Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[Monique Frison]

We have drafted the management action plan and followed up on the two commitments we made: to finish in December the operational plan and to provide guidance on single-species planting, which the deputy minister mentioned. We've already finished those, and we're on track to completing the other commitments in that plan as well.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

At the time of the report, Minister Wilkinson said that many of the recommendations were already being actioned. You've said that you already have agreements or tentative agreements with many of the provinces and territories. What other recommendations have you made substantial progress on?

[Monique Frison]

Several of the recommendations and some of the discussions that came out during the audit, including with the audit principal and her staff.... We have stepped up efforts to communicate with stakeholders. We hold more regular webinars. We provide more guidance. We've gone out, in particular, to more conferences to engage more people to try to understand the issues and challenges they face when putting together planting projects.

We have started to develop further guidance and a plan for monitoring in the long run so we have the assurance of making sure that the proposals we approve are good ones—to have the right tree, right place, right time. We'll also put in remote sensing so we can keep track of those trees in the long run.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is time.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here, even though some of you are geographically remote.

Several questions were raised in this report. Are the goals too ambitious? What about greenwashing? Quite a few doubts were raised, sometimes by the same stakeholders that learned about this report and were keen to read it. A question was submitted to me by one such stakeholder, and I'd like to ask it because I believe it's particularly interesting.

A recent scientific article quoted last week in The Hill Times said that the government was underestimating emissions from logging by almost 100 megatonnes per year. That's rather significant.

You, Commissioner, also raised concerns about the lack of transparency in reporting forest-related greenhouse gas emissions. Could you please tell us more about that?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes, of course.

In the second part of our report, we concluded that there was a lack of transparency in estimates of greenhouse gas emissions. The estimates vary from year to year. For example, exhibit 1.8 says that for a given year, various reports mentioned "added emissions to the atmosphere", but that another calculation reported "removed emissions from the atmosphere". This is problematic. It's neither transparent nor accurate. There's a lack of consistency with—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

What accounts for this lack of transparency? Is it a lack of knowledge? Could it be negligence?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I don't know their intentions. However, I don't believe that the differing results reported every time they do the calculations is deliberate.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Did you say "deliberate" or "not deliberate"?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I said "not deliberate".

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Okay. That's an important distinction.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes. Thanks for that clarification.

Stakeholders and decision-makers can't, when looking at the data, determine what changes need to be made in forest management. It's impossible, on the basis of the data, to say whether we need much more forest restoration or conservation work. That's something that needs to be vastly improved.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Also in your report, recommendation 1.64 addresses Canada's approach for estimating and reporting greenhouse gas emissions from logging.

My next question is for the witnesses from Natural Resources Canada or Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The response from the departments mentions existing consultations, without a commitment to review the framework being used to estimate forest-related carbon. That needs to be done. The approach should be reviewed. Talking about your consultations will not provide a concrete response to this recommendation. Can you make a commitment today to review the approach being used by Canada to calculate forest sector carbon?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I'll make a start and then give the floor to my friends from Natural Resources Canada, who are handling framework review management.

To begin with, calculations pertaining to forests and their contribution in greenhouse gas emissions are complex. We acknowledge that. It's much more complicated to report on forests than on emissions from other sources.

Everything we do is reviewed. Our published report is examined internationally every year. Our methodology is internationally reviewed and respected. It's also reviewed by independent peers on an ongoing basis.

So it's not because we're not doing things properly. It's true that there is a transparency challenge with how we communicate. The commissioner mentioned the provinces, for example, and these are things we are now looking into.

As to the question about the framework, I believe people at Natural Resources Canada, together with our teams, are working with the provinces and stakeholders on a review of the framework.

I will let them answer that question.

[Glenn Hargrove]

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay.

Yes, we are reviewing the accounting approach. The consultations are part of that review.

Part of the challenge around the accounting approach is that a couple of different approaches are used internationally. The one that Canada uses is called a “reference level” approach. It really is scientifically based, and there are a lot of strong reasons for using that approach. However, it is less transparent than the simpler approach, which is called “net-net”.

We're reviewing that. We're consulting with stakeholders and experts to—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Do you have a timeline for the review, particularly for Canada's approach?

[Glenn Hargrove]

Yes. On the accounting approach, the consultations are under way. With the—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I wasn't asking about the consultations, but rather the new approach.

[Glenn Hargrove]

Yes, I understand.

The consultations are ongoing right now, with the idea of taking a decision on the approach going forward by the end of the calendar year.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I too want to thank the environment commissioner for this report and thank all those present here today for this important work.

I think this has to be grounded in the fact that climate change, the age of consequence, is here. We're experiencing that. We're seeing it work. My family in northern Alberta has experienced multiple wildfires in the last five years. The wildfires get worse and worse every year. Last year was the most horrific year. I watched elders run from their homes, completely surrounded by fire. In many cases, we didn't have the emergency preparedness to help them. I'm pleased to say that today many of the rebuilding efforts by the communities have been done. We lost over half the community of East Prairie Metis Settlement, one of the largest communities that occupy forests in Canada in the southern portion of the boreal forest.

The wildfires we experienced in Alberta were experienced by Canadians across the country. I've never seen before the amount of smoke and environmental effect on so many urban centres. This wasn't isolated to just the regions where the fires began. Edmonton was choking because of wildfires that could not be contained in the north. We saw that reality in Quebec. This is simultaneous with historic levels of flooding.

Canadians should know that when we speak about climate change, we're speaking about the very drastic and terrible situation we're in. This has been my frustration for many years, most particularly as a member of Parliament. I know we have programs designed to help combat climate change by way of reducing emissions, but I find it frustrating that with these programs, particularly this two billion trees program, time and time again there are many inconsistencies with the goal of trying to reduce emissions.

For example, we see in the report that there's a lifespan. Exhibit 1.4 on page 7 of the report looks at a time schedule that will eventually see the transformation of those planted trees into a carbon sink so we can begin to get hold of some of the immense emissions we have. The concern I have, though, is around whether we reach the goal of planting trees in a way that's diverse and in a way that will provide the kind of human qualities that are also important to a forest, the way we see in natural forests like the boreal forest.

Commissioner, first, with regard to the graph portrayed in your report in exhibit 1.4, what information did you review that took into account or did not take into account issues of the forest management practices of humans today? That's a portion of your report that I want you to highlight. Second, how does the demographic information here change based on the fact that they won't reach their target?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Thank you for reminding us of the human face to all of this.

We're talking about graphs and trees and so on, but it wasn't that long ago that the skies were orange here in Ottawa, as in Edmonton and elsewhere, because of the incredible fire season we had. It was felt not only here in southern Canada but also in the United States from the fires in Canada.

This is a sign of what can happen with catastrophic climate change. It's not just an academic issue. We're starting to see it in our daily lives, and it affects communities, especially those living in forested environments.

With respect to your questions, if they do succeed in planting two billion incremental trees and they act on the new agreements in principle and the new agreements, which are a good sign, then we would expect the payoff to start, as I said earlier, around 2031-32, when we would start to see the small trees that are planted today becoming large enough to become a carbon sink.

However, there's more to a forest than trees, and I think you're getting that as well. There are livelihoods of communities and there's the biodiversity associated with them. It was quite disappointing to see the partial disagreement with our recommendation to provide incentives for habitat restoration work for all project streams.

Natural Resources Canada did not accept that part of the recommendation, even though it's quite evident that from a biodiversity point of view, a community point of view and a resilience point of view, a more diverse forest has better benefits for biodiversity and for human health.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'll just stop you there. You mentioned the partial agreement, which is important. I want to understand, from Natural Resources Canada, why that partial agreement exists. Does Natural Resources Canada not understand the very important requirement for biodiversity?

[Michael Vandergrift]

Maybe I can start.

First off, we want to acknowledge the impacts of forest fires on your community, which you highlighted, and on people. Those are very important.

On biodiversity, we do provide extra incentives for the programs with the provinces and territories to support projects that increase biodiversity and deal with habitat.

These are more expensive trees to plant, and it becomes, at some point, an issue of how we best use the funds to achieve the overall objective. That is why at some point we try to increase biodiversity and habitat protection through the provincial and territorial agreements, but not through all of them. That's the view at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sure Mr. Desjarlais will have a follow-up question down the road.

We'll turn now to Mr. Stewart.

You have the floor for five minutes.