Natural Resources committee  I'm going to defer to my colleague Mr. Marshall to jump in.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's incredibly important that we make sure the way we are putting in climate policies brings workers alongside. We know that investments in the fossil fuel sector have the lowest job creation potential of any sector of the economy. That $50 billion to oil and gas would result in so many safer jobs, good-paying jobs, if we took that money and invested it in the renewable energy sector, in energy efficiency and in the clean growth economy, which have a future in a carbon-constrained world, whereas, as I said before, oil and gas are on the way out, as we see car companies committing to go fully electric.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. As has been said many times, the problem is the carbon embodied in the product. I'd like to disagree with the last witness, Professor Winter. If we increase the production of oil and gas, that will increase the amount of emissions in the atmosphere. Even, let's say, if we use carbon capture and storage—and again there was a question earlier about how much the industry wants—the industry wants $50 billion from the government to pay for carbon capture and storage.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for that question. The energy transition is happening whether or not we bury our heads in the sand and listen to oil and gas companies. Our oil and gas will never be the last barrel standing. It's among the most carbon intensive and expensive. That transition is happening.

Natural Resources committee  This is a fossil fuel subsidy, and the government's committed to eliminating those.

Natural Resources committee  When you're in a hole, you stop digging. Giving out fossil fuel subsidies is the exact opposite. It is literally pouring fuel on the fire. This is the trend that has been going on. This is the most subsidized sector of the Canadian economy. It has received enormous amounts of public funding over the years.

Natural Resources committee  As you said, in 2020 the government provided $18 billion to the fossil fuels sector; $13 billion of that was public financing through Export Development Canada. That's really “make it or break it” financing that oil and gas companies rely on in order to get big projects built.

Natural Resources committee  I would agree that the government has realized that it can't get away with giving subsidies to the sector the way it has for decades. Now it is using the promise of either job creation or environmental outcomes to disguise the same subsidies as something new. If job creation were the goal, then it would have been a critical criterion for receiving the funding.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today. I would like to provide some context around the federal government's track record when it comes to providing oil and gas companies with subsidies, and the patterns that are exemplified by the emissions reduction fund.

Finance committee  Right. One example of that is the $750 million that was just given, the methane emissions reduction fund. We are seeing more and more subsidies, especially during COVID, trying to achieve environmental outcomes. The question then becomes, could these be achieved by other means?

Finance committee  That's a response, the first response on the dependence of remote indigenous communities. Certainly that is not the first subsidy that needs to go, but the reality is that the vast majority of federal level subsidies are for production. They are not for consumption. It's often used as a smokescreen.

Finance committee  I would like to jump in on that. One of the recommendations we made through the Green Budget Coalition is that in the next budget, and in all budgets, we do a cost comparison. What are the costs of inaction? For example, the health-related costs of burning fossil fuels in Canada are $50 billion.

Finance committee  Yes, part of what Export Development Canada does is a financial package of tools to guarantee loans. Of the nearly $14 billion, just to clarify, 30% of that is to domestic oil and gas companies, and 70% is international. COVID will change that balance and skew it more towards the domestic.