Debates of Sept. 26th, 2023

Department of Public Works and Government Services Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate.

For his right of reply, I recognize the hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I proudly rise today for the final right of reply to Bill S-222 at third reading. This bill, commonly known as the use of wood in government infrastructure bill, has a long history in this place, but I think it is safe to say after debate this afternoon and a vote tomorrow that it will finally become law in Canada.

I will try to be brief in my remarks, but I should give a little history of what is happening here today. It all started 13 years ago, in 2010, with a private member's bill put forward by the Bloc Québécois MP Gérard Asselin, as my colleagues here in the Bloc have already pointed out a couple of times this afternoon.

That bill specifically asked the minister of public works to consider the use of wood in building federal infrastructure, much as the Wood First Act had done in British Columbia the year before that and the Quebec Charte du bois did later in 2013.

My legislative assistant, Cameron Holmstrom, brought the bill to my attention in 2016 when I was looking for private members' bill ideas. I was keen on supporting the emerging mass timber sector, because the main proponent of that sector in Canada, indeed North America, was Structurlam, a company based in my hometown of Penticton, British Columbia.

I tabled that bill as Bill C-354 in 2017. It passed second reading into committee, and there it was amended to deal with some concerns about its specific focus on wood. Thanks to collegial work and some good ideas, some of them coming from Sandra Schwartz at Natural Resources Canada, the language in the bill was changed to emphasize the environmental benefits of prospective building materials.

I must say I was actually happier with the new version, which is something one does not always hear from someone who has had their private member's bill amended. It passed through the House of Commons in May 2018. Unfortunately, it languished in the Senate, an innocent bystander to some shenanigans there, and died with a lot of other private members' business when that Parliament ended just over a year later.

I want to thank once again my friend, Senator Diane Griffin, who introduced it in the other place as Bill S-222 in this Parliament in November 2021. That is what we are debating today. After passing through the Senate, it came to this chamber and is nearing the end of that journey.

I want to thank everyone who has spoken to this bill over the years and everyone who has supported it and made good suggestions about it.

I have talked to Adam Auer, an old student of mine, who is now the head of the Cement Association of Canada, about the new concrete products that will compete well under the terms of the bill.

I want to highlight also the support of the Forest Products Association of Canada, particularly Derek Nighbor, who has been a constant source of encouragement.

For decades, we built our big buildings out of concrete and steel. One of the main goals of this bill was simply to point out to the government and society as a whole that engineered wood is now a real option. Engineered wood, mass timber, will give our forest sector another domestic market to sell to, allowing us to reduce our reliance on the United States for lumber sales. Canada leads the continent in these sectors and government procurement will help us keep on track to stay in the lead.

The government has the capacity to carry out the intent of this bill. Through life-cycle analysis, it can provide fair assessments of all building materials for their carbon footprint and other environmental benefits.

This bill is a win-win-win for Canada. It would help build better infrastructure in our country, beautiful and safe buildings that would have a light footprint on our environment. It would also help us meet our climate targets and would spur innovation in the building materials sector.

This bill has enjoyed unanimous support throughout its latest journey in Parliament, and I am hoping that will continue after this debate.

Thanks once again to all who have spoken to this, to all who have contributed to it over the years.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 98, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, September 27, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Climate Change

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, as members know, the climate crisis is on our doorstep. This year, our country has been burning from unprecedented, climate-fuelled wildfires, with 131,000 square kilometres of land burned this summer alone, which is more than double the next-worst wildfire year on record. In a vicious feedback loop, this in turn has released more than one and a half times our annual emissions from carbon stored in trees and soil.

It is clear that we need urgent and bold action, and it should go without saying that this means we need to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure. In fact, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.” He goes on to say, “Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” However, this is exactly what the Province of Ontario is doing. It is planning to build new gas plants that will increase emissions from the province's electricity sector and then lock them in with long-term contracts and financing arrangements.

While the governing party has committed Canada to achieving a net-zero carbon electricity grid by 2035, its recently released regulations meant to achieve this have been weakened so badly that loopholes now allow for expanded and prolonged use of natural gas on the electricity grid. Specifically, these loopholes allow for two natural gas plants to operate at full capacity, 24-7, until the end of 2040 and 2037. They allow for all of Ontario's gas plants, except one, to operate for 450 hours per year. Worst of all, they allow for the Government of Ontario to proceed with its plans to build up to 1,500 megawatts of new gas-fired generating capacity.

What does this mean? It means that these loopholes in the draft regulations allow for greenhouse gas pollution from Ontario's power plants in 2035 to exceed their 2017 levels by up to 178%.

What is the point of so-called clean electricity regulations if they allow emissions to almost triple? There are 35 municipalities, including the City of Kitchener, I am proud to say, together representing almost 60% of the province's population, that have now passed resolutions calling for the opposite: to phase out gas power in Ontario by 2030 or sooner.

The good news is that it is not too late. The federal government published these draft regulations on August 10. The formal consultation on the regulations ends November 2. We could still have regulations that truly do achieve net-zero emissions from Canada's electricity sector by 2035, as the government has said its intention is, but to get there, we have to absolutely stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure, and this includes expanding natural gas-fired electricity.

We could do it sooner if we really wanted to. A new report from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance shows that Great Lakes wind power could supply more than 100% of Ontario’s current electricity needs. We could build it in less than a year at 40% the cost of nuclear. The Ontario government though is not going to do it on its own.

Will the parliamentary secretary today commit to strengthening the clean electricity regulations and closing these loopholes?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, it has been a good summer, and it is nice to see you back here in the House of Commons. It is also nice to see my friend and colleague from Kitchener Centre. The member from the Green Party is a voice of reason in this House, and I want to thank him for bringing really good ideas forward to this House.

I have accepted this new position as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and every time I have stood up in the House of Commons on behalf of the minister until now, it has unfortunately been to speak to the opposite, to speak to members of the Conservative Party who believe that we are doing too much to fight climate change and that we should do less to fight climate change. It is refreshing to be sitting just down the way from a member who believes, like I do, that we ought to do more to fight climate change and who agrees that creating a clear path forward to a net-zero electricity grid by 2035 is absolutely essential to enabling other parts of the economy to decarbonize by switching fuels.

To exemplify why I personally believe that this is so important, I have a brief anecdote. I often talk about my past as an Olympic athlete in this House. It is where I come from. We all come from different places in this House. There are 338 members with 338 different backgrounds. When I was 20 or 22 years old, I was training at a very high level. In 2005, the air quality was so bad in Ontario that I actually had to travel to Europe for the remainder of the summer to complete my training for the world championships. This was disappointing because, living in Canada, we grow up thinking that this is a beautiful and clean country with a massive hinterland and lots of trees that clean our air. However, the fact was, back then, in 2005, that Ontario still relied on coal to generate electricity, which led to really bad air quality levels. In 2005, there were actually over 40 smog days in the province of Ontario, which disproportionately affected our little area, halfway between Hamilton and Toronto, on Sixteen Mile Creek at the Burloak Canoe Club.

I was really proud of the fact, back then, that the Liberals of the day ran on a commitment to end all coal-fired power generation, and that we, in Ontario, were actually the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. It is important to recognize that today, in 2023, we are 15 years or so removed from that reality of ending coal-fired power, and since then we have not had a single smog day. These policy decisions have a really important impact on our life, our health, our livelihood, our communities and certainly our ability to fight climate change, which is the most existential threat of our generation.

All G7 countries have committed to net-zero electricity by 2035, and the U.S. government just released its clean power regulation last spring. A clean electricity grid is also becoming an increasingly important factor in international competitiveness, as investors, industry and consumers are all looking for clean power.

Our government is using a range of tools, including regulations, investment tax credits and funding programs, to clean Canada's electricity grid, and it is working closely with provinces to identify regional priorities for clean energy.

I would like to acknowledge that across Canada, every province has a different intermix of electricity generation. We have provinces, like Saskatchewan and Alberta, that still use quite a lot of coke, coal and a majority of natural gas. Gratefully, in Ontario, our strong hydroelectric contributions, as well as nuclear, mean that over 80% of our grid is greenhouse gas-free. It means that only 6% of our electricity generation comes from natural gas. However, it is important to make sure that this does not grow. We want to make sure that our grids get cleaner and cleaner, particularly the ones that are still using coke and coal to generate electricity, which is last-century technology.

To send clear and early signals to investors and utilities, we published the draft clean electricity regulations in August 2023 for public comment. This will set a technology-neutral emissions performance standard that fossil fuel-fired electricity generation will need to meet by 2035. Those draft regulations include some flexibilities to enable some provinces and utilities to continue to provide reliable and affordable energy and electricity to their consumers as they transition to 100% clean electricity. Those flexibilities enable some ongoing natural gas generation in strictly circumscribed conditions. It is certainly not all and certainly not in the way of growing those capacities.

The CER, along with other complementary measures, will help spur investments in clean electricity and send strong signals to avoid investment in new unabated—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Kitchener Centre.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the parliamentary secretary on his new role. I am looking forward to working with him.

However, given his experience in Ontario, he should be just as angry as I am that we have a province that is looking to actually increase natural gas on the electricity grid. The only way to stop doing so is by closing what he calls “flexibilities”, and what I am calling a loophole, in these regulations.

Will the parliamentary secretary commit to ensuring that these regulations do not allow for new fossil fuel infrastructure to get built in Ontario?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, the clean electricity regulations, along with other complementary measures, will help spur investment in clean electricity, sending strong signals to avoid investment in new unabated natural gas generation products, and will help drive forward the development of emerging clean technologies.

We really need to address the squeakiest wheels in Canada. I am angry at the provincial government's plans to increase natural gas electricity production in this province, just as my colleague mentioned. I am also frustrated that we have provinces in Canada that continue to use coke and coal to generate electricity. It means that if a consumer buys an electric car in one of those provinces, when they plug the car in, instead of running on gasoline, it actually runs on a less clean product, like coke and coal, which is something we want to try to avoid and ensure that provinces get off.

In conclusion, the clean electricity regulations are just one action we are taking to move Canada's electricity sector to net zero and to expand the generation of clean electricity to support other sectors in their decarbonization plans. I thank the member—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Bow River.

Carbon Pricing

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is good to see you back and good to see my colleague on the opposite side. We have had many conversations over the years, and I appreciate the opportunity to have that discussion again tonight.

One of the things that happened in this particular summer was a tour. There were ag journalists from all over the world at a conference in Alberta. One of the options they had was to tour around to different places. One of the tours was in my riding, looking at irrigation and ag producers. It was a privilege to be invited along with this busload of journalists from around the world, and I was sitting beside one from Montreal, one from Iowa in the U.S. corn belt, and another one from Brazil. We talked about agriculture. Of course, because I am from the government, the journalists asked me about the policies of how it works.

I could not resist asking about carbon tax. The journalist from Montreal suggested that they did not have a carbon tax because they have cap and trade. I asked, “What about the second carbon tax, the clean fuel standard?” He said, “Oh, we do not have that in Quebec.” I said that he might want to check on that. The journalist from the U.S. said, “carbon tax?” She was not familiar with it in their country. I said, “When we stop at producers' places, why not ask them about the carbon tax?”

We are not talking about the diesel. We are not talking about rebates, because these ag producers do not get a rebate. These people are not the rebate people. We are talking about the power for electricity on pumps for irrigation. Seventy per cent of the irrigation in the country is in my riding. That is 4% of the arable land in Alberta producing over 20% of the ag GDP.

When we stopped, The U.S. journalist asked a farmer whether they pay carbon tax. The farmer said, “I have bills I can show you. I have paid $100,000 in carbon tax alone.” Afterwards, the journalists were surprised. The one from Iowa said they did not know how we compete in the world market. They are happy in the U.S. because we cannot compete with them because they do not have that carbon tax. The one from Montreal said that they do not have a carbon tax either. I said, “Check on it. You have the clean fuel standard, and that is in your ag sector.” The one from Brazil said, “I do not know how you are going to compete on the international market.”

That is the challenge with our irrigation: the carbon tax on the electricity. I am not talking about diesel. These guys do not get rebates. Seventy per cent of irrigation is in my riding, and the farmers are paying huge carbon tax on the electricity. This is a challenge to stay competitive. This is a challenge to stay in the ag business as producers, and it is going to triple. The ag producers do not understand how they can stay in the business.

We are talking about innovative agricultural producers. We are talking about carbon sequestration in their crops. We are talking about the way they are developing their crops with zero tillage. A lot of the activities they are doing are world-leading, but the carbon tax is killing our food security because these ag producers cannot sustain this level of tax on the electricity it takes for their irrigation pumps to work. It is problematic for food security in this country.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, I know that Conservatives do not like to deal in facts, but I am going to put a few facts on the table and the first one is around affordability. In 2006, when the Conservatives came into office, Canada ranked 17th in the OECD when it came to child poverty, and by the time they left in 2015, Canada ranked 24th. It is a little hard to take them seriously when they talk about poverty.

Members do know one thing: After coming into office in 2015, Canada now ranks second in the OECD when it comes to child poverty. There is more work to be done. Facts matter and the member deals in falsehoods and things he makes up because there are no facts on the table when talking to the member regarding climate change or poverty in this country.

Another point is when the member talks about farm fuels. Farm fuels in Alberta and across the country are exempt from the price on pollution, and the reason some electricity in Alberta might be subject to carbon pricing is because 80% of the grid in Alberta is still fuelled by coke, coal and natural gas. That is a problem for Canada because climate change is a problem for Canada.

Throughout this summer, we had unabated, unprecedented wildfires that took the homes of thousands of Canadians and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of Canadians. I will take no lessons from the Conservatives when they talk about climate change, primarily because my colleague, and all Conservative members, ran on a commitment to put in a carbon pricing scheme.

Canadians looked at that plan. It was far worse than any other party's plan to fight climate change and that is why they did not earn votes from any environmentalists in the last election. I do remind the member that he, along with all of his colleagues, including the member for Carleton, ran on a commitment to price carbon.

Not only do the Conservatives have no credibility when it comes to fighting climate change, but they also have no credibility when it comes to following through on their commitments. The only thing they have been arguing over the last two years is their “axe the tax” slogan for T-shirts and bumper stickers.

On food pricing, I will say food is too expensive in Canada. We need to find real solutions to drive down the price of food and stabilize grocery bills for families. Trevor Tombe, an economist from the same province as my colleague came out with some facts, some figures and some actual numbers to indicate the impact that carbon pricing in Canada has on grocery bills in our country.

What he came up with was a very clear representation of the exact price for an average family. Food has gone up by dozens of dollars a month, but he attributes just $2 a month on the price of groceries to the price on carbon in Ontario and $5 a month on the price of groceries for an average family in Alberta.

When the member opposite says that axing the tax, as the Conservatives have been repeating ad nauseam for the last two years, it is going to be a way to fight for affordability for families, that is not based on facts. That is based on rhetoric. That is based on bumper stickers. That is based on this gut, common-sense feeling the Conservatives rely on for policy, but economists disagree. Smart economists with calculators sort these things out.

Again, we will take no lessons from the Conservatives when it comes to affordability or fighting climate change. In budget 2023, we announced historic clean technology investments and I will get to that after the next comment.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I can get the farmers' bills on the actual cost of the carbon tax. I am talking about electricity. I am talking about the electricity generated that it costs for food. I am talking about the actual impact of the carbon tax on our ag producers. It is a fact.

About 7% of the generated Alberta grid is produced by solar and wind. We have more solar and wind than any other province in Canada. However, when it is -30°C in January, there is no solar power. In the summer when the wind was not blowing, there was no power for wind turbines because they were not moving.

We need food security. That is economic security and that is important. I am standing up for our ag producers—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, this trope that renewable energy does not work in cold climates or that renewable energy requires sunny days and windy days exclusively is tired and it is not based on facts. Alberta is the sunniest province in Canada. Its capacity for generating renewable electricity knows no bounds.

The investments in renewable electricity in that province are also extraordinary, but this past summer, Premier Danielle Smith said it was putting a moratorium on any renewable energy projects for the rest of the year, putting in jeopardy its commitment to end its reliance on coal and coke.

The member opposite just cited the number 7%. That is how much of the electricity on the grid in Alberta is generated by wind and solar; that is not enough. By the way, wind and solar are not the only renewable energy sources. We can also generate electricity with hydroelectric, nuclear and many other ways.

This conversation for my colleague is one that he ought to have with his provincial colleagues in Alberta who are refusing to green their grids.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:30 p.m.)