Evidence of meeting #35 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 2050.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Finally, Commissioner DeMarco, what challenges have you found in implementing the greening government strategy that may be resolved through Parliament, such as regulations that may need to be amended?
1:55 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Those are decisions for Parliament to make, but one example, arising from a question a few minutes ago, is Crown corporations. Obviously, Canada is a shareholder of Crown corporations. It chose that vehicle for those lines of business. As a shareholder and the lawmaker, obviously, Canadians and Parliament can require Crown corporations to be subject to the greening government strategy. TBS itself could only encourage Parliament, or executive action could be used as an example of requiring something to be done instead of just encouraging it.
That would be one example.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That is the time. Thank you very much.
We go now to our last round. It will probably be our last round before the time is eclipsed.
Mr. McCauley, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Great.
Mr. Flack, I want to follow up on comments about Crown corporations. CPPIB's massive investments in developing countries are not especially known for having any care for the environment. Are we tracking those at all? Should they be part of this?
1:55 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
One of the reasons we need to do consultations on the Crown corporations is that, as you indicated, with the investment vehicles the government has, including CPPIB, there are questions on how they should be measuring emissions, or the emissions of the corporations—
2 p.m.
Conservative
2 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Right now, that is not being tracked. That's one of the things, based on the commissioner's recommendation, that we've committed to go back and consult on. I would say that for all of those investment vehicles, that's part of what the international task force is working on—
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm going to interrupt, because I have a couple of quick questions for you.
I know that the public accounts just came out. I looked and I wasn't able to find it, but then I didn't look that carefully. Do we break out how much we're paying per year for carbon offsets? Have we projected what it's going to be in carbon offsets to reach our goals?
2 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The projection point, as Bill indicated, will depend on how the technologies develop. For example, on the building front—
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it separated in the public accounts, or would you provide to this committee what we paid last year for those?
2 p.m.
Senior Engineer, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question—
2 p.m.
Conservative
2 p.m.
Senior Engineer, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
We currently do not use carbon offsets, so they would not appear in the public accounts.
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. So we're not buying anything right now. This is a future plan.
Would you be able to provide to the committee, for squadrons 412 and 437 that do the VIP flights, the last 10 years, say, of the emissions from those flights?
2 p.m.
Senior Engineer, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
That would be a question for National Defence and whether they could break that out from individual flights.
2 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
We'll have to take that one back, Mr. Chair, to see if we can get the data.
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
I have a quick question for you. Has DND done a study or looked at whether there's any degradation to our ability for our forces to run their operations as we look at carbon neutrality? Are we putting our men and women at risk by saying we'll use this fuel for the T26 or the F-35?
2 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
At this stage, Mr. Chair, operational capability is still paramount at Defence. There there have been no decisions or assessments of things that would put the force at risk. The investments to date have all been around things like building greening and buying electric vehicles—so no operational impacts.
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I know that DND is the largest building owner in terms of square footage. Can you ballpark me on this? How much is from our buildings' operations in Canada and how much is for national security operations abroad?
2 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Saleem, are you able to take that? If not, we'll have to come back.
2 p.m.
Director General, Environment and Sustainable Management, Department of National Defence
We don't break it down by deployed operations versus domestic. We'll have to look at that.
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Should we not be doing that? Like, how are we going to get to net 50 if we can't...?
2 p.m.
Director General, Environment and Sustainable Management, Department of National Defence
The challenge is where you buy your fuel. If you're in deployed operations and you're buying the fuel as part of a joint mission, we wouldn't account for that consumption or those emissions.
2 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It sounds like you're saying that if the fuel to run a frigate is not bought here, there are no emissions.