Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 28th, 2022

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm happy to turn it back to the greening government strategy.

This question is directed to Mr. Flack.

Some departments in the report do not have a set date for the release of their greenhouse gas emissions reduction and net-zero plans. Why is that, and what will Treasury Board do to ensure these plans get released?

[Graham Flack]

Malcolm can speak about it a bit more, but we've taken a staged approach.

For the real property plans, which are the plans you're talking about, we started with the departments that represent the overwhelming bulk of emissions, 81% of emissions. There were eight departments. Those plans are completed. The plan was that, in the greening 3 plan, which will be next year, we would move to have the additional 19 departments have their plans in place.

Because the methodologies had to be developed and approved, we've been phasing it in by starting with the departments that represent the most emissions and then proceeding to the other ones that can do that.

Malcolm, are there other things you want to add?

[Malcolm Edwards]

I think you gave a pretty clear response. We also made a commitment to the management action plan, to clarify that in the next greening government strategy, to actually put a commitment in as to when those plans will be in place.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Is there any collaborative work or are there best practices being shared with other countries to work on this emissions reduction?

Mr. Flack?

[Graham Flack]

Yes. In fact, I thank Malcolm and the team. I'll point out that the greening government team is a small team of about a dozen people. They, along with the United States, have been co-chairing an international group, a greening government group which they've set up and pioneered with over 50 countries to do this type of sharing.

One of the reasons this takes time is that in many cases, we're developing new methodologies. We want them to be standardized according to international practices. Those are not necessarily all there for governments. That's why we've taken this approach of an international coalition, to move quickly and learn from others, and, frankly, to advance the progress in other countries, as well. That is one of the reasons that one of Malcolm's sidelines is taking questions from other governments, provincial or international, about the best practices we've applied, and similarly trying to learn from them, in terms of what they're doing.

That's one of the reasons this has had to go in steps with the three strategies. Not all of the pieces, including the way to quantify in a viable way scope 3 emissions, were well understood. If we have different governments taking very different approaches to measure this, it will be very difficult from a comparability perspective to know where it's going.

That's been the approach with this learning, and I think we're proceeding well. I completely take the point on speed being of the essence, as the commissioner did. We are trying to move it forward as quickly as we can, but part of that is using international practice to be able to accelerate the work.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Can you give me an example of a best practice that we've taken from another country and used?

[Malcolm Edwards]

We've been talking with countries about embodied carbon, which is the carbon in construction materials. We essentially have to extract the materials, process them, then put them in our buildings. That has a carbon footprint.

We've been working with the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and the General Services Administration in the U.S. to look at their equivalent to the greening government strategy, their executive order and the plans and processes they are putting in place. We're especially interested in partnering with the U.S., because a lot of our markets are North American.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Keenan, do you think the net-zero emission target for 2050 is realistic or achievable, given your present plans?

[Michael Keenan]

Mr. Chair, I think the net-zero 2050 plan is ambitious and will require a lot of effort and innovation, but, given the pace of innovation we're seeing in low-carbon technology and how rapidly that's evolving, we believe there's a feasible pathway. Not every element of that pathway has been nailed down yet, but it's changing in the right direction every year.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would you say we're on target with the timelines?

[Michael Keenan]

I would say, like DND, that we have not figured out every last change to get us to net-zero 2050, but the rate of progress and evolution of the carbon-neutral road map is such that I think we're on a pathway to get us there.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. I appreciate everyone sticking pretty close to the time today. In some cases, members have even timed themselves. That's always helpful.

I want to thank all the witnesses for appearing today. I believe everyone was here in person. That is superb. That's another sign we're getting back to normal.

Before I suspend the meeting, I have a few things to say.

First of all, I'll excuse the witnesses.

Thank you, again, for coming back a second time.

For members of Parliament who are virtual, as I am, we're going to log off and log back on. You have a few minutes to do that, but please do that right away, because we have a hard stop at the top of the hour.

Mr. Clerk, could you have the technician look for me? Because of my IT set-up here...it's not my office or devices. I might log in as a guest again, so they might need to flip me over like they did before. You might not see me, but I have the in camera coordinates. I'm going to use them, but it might not come up as my name again. They can switch me over, but they need to look for me.

We'll see you all in a few minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]