Environment committee  I would defer to my much more experienced colleagues. Smart Prosperity Institute in particular has issued piles of reports looking specifically at the strengths of the Canadian economy and how they fit with what we believe to be some key components of this emerging global clean-t

Environment committee  Given that the topic at hand is the pan-Canadian framework, one of the things I think is encouraging about it is that in addition to the price on carbon we've been discussing, it has all of these measures that are intended to do things like free up and encourage capital to flow t

Environment committee  Absolutely, yes. The thing with carbon prices that makes them a fairly effective policy instrument is that you can change them around. If they're not working, you can increase them or you can decrease them. If you're going to do something like invest billions of dollars in carbo

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  They'd be welcome to. Certainly a great many economists—I don't know if it's a majority or not because I don't know how they number themselves—who've looked at this have concluded that it is one of the most low cost to implement and most efficient in sending price signals to en

Environment committee  My understanding is that we're definitely not on track. If this is the status quo from now until 2030, we miss the target. We would join I think virtually every other signatory to the Paris Agreement in that. I think that gets to the complexity of the problem and the fact that t

Environment committee  I'm trying to think of the most recent numbers. Various prices on pollution have led to decreases in fuel use across the board. Sometimes there are other emissions coming from those countries for other reasons that wind up pushing up or negating some of the progress that carbon p

Environment committee  Do I still have the floor?

Environment committee  One thing I would say on the subject of international leadership is that most—in fact, all, I think—of the international organizations have looked at this thing. IPCC, the UN, various...and, I believe, even the IEA has looked at it, and said that one of the best mechanisms, one o

Environment committee  Yes, I can speak to that. Incidentally, the Walrus piece that I think you're referring to is actually an adaptation of the last chapter of my oil sands book, so you can find it there as well. I actually wrote recently in The Globe and Mail about various approaches. It wasn't spe

Environment committee  Yes, it was John Baird's “Turning the Corner” plan. It was not bad. Certainly, it did have potential mechanisms for putting a price on carbon. It really did seem to want to address in a broad, thorough way what was going on. It was not terribly well-received outside of the party

Environment committee  I would say, first of all, that it's one of the most difficult aspects of the entire complex nature of dealing with climate change. It's something where people have different understandings of what exactly it means. Are we talking about weather? Are we talking about long-term cha

Environment committee  There doesn't seem to be a quick shortcut in any case. For northern Europe, the European Union generally I would say, this was not as difficult a conversation to have because energy prices were already very high relative to Canada, where we have some of the cheapest electricity o

Environment committee  My name is Chris Turner. I'm an independent writer, journalist and communications consultant based in Calgary. Thank you to the committee for this opportunity to address you, and for the opportunity to share a little bit of the knowledge that I've gathered over the last 15 year