ways were mentioned, such as CCUS and direct air capture, yes?
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I'm going to blast through this and then I'm going to open it up for discussion.
We have to ensure that any incentives for substitute goods, like low-carbon substitute goods—Ms. Hastings talked about electric vehicles—don't cause inadvertent carbon leakage. For example, if we're going to incentivize the use of electric vehicles and we haven't accounted for carbon leakage in the oil and gas sector or coal fire production, that we're not actually increasing demand, because we've created a substitute good, or demand for a substitute good, without taking care of that.
I'm sorry—I'm kind of off my game today, but you get what I'm saying, right? If we're going to incentivize electric vehicles, then we have to ensure that our electricity production is less reliant on carbon-emitting sources than it is right now in Canada. Would that be correct?
Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
No. I think we need to get to net zero, but the current emissions by Canada's electricity sector for the use of electric vehicles is lower on a total life cycle basis.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Can you send the committee some data to that effect?
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
The last thing is that, as Ms. Collins said, any cap needs to have stability. So we should not be announcing caps without details, so that they will not be a disincentive to innovation and the development of complementary measures. Would that be correct?
Professor, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Yes, but with regard to the word “stability”, it actually should be something that's declining over time.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
How about “no surprises to industry”? Is that better?
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
The other thing I would say, since I have a little bit of time, is that we also need to recognize externalities in a set way.
Ms. Hastings, you made an assumption that the decline in demand was based solely—that's how I took it, anyway—on an industry in transition. Did you factor the pandemic or any other loss of production into your statement? Or is there a set of externalities that Canada uses right now that you used to make that statement?
Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
No, my statement was purely about the sale of electric vehicles, independent of any change in demand or changes in traffic patterns.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Would you say we need to have a set of externalities that we're looking at, both in terms of the actual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, however we measure that, and in actual supply and demand? You were talking about price volatility when we're designing this cap.
Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'm sorry but I don't understand the question.
Professor, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Could I just jump in?
Professor, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
When you use the word “externality”, we pedantic academics are thinking about environmental damage somewhere else. I think what you're talking about right now is that we have to account for anything that's outside of our system, like a war in the Middle East or a higher price of oil.
Professor, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Absolutely.
When you do this kind of work, you do modelling, which is what I and the people I've trained do, and we have to see what is outside and what is inside.