Natural Resources Committee on May 6th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I call this meeting back to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4) and the motion adopted on Monday, April 15, 2024, the committee is resuming consideration of the main estimates for 2024-25, which were referred to the committee on Thursday, February 29, 2024.

With us today for the second hour are the same senior officials from the Department of Natural Resources.

We have Michael Vandergrift, deputy minister; Isabella Chan, senior assistant deputy minister; Francis Brisson, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer; Frank Des Rosiers, assistant deputy minister of strategic policy and innovation; Glenn Hargrove, assistant deputy minister of the Canadian Forest Service; Rinaldo Jeanty, assistant deputy minister; Kimberly Lavoie, assistant deputy minister of Nòkwewashk; Drew Leyburne, assistant deputy minister; Erin O'Brien, assistant deputy minister of the fuels sector; and Debbie Scharf, assistant deputy minister.

I will ask that you present yourselves prior to answering any questions.

I will now open the floor for the first round. It will be a six-minute round. We'll have only one round, and then we'll be at the end of the meeting.

We'll start with six minutes for Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to everybody for being here.

Right off the bat, during COVID, there were two years—we found this out in the Auditor General's report—when the department did next to nothing on the “just transition”. I'm wondering whose decision it was to put a hold on that whole important issue of the just transition.

Whose decision was that?

[Michael Vandergrift, Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources]

Mr. Chair, thank you, first of all, for the invitation to be here today.

To answer the question, the department has taken steps with the sustainable jobs initiative, both in terms of the legislation—which I know this committee has spent time considering—and in terms of working with colleagues in Employment and Social Development Canada on training programs that are being rolled out to assist communities in the energy transition.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I assume you're referencing the retrofit program in the budget, but what I'm talking about was during COVID. Also, in the rest of the budget, there is actually no mention of the just transition.

I'm talking about very specific, narrowly focused programming for communities that are losing their sole economic driver. These are towns like Coronach and Rockglen. There are communities all across Alberta where the same thing is going to happen. There's no mention of them whatsoever. That's basically four years lost in a row.

Whose decision was it, especially during COVID, to do nothing on the file?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Mr. Chair, to answer the question, the department takes very seriously the concerns of communities as people work through this transition. There were programs implemented in recent years related to the coal transition, and we can provide further information on them to the committee.

As I mentioned, there was funding—I believe it was a year and a half ago or so—for the sustainable jobs and sustainable jobs training fund, which we are now working with Employment and Social Development Canada to roll out. It will provide training opportunities to help people transition and take advantage of the opportunities that exist with the economic transition.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I have one more quick question, and then I'll transfer my time to Mr. Falk.

Minister Guilbeault, the environment minister, said the government does not measure the annual amount of emissions that are directly reduced by carbon pricing. The Minister of Natural Resources just said here there was.... I don't have the exact number he said, but it was somewhere around a third of carbon reductions that will be directly attributed to the carbon tax.

Who's telling the truth?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Mr. Chair, I don't know if Debbie has anything on that.

I don't have anything more, so I'll have to come back to you on that, sir.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you to the officials for being here at the committee.

I want to start off with the deputy minister.

Could you tell the committee what percentage of new vehicle sales are zero-emission vehicles?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Mr. Chair, maybe I could ask Erin O'Brien, who's our ADM responsible, if she has that figure.

[Erin O'Brien, Assistant Deputy Minister, Fuels Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

I don't have it with me.

[Michael Vandergrift]

We don't have the latest figure. I know that it varies by province.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'm on your Stats Canada website here, and it says that, in 2021, 2.3% were battery electric vehicle sales and in 2022 it rose to 3%.

Electric Autonomy Canada, in a report produced by S&P Global, cited that zero-emission new car sales were at 11.7%. That includes battery only and hybrid models. That's a combined 11.7% of new car sales in 2023. The minister told us here before that “one in five” vehicles sold in 2023 were zero-emission vehicles. That's 20%.

Those numbers are a huge discrepancy from what Stats Canada is reporting and what the industry is reporting. Do you think the minister is delusional or dishonest?

[Michael Vandergrift]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I believe that the one in five figure is a figure from the International Energy Agency. That is a global number.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Well, that certainly isn't what the minister said here before. He certainly led this committee to believe that those were the numbers and the statistics from Canada. That's 20% of new vehicle sales. It's not anywhere close to that. Stats Canada would put the target closer to 10%, as will the industry. That number is very different from what the minister reported here.

Shifting gears a bit to the TMX pipeline, originally the project was bought for $4.5 billion, with an anticipated construction cost of about $4.5 billion, and that total cost was $9 billion. That has ballooned now to $34 billion. Is there still a business case for the pipeline at $34 billion?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Mr. Chair, the Government of Canada does believe that there is a business case for the pipeline in terms of the benefits to the country in the economic benefits that will ensue, the revenues that will ensue for governments. The government is confident that it will be able to divest the pipeline in a way that makes good economic sense for Canadians.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Has the minister confirmed to your department that Canada will recover its entire cost of the $34 billion for the pipeline?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Mr. Chair, this is something that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance is leading in terms of the divestiture, and the government has indicated that it will divest the pipeline at a time when it will make the best sense for Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Vandergrift.

That time is up. We'll now go to our next round of questioning.

Ms. Jones, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Oh. No, I don't....

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay. We'll go to Mr. Schiefke.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Yes.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Let me start off by saying that it's a pleasure to be here. This is my first meeting with this committee. I look forward to working with all members to advance the good work that this committee has embarked on.

Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Jowhari.

The question I have for our witnesses today, the department officials, is in relation to the government's plan to plant two billion trees, something that is of great importance if we are to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets, particularly with an emphasis on what happened over the last year with the wildfires we experienced and that we're projected to have possibly this summer as well. We hope that's not the case.

What many Canadians perhaps don't realize is that the vast majority of the territory in this country is not controlled by the federal government. It's actually controlled by the provinces and the territories and indigenous communities, so there needs to be diligent work done to sign agreements with our partners to make sure we can reach that target.

What agreements have been signed with the provinces and territories with regard to tree planting, and also on our aim to meet our 2030 targets? Perhaps that's something for ECCC, but I'd love to know more for the Canadians who are watching and fill them in on where we are and how those agreements are going to help us meet our goal.

[Michael Vandergrift]

Perhaps I can start and then invite Glenn Hargrove, who runs the Canadian Forest Service, to add.

You are very right to point out the importance of the partnerships in delivering the two billion trees program. That's one of the benefits of the program and one of the challenges of the program: We need to work with partners in order to deliver the objectives.

We have nine agreements in principle in place now with provinces and territories. We are continuing to negotiate with the remaining provinces and territories and we expect that we will have those agreements in place shortly. As the minister indicated, we now have agreements in place under negotiation to plant 553 million trees. That is important progress, but there's more work to do, and it's an ongoing challenge that we continue to work on with partners.

Perhaps I can invite Glenn to add and also to speak about some of the other streams, because there are private streams, indigenous streams and other partners we work with as well.

[Glenn Hargrove, Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, Deputy.

Yes, we're also moving forward on the urban stream of the program. Those funds are essentially fully committed. We've also worked with the national indigenous organizations on co-developing a distinctions-based model for delivering the indigenous stream. We also have a multitude of agreements under the private land stream.

The funding for federal partners is fully disbursed as well, so there is a lot of progress on those as well. We have over 200 agreements now signed under the program.