Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 28th, 2022

[Malcolm Edwards]

Sure.

To answer what scope 3 emissions are, it's probably easier to say what scope 3 emissions are not. Scope 1 emissions are fuel reburn, so gasoline, natural gas, etc. Scope 2 emissions are from energy we use indirectly: electricity. We have scope and control over that because we can decide how much gasoline and how much electricity we use. Scope 3 emissions are from all those indirect things: if we fly somewhere, if we use a service. Other companies are creating those emissions. Because those emissions are indirect and are created by somebody else, it makes measurement of them more difficult.

We have been tracking those emissions, and we have basically worked with an association out of the Université de Montréal called Polytechnique and two Swiss universities. They have looked at our procurement over three years, and they have basically helped us develop those procurement-related emissions. It's true that we had not published it, but we have now taken the information and put it on the web.

As the secretary mentioned, too, we're looking at commuting because in the hybrid environment, people are working from home and they're working from the office, so it's more sophisticated. We need to understand the global emissions, how much you emit working from home compared to the office.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

Quickly, Commissioner DeMarco, in your review of these scope 3 emissions, do you feel there's a need to actually have a standardized framework to measure these, or are you satisfied with the work that is being done with the partner in Montreal?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Give a very brief answer, please.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Following international standards is something we would support as well.

Scope 3 emissions of the government are often the scope 1 emissions of the airline industry or the building manufacturing and so on, so they are traceable. It's just a matter of having a consistent framework.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We will turn now to Mr. Genuis.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Prime Minister talks a lot about encouraging others to reduce emissions. I was looking for information about his own personal emissions, including, for instance, through travel.

My understanding is that, despite the fact that he travels often with DND, which would suggest that it should be categorized as scope 1 emissions, based on my understanding of it, at least, this information is not available. Is there concrete information available about the use of emissions associated with the Prime Minister's work and how much that is increasing or decreasing?

[Graham Flack]

I'll turn to Malcolm. I think we report emissions, the total emissions, from flights. I don't think we break it down to an individual flight by an individual person.

Malcolm, maybe you could help.

[Malcolm Edwards]

Sure.

We track it on a departmental basis, so we don't itemize. We basically get aggregated data from each department on its travel on an annual basis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay, so, with regard to the Prime Minister's Office, do we have that data, or is it broader than that even?

[Malcolm Edwards]

We basically only track the public service, so we don't track ministers' travel or MPs' travel. We just track on a departmental and agency basis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. I guess I'm asking this: Under which department are you tracking the Prime Minister's or individual ministers' travel? Would it be under their departments or, in the case of the Prime Minister, the PCO?

[Malcolm Edwards]

If he flew on a Defence plane, that would be part of, as you said, the scope 1 emissions of that plane. The national safety and security emissions that National Defence reports to us wouldn't be itemized out.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay, so, there currently is no way of pulling out the data on the level of emissions being produced by particular public figures or whether those are going up or down. That data is not available.

[Malcolm Edwards]

No, and we are also careful about the information we report and how we disaggregate it for safety and security reasons, too. We have to be aggregated to a certain level just to protect—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Right. I mean, the Prime Minister's itinerary is extremely public, though. There might be rare exceptions, but surely privacy or security wouldn't be the barrier in terms of knowing the level of emissions produced by his travel, given the publication of the itinerary, right?

[Malcolm Edwards]

Yes, at [Inaudible—Editor], we don't itemize travel to that extent.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. I guess it's a worthwhile point to maybe consider because I think the public wants to see politicians who talk about these issues also reveal whether or not they are leading by example. There certainly has been a lot of discussion around this.

I want to also ask about, in terms of the Defence department's current projections to 2050, the discussions around the fact that your current projections suggest a gap and that, on the current track, you will not achieve net zero by 2050. Therefore, the proposal is to offset that through the purchase of carbon offsets in 2050.

Do you have a projection of how much money the government would spend as part of our defence budget in 2050 to purchase offsets if we were to stay on the current trajectory?

[Bill Matthews]

It's a bit of a complicated answer, Mr. Chair.

I think when I was referring earlier to the targets where we need additional measures to meet those targets, that was for departmental operations. Let's put aside for a moment the ships and planes, the national security types of assets. On the 63% that we're currently on track for with existing measures, that's for operations. That's buildings, vehicles...not the national security types of assets.

I think there's still some work to be done by industry to see what kind of fossil fuel improvements they can make in terms of what you fly an F-35 with and what you fuel a ship with. As was mentioned, to the extent that those do not get reduced—and it's hard for me to speculate that far ahead—there is the option to purchase carbon credits. I have no sense at this stage of what the cost might be around that market.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay, but just to put a finer point on this, the plan of the government seems to be—other than speculative technologies that haven't been developed yet—to purchase carbon offsets.

I would like to know—and if you don't have this answer, I'd appreciate it if you could report back to the committee—how much money the Government of Canada is planning to spend on carbon offsets in 2050, because that money comes out of our defence budget. It comes out of money that could otherwise be spent on keeping Canadians safe. I don't anticipate that Russia, China or Iran will be spending their defence budgets on carbon offsets, and it would be worth knowing where those carbon offsets would go. I'd appreciate a follow-up in writing with some of that information.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay. That's noted. Thank you.

Ms. Atwin, it's nice to have you here today. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's nice to see a fellow New Brunswicker leading committee today.

I'm joining you from unceded unsurrendered Wolastoqey territory here in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

It's certainly an honour to be part of this conversation today, and I thank all the witnesses for their important testimony.

I believe my initial question would be best suited for Commissioner DeMarco.

Several other countries—France, the United Kingdom and the United States—have implemented their own plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by their national governments. Is there any collaborative work or are there any best practices being shared to work on emissions reductions?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Colleagues from Treasury Board will be able to elaborate on this, but Canada is part of a group of countries that is seeking to lead by example in greening government. We've listed some in paragraph 2.5 of our report, but there are several dozen.

Perhaps Treasury Board could elaborate on that.

[Malcolm Edwards]

Yes. We basically have partnered with our colleagues in the U.S. Our equivalent in the U.S. is called the Council on Environmental Quality. It's based out of the White House.

In the spring of this year, we announced something called a greening government initiative. That's a collaboration of, I think, up to 50 countries right now, where we're sharing best practices, guidance and so on. At the last meeting we had in September, the President of the Treasury Board opened the meeting. It focused on fleet activities. Canada, Norway and I believe Israel presented on how they're doing it to decarbonize their conventional fleets.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

That's excellent. Thank you very much.

It's going to take all of us, I think, for this grand project that we're undertaking.

I'd like to direct my next question to Mr. Flack.

Would you happen to have any recommendations, advice or insights into what the House of Commons may do to green its operations in taking our own responsibility in this piece?

[Graham Flack]

I hesitate to give advice to the House of Commons.

I can say that there's one project in which you may be interested in terms of how the Commons is actually heated and cooled: an upgrade to the heating facility that's near the Supreme Court of Canada. That is being converted to a facility that will be just about exclusively powered through hydroelectric power from Quebec. There's also a major upgrade of the pipes to increase their energy efficiency. That will be a major step forward in greening the heating and cooling of the House. That's an example of something where the rest of the government's facilities are able to help.

I think what I've learned from folks like Malcolm is just taking a systemic approach at the structural level when you have the opportunities to make the change, as you did in developing this building at the West Block. It's very difficult to get significant efficiencies when you're retrofitting. It's when you're doing a major structural change to the building that you want to really go to the max so that you can get the 40-year benefit out of those savings.

That's why I think very core to the Government of Canada meeting its emissions—and buildings are obviously a huge part of that—is that as each building comes up for its life-cycle renewal, just taking the maximum opportunity to invest in that zero capability is really critical, because that opportunity doesn't come along very often.