Agriculture committee  That will be me, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is John Moffet and I'm the assistant deputy minister of the environmental protection branch, which is the regulatory branch for environmental protection measures. I'm here this afternoon with my colleague Tara Shanno

Environment committee  I don't know if I should characterize it the way you did, but it would fix the targets so it would make them immutable.

Environment committee  I'm sorry. I just need to make sure I look at the amendment. Does it concern the targets or the plans?

Environment committee  The plans must include a target, and this is referring to plans. I apologize.

Environment committee  I'm scrolling through amendments here, and maybe we should be referring this to the committee clerk just so we're precise about precisely what is involved here.

Environment committee  It's just to clarify precisely what the implication of this amendment is.

Environment committee  Yes, the plans have to contain the target.

Environment committee  That's correct. A target cannot be made less stringent.

Environment committee  You have my apologies for taking you down the wrong path. Clause 11, as it's currently written in the bill, allows the minister to amend a target or a plan, again, provided that any new target must be more ambitious than the previous one. The BQ-12 amendment drops the target fro

Environment committee  The bill as amended would make the NDC the 2030 target. The government can amend the NDC from time to time, and the Paris Agreement calls on parties to continually increase their ambition. As we have observed over the past few years, and most strikingly with the issuance of the s

Environment committee  I think amendment G-3 has already made that clarification.

Environment committee  I think it's the opposite. The bill as currently written allows the minister to change targets, but only more stringently. The amendment before the committee at this time is to eliminate that provision, which would eliminate the authority to change targets.

Environment committee  Sure. The bill currently allows the minister to alter the targets, but only to make them more stringent. This amendment would eliminate the ability to change targets.

Environment committee  I need to be careful. I'm not here to provide the committee with legal advice, and I'm not here on behalf of the Department of Justice. It's our view from a policy perspective, in discussing this with the people who will be responsible for implementing the act, that “demonstrat

Environment committee  I think what we're talking about here is not methods for achieving reductions, but methods for reporting on emissions, and the federal government reports on emissions following standardized international protocols.