Environment committee  Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss fossil fuel subsidies and Canadian climate and energy policy. I'd like to make three points and signal their most important implications. The first and most important point is this: The imperative of eliminating all fossil

Environment committee  Can I briefly make my third point?

Environment committee  Third, Canada must not only continue to raise its carbon price but also shore up all the loopholes. Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.

Environment committee  I would respond by saying that's it plainly not true. The over-400 signatories of the letter, me included, are all experts in a variety of aspects when it comes to climate change research, whether it's climate science or climate policy or energy modelling. There's just absolutely

Environment committee  Thank you. I appreciate the question. When we refer to regulatory capture, we're talking about a situation where the public interest in laws and regulations has been shifted to serving the interest of special, vested interests. This has long been the case with respect to environ

Environment committee  Absolutely.

Environment committee  I completely agree with that point. Fiddling with and playing semantic word games over “subsidy” versus “financial support” is deeply irresponsible and a waste of time. We have to eliminate all support to this industry. Furthermore, on all these supports that industry is asking

Environment committee  Yes. I would say to those and to EDC in particular, with all due respect, that when it says it is not providing subsidies but is providing supports, it's drawing a distinction without a difference when it comes to phasing out fossil fuel production. If it's going to continue to

Environment committee  I believe in climate science, and that's what it tells us we have to do to be on path to meet 1.5°C and our net-zero target.

Environment committee  I think that Canada, as a rich, highly developed country and a country that bears a disproportionate responsibility for having contributed to climate change, owes the world an obligation of leadership, which is expressly set out in article 4.4 of the Paris Agreement, which we are

Environment committee  That's a misleading number, sir.

Environment committee  Absolutely there will be costs. There will be—

Environment committee  —distributional costs, but we can address those by shifting financing away from the fossil fuel industry, retraining workers and shifting our economy to a green economy. This isn't a new concern, and we have plenty of guidance and work that's being done on how to achieve a just

Environment committee  Oh, absolutely affordability is a key issue.

Environment committee  Again, we can address affordability by not propping up the fossil fuels industry.