Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 8th, 2022

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I, too, would like to thank the witnesses who are with us today.

I would also like to thank all my colleagues who are fully engaged in this important study. It is truly rewarding to see all political parties committed to working together to address climate change and make the transition that is needed.

My first questions are for the commissioner.

Commissioner, this landmark report on Canada's response to climate change is a first, is it not? What motivated you to do this analysis? What was the idea behind it?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

This report is indeed somewhat different from all the others. We have summarized the audits that have been carried out from 1998 to date. Our aim was to give a historical picture of everything that had been done. Perhaps we applied lesson 8 ourselves: a typical performance audit covers the previous two or three years, but we realized that in this case we had to look at a much longer period, in this case 30 years. The period covered therefore starts when Canada began to be a leader in the fight against climate change and ends now, when Canada is no longer a leader in terms of its actions and their results.

Sometimes things can be learned by looking at small periods of time, but in this case we needed to look at a longer period of time, as evidenced in our lesson number 8. We looked at what had been done to achieve targets or plans that had been set not two or three years earlier, but 30 years earlier.

So we incorporated into our report all the lessons learned from what had been done over the past 30 years.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

As part of the work of this committee, audits are important too. So I look forward to seeing the audits that you mentioned. Some of them are ongoing, and concern the measures and policies that have been implemented.

In your opinion, Mr. DeMarco, what are the biggest obstacles right now to coordinating the work that needs to be done on the ground to achieve our targets? I'm asking this question with a focus on governance and accountability, because that's really what the committee's work is about.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

There are many obstacles.

First, departments work in silos. Not only the federal, but many other governments are organized in such a way that departments each have their own mandate. However, the challenges are there horizontally, that is, they affect all departments. So we need to rethink the vertical system and figure out how we can work horizontally within the same level of government.

Then, the different levels of government, for example provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities, need to work together to really make sure that they get results, rather than just making plans and setting targets. In Canada, we've had a lot of plans and targets over the last 30 years and a lot of studies, but not a lot of results.

In this respect, we differ from other G7 countries. Since 1990, our greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 20%, while those of the other G7 countries have not increased, or in many cases have even decreased by 30% to 40%. Canada has not contributed to the GHG reduction effort, unlike its G7 partners.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

In other words, we have work to do.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Chair, do I have any more time?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

No. Thank you.

Now we will move on to Madame Sinclair-Desgagné.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

We've heard a lot about the economic consequences of disinvestment in the oil sector, especially in the west, where many jobs depend on this sector which is gorged with subsidies from our taxes.

Mr. DeMarco, I would like to hear you speak briefly about the economic consequences of inaction.

How much has this inaction cost so far and how much will it cost us in the next few years if we don't act quickly and strongly?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Thank you for the question.

The cost of inaction is probably higher than the cost of action, as we have heard before.

In our office, Ms. Da Costa read the new report from an organization that has looked at the cost of inaction, quantitatively. These are not our figures or calculations, but Ms. Da Costa could give you some examples of these costs, particularly in relation to health and infrastructure.

Can you talk about that, Ms. Da Costa?

[Elsa Da Costa, Director, Office of the Auditor General]

Yes. Good afternoon.

We looked a little bit at the cost of doing nothing. We've been looking primarily at reports published by the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices a few years ago, regarding infrastructure and health.

For example, they talked about a cost of about $450 million just for flooding in the west, and that was just the initial cost for insurance. I know that several insurance groups have started to calculate their costs for each natural disaster. So the costs associated with inaction on climate change are enormous.

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

Perfect. Thank you very much, Ms. Da Costa.

Your words rounded off my intervention. In short, the experts here agree that the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.

At the same time, we can conclude that, unfortunately, regardless of the government in place, in recent years strong measures have not been put in place, and we are still suffering the consequences today.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

We will now move on to Mr. Desjarlais for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses again.

I'd like to focus in particular on one aspect of the report related to the overall theme of it, which is the lessons learned.

You've made a really excellent review of the last few decades and have been able to summarize for us parliamentarians the direct result of inaction. These are really scary and dire results that you folks are presenting today, and I want to be able to give Canadians across the country the clear answer as to what this report means for Canadians moving forward.

Just to quote a portion of it, “Canada's 2021 National Inventory Report...emissions were 730 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019, while its target for 2020 was 607 megatonnes.”

It's a true fact that Canada's emissions have increased and continue to increase. This is a real fact that Canadians have to understand for your purposes of public education.

Will you comment on the reality and fact that government, whether the current one or previous ones, has truly failed to hit our greenhouse gas emission targets, and could you describe what that could mean for Canadians?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes, that's the point of having the graph on the cover of our report, to remind people that, not only is the emissions curve disturbingly increasing, it has increased substantially since we started work on this three decades ago.

That differs from the other G7 nations, two of which have stabilized their emissions, and the others that have decreased them substantially. Canada has not walked the talk in terms of climate action, and this is despite having been, essentially, a leader in the field in the late 1980s with convening the first major conference on this issue in 1988, the green plan and then our leadership role at Rio, so Canada has to turn its good intentions into actions.

We don't want another hot destination to be paved with good intentions, as the saying may go. This is something that is a huge challenge, and it's really, as I've said before, something that obliges us to act in a way that preserves our environment and our quality of life for future generations.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Commissioner, just to be frank, the current federal program will not hit our targets, correct?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

No, we don't have a plan that meets our targets right now. The old plan is for the old target, and it was going to exceed the old target by a few percentage points. The old target has been displaced by the new target of 40% to 45%. The new plan that's coming out next month should add up. It's not for us to put it together; it's up to the federal government to put it together. But they have their 40% to 45% target for 2030 and they have an obligation in law to put out that plan by the end of March.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, and members for your hard work on this. It means a lot to me and Canadians.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Now we move on, for five minutes, to Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll direct my questions to Mr. DeMarco, following up on where I left off with respect to this government's record and its target of 45% in just eight years from now.

We saw a 1.1% reduction between 2005 to 2019. On the back of a paper napkin at the Biden climate summit farce, the Prime Minister came up with a new number of 45%, even though, of course, the government is so far off from meeting its Paris commitments and is the worst of any country in the G7.

I would just ask you, Commissioner, do you believe there is any possibility that the government could realistically meet a 45% reduction when it is so far off the mark to date?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

If the best predictor of future performance is past performance, then I would be a pessimist and I'd say it's not going to happen. But you see on the last page of our report that we strike an optimistic tone. Because of certain changes, including the carbon levy, the codification of net zero into law, the requirement for a new plan, there's reason to be optimistic. There's reason to be optimistic for other reasons, too, in terms of society's understanding of the problem and the global momentum. It is possible to meet it; it's a question of will. Will the government do what it takes to actually come up with a plan next month, and then, most importantly, implement that plan to achieve the target in 2030 and then eventually in 2050?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

With the greatest of respect, Mr. DeMarco, we would have to move 50 times faster than we have to date. This is after the implementation of a carbon tax and after a phasing out largely of coal fire-generated power throughout the country, which is low-hanging fruit so to speak. Again, on 45%, I thought your report optimistically spoke of 36%, and that really sounds optimistic.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

The 36% is the federal government's current projection of what their old plan would achieve. They're going to have a new plan next month. It is possible. As some of the witnesses—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Sorry to interrupt. You said it's possible. At what cost?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

That is what I was going to get to. It will be a big cost for both alternatives. One is adapting to a net-zero future and changing our economy to make sure that happens. That will come at a cost. But the cost of inaction.... There is no null alternative left, right?

We can't just say, we're going to continue with the status quo, because our carbon budget will be broken. We'll break the bank in terms of our GHG emissions and how much will be in the upper atmosphere heating the planet, which will just have a different type of cost for us in the form of flooding and premature deaths from heat waves and so on. Unfortunately, because of 38 years of inaction, globally and in Canada, we're facing two unattractive options: a major restructuring to reach net zero, or, if we don't do that, a more catastrophic level of climate change, with mass migrations and extinctions and so on.