Natural Resources Committee on June 13th, 2023

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

They are achievable. The government deployed a plan to catch up after planting just 16 or 17 million of the 60 million trees planned for 2022. I don't know whether the government will be able to make up for the delay, but implementing our recommendations would maximize its chances of meeting its targets.

We conducted our audit early on in the program so that we could provide the government with recommendations to help it meet its targets, instead of waiting until 2030 to ask why it didn't meet them. Therefore, yes, it is possible.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

I'm from a forestry region, and my riding is home to the Observatoire régional de recherche sur la forêt boréale, a world-renowned regional observatory for boreal forest research. Staff there have explained to me numerous times that you can't just plant two billion trees wherever or however. It has to be planned out. Is it afforestation or reforestation? Are windbreaks being planted? Which species are being planted, and in which types of soil, if the idea is to track the potential benefits from greenhouse gas capture and sequestration? All of those factors have to be considered.

In your audit, did you look into the expertise being used by the government? Did the government have that kind of information and expertise in order to plant its two billion trees?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

We didn't examine that specifically, but we did note that the government did not endeavour to enhance biodiversity benefits over the long term as much as it could have. For example, in recommendation 47, we propose that the government provide incentives for habitat restoration, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. However, the government is resistant to that recommendation, despite the biodiversity and carbon storage benefits.

The government needs to leverage that expertise in order to maximize the benefits when it comes to carbon storage, biodiversity and human well-being. I hope the government will rethink its initial response to recommendation 47 in our report and make that effort.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Do you know what informed the selection of the people chosen to plant the two billion trees? Did you examine the basis on which the contracts were awarded to the private companies or consulting firms?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

At this point, our focus was more on the number of trees planted because the government was behind schedule. I don't know whether we looked at each contract awarded under the program, but that's a question you could ask the Natural Resources Canada officials when they appear during the second hour. I think they would be able to give you an answer.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Did you propose in any of your recommendations that the government seek out people with more expertise?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Our recommendations are aimed at maximizing the biodiversity and other benefits. They don't specifically address the expertise you're referring to.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I see.

Let's turn to the timeline. The first time I heard about the two billion trees program was in connection with an election promise in 2019. When did the tree planting start? Is that mentioned in your audit?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

The plan was announced in the 2019 throne speech. The department followed through and developed the two billion trees program in 2020.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Do you know how long after the program was developed that the first trees were planted?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes. Are you asking how many trees have been planted since the program was introduced?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

No. I'd like to know how much time there was between when the program was launched and when people were on the ground planting the first trees.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Exhibit 1.3 in the report shows that 28.9 million trees were planted in 2021 and 16.5 million were planted in 2022.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

All right.

I know that you talked a lot about the tree survival rate in your report, so I will follow up on that during my next turn. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time on that one. We will get back to you, Mario, for at least one more short round on this.

Next, we're going online to Mr. Angus for six minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much, Commissioner, for joining us today. Your reports are so important.

I'm here in northern Ontario where the rain has finally come, and hopefully, that will push back the devastating wildfires that are throughout our region. Neighbouring Abitibi was on fire. Sept-Îles was on fire. Halifax was on fire. There were 30,000 people displaced in Alberta.

You wrote in your report about your efforts that you raised again and again to get the Liberal government to get serious on emissions reductions. You wrote:

When I look at all of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada's reports that have flagged these grave concerns over the years, it's clear that we have been repeatedly ringing the alarm bells. Now these bells are almost deafening.

Are the alarm bells you're referring to the climate catastrophe that is upon us now?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

There are several alarm bells. In this report, we speak to the twin crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss. The dialogue focused mostly on climate change the last several years, but thankfully, there is more attention now to the related loss of biodiversity.

Yes, the alarm bells have been rung repeatedly by our office and by others. It is disappointing to see that emissions today, in 2023, in Canada, are higher than when Canada announced to the world in 1992 that it was signing on to first stabilize and then reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

The emissions are higher than when Prime Minister Trudeau went to COP26 and told the world that Canada would deal with emissions, that we put a cap in place, and that we had a plan, yet you wrote:

We can’t continue to go from failure to failure; we need action and results, not just more targets and plans. Parliament must intensify efforts in the fight against climate change to make up for decades of missed opportunities and missteps.

I want you to explain that, because it seems to me that my fellow politicians sometimes think about climate change and say, “Oh, this is a bad year. Things will stabilize.” We are on this accelerating curve of crisis, and it's getting worse and worse year by year.

What are the pressures to actually start to deliver and move beyond the promises? We deal with the fact that Canada is the only G7 country where oil and gas emissions will rise year in and year out.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

We have our overall report on climate lessons learned from 2021 where we look at the big picture. We do these deep dives into specific areas like today's regulations, the two billion trees program, or forest carbon accounting.

I would draw your attention to exhibit 1 in our forests and climate change report. We state at the end of paragraph 1.3:

While Canada’s forests could help to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, this should not distract from the urgent need to reduce burning fossil fuels.

The biological capture of carbon through trees, plants, marine life and so on is helpful, but so long as we continue, as indicated in exhibit 1.1, to have a net large flux of fossil carbon from underground into the atmosphere, we will not surely tackle the climate crisis.

We do need to get a handle on human-driven emissions from fossil fuels. It's helpful, and forests are definitely a part of the equation in terms of helping address, mitigate and adapt to climate change, but until we actually bring the trajectory of emissions down from fossil fuel use, we will not succeed in limiting global temperature rise or avoid catastrophic climate change.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Absolutely, and we had the promise of an emissions cap with no plan. We still have no emissions cap, and emissions are going up.

I noticed on the issue that you raised on the failure to monitor, the failure to track, how is it possible for the government to make promises on reductions if it's not actually tracking and it doesn't have in place the procedures and the data to understand what is happening with emissions in the oil and gas sector?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

The emissions are up from 1990 to now, which is the reference year for when the world got together to create the climate convention in 1992. There has been a slight decrease in emissions from the 2005 reference level until now. I'm hopeful that we can see that continue and that at some point in the next while we would actually see at least us getting back to the starting point of 1990 and then eventually get into reductions. But Canada is in the unenviable position that 30 years after starting this journey towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding catastrophic climate change, we're actually behind the original starting line. We haven't even just made slow progress from the starting line. We've taken a step back.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We are the only one in the G7.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

We are the only G7 country that has a net emissions increase since 1990 until now.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's a failure.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Charlie, you have 10 seconds left.