Natural Resources committee  I agree with what's been said before. I would also add an emphasis on land use emissions. We can just ask what the Americans are doing, and copy it across. I'm not sure it's a data indicator, and to an extent it already exists, but it's that concept of the social cost of carbon that is being used in regulatory impact analysis for regulatory action to mitigate climate change.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I think we definitely need to increase our capacity for analysis and to also include analysis of the political economy. I work more in the context of environmental assessments, and when I compare what we produce in Canada to what's being produced in the U.S., I am ashamed. The level and depth of analysis is much greater in the U.S., even if I don't agree with them on a whole lot of other things.

Natural Resources committee  In the U.S., there was one specific assessment in the context of the Colorado roadless rule. It was about a mine. There were court cases around it. The court rejected the initial assessment. The second assessment that was done included the social cost of carbon in it and was a much more robust and very detailed analysis.

Natural Resources committee  On the granularity of data, I would give the question over to modellers, but I think it's a good idea. The idea of having all of this open to the public is not only to build trust but also because we're dealing with probably the most complex problem we've ever had to face in the history of humankind.

Natural Resources committee  I would agree with everything that's been said so far. I think providing for analyses of alternatives to projects, plans, and policies is one function that would be very important for an independent information agency, because right now, too often, alternative scenario development is left in the hands of a proponent who has all the interest in the world in portraying alternatives to this project as not feasible or impossible.

Natural Resources committee  I'll just answer the forest question first and then jump to that one. Actually, unfortunately in recent years due to climate change we've had more intense forest fires and more insect outbreaks, which means that right now our forests are sources of emissions. They're emitting; they're not absorbing, unfortunately.

Natural Resources committee  I support that we use the least greenhouse gas-intensive forms of oil for the time that we cannot avoid using it, but I'm for getting off oil as fast as possible.

Natural Resources committee  In an ideal world, that would be the case. If we had more data, I believe that, in the short term, it would show how far we are from reaching the objectives and it would show, unfortunately, that we probably have more problems than we thought. We are actually not counting a number of sources of emissions: fugitive emissions, and emissions coming from changes in land use.

Natural Resources committee  Okay. Very quickly—maybe we can go deeper in question time—the social costs of carbon is a way of trying to assess the damage associated with the emission of one tonne of carbon into the future for that specific year, and then discount it back to a present value today so that we can compare it with costs and benefits today.

Natural Resources committee  Actually, I'll stop here and expand in the questions if someone is interested in this.

Natural Resources committee  I'm sorry I couldn't prepare a specific submission for my presentation today, but I'll basically be presenting some highlights of a collaborative and multidisciplinary research project on how to translate our international climate commitments into guidance for how we assess projects, policies, and programs in this country.

Environment committee  In fact, he suggested we use the word “viabilité” rather than “durabilité”. I don't think I could do justice to his eloquence since he is after all a journalist and an author. In short, the French word “durabilité” is ugly, it doesn't sound right and it gives the impression that something will endure and develop in an inherent way, whereas the notion of viability suggests instead a concept of inherent limits, the limits of the ecosystems within which we must stay.

Environment committee  I'll be real quick. One other thing having that amendment on respect for provincial law would do is stop the arguments about the frustration of purpose of federal law. There's a court of appeal. There's a court being heard in Quebec where basically the previous government, who shall not be named, created a legal vacuum.

Environment committee  I would like to say that the amendment we propose aims to clarify the fact that the rights of the province and indigenous jurisdictions must be respected or at least taken into consideration when the federal government makes a decision. The point, more specifically, is to avoid situations where promoters who are governed by federal regulation refuse to respect provincial laws.

Environment committee  As I said, it's that their jobs will be to regulate their projects. If they want to have a job, there need to be projects going forward, so that's pretty much an institutional bias in favour of approving projects. From the bad experience in Quebec, we think generalists are better placed to integrate the socio-economic and environmental considerations, rather than very narrow expertise.