Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:02
NDP (BC)
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister and to all the officials for coming today.
Minister, you talked about how Canadians are concerned about the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis. You mentioned the $25-billion slowdown in our economy that is expected because of climate change.
Last night, hundreds of youth from across Canada joined us for a town hall on a youth climate corps. We had MPs from across party lines—Ms. May and Mr. van Koeverden were in attendance—and there is a real appetite from young people for this kind of transformative program. They really want an answer.
If this government is serious about tackling the climate crisis and supporting young people in entering into the jobs of the future, are you considering funding something like this?
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:04
NDP (BC)
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I'm glad to hear you're considering it and I hope you meet with young people. We have hundreds of young people across Canada who joined in-person watch parties, and they are passionate about making a difference. They're worried about the climate crisis. They want to get engaged. This is a really tangible way to do that.
Last year when you were here around this time, I asked you about the Trans Mountain pipeline. At the time, the costs had ballooned to $30.9 billion. This year, the costs have risen even more, bringing the total to $34 billion. At the time. I asked you if you thought purchasing the Trans Mountain pipeline was a mistake. You said you couldn't answer and that would be a question for the Minister of Finance. I'm curious if now, a year later, with costs rising even more, you believe that purchasing the Trans Mountain pipeline was a mistake.
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:05
NDP (BC)
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You are part of this government. You sit at the cabinet table. You make decisions with this government. Do you think it's a mistake?
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:05
NDP (BC)
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That answer makes me think that deep down, you believe that it was a mistake to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline, but you're not willing or you don't have the courage to say it. This is what we've seen from—
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:06
NDP (BC)
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This is what we've seen from your government time and time again. You might believe in climate change, but you're not willing to take the action required.
This government has continued to invest billions of dollars in carbon capture and storage, which maybe would be fine if the money were going just to direct air capture projects for hard-to-reduce emissions like steel and cement, but you're handing that money to big oil and gas companies that are making record profits.
Why would you not exclude them from the carbon capture and storage tax breaks so that those billions of dollars could be invested in climate solutions and those companies that have been fuelling the climate crisis could pay to clean up their own pollution?
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:07
NDP (BC)
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Environmental leaders have been calling on you to stop funding carbon capture and storage, to stop handing out billions of dollars—
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Adam van Koeverden - 16:07
Adam van Koeverden - 16:07
NDP (BC)
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I think it's actually mentioned that it's my time—
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:07
Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:07
Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:07
NDP (BC)
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I would hope that we could find agreement that we want to stop handing out billions of dollars to profitable oil and gas companies, but I haven't heard that agreement from you or from your party. Unfortunately, carbon capture and storage is just another giveaway to big oil and gas, much like buying a pipeline, which now costs taxpayers $34 billion. Those billions of dollars should be going into real climate solutions.
I do want to ask you—
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:08
NDP (BC)
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If you'd left it to them, if you'd excluded oil and gas from receiving this, great, but you didn't. You decided to include oil and gas companies in this tax credit. That was a choice. It is a choice by a government that continues to funnel—
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:09
NDP (BC)
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—public money into the pockets of oil and gas CEOs.
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:09
Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:23
NDP (BC)
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to ask the minister about forestry.
You mentioned the $35 million to respond to forest fires. Do you have a sense of how much forest fires and wildfires are costing Canadians right now?
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:23
NDP (BC)
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I would love to see the government's analysis.
In 2023, 18.5 million hectares of forest burned in wildfires across Canada. That is astronomical and unprecedented, more than double the area in the last worst wildfire season.
Without counting the health costs and the costs of damages on private property, there was a report saying that it cost about a billion dollars. While $35 million sounds like a lot, it may not be enough to tackle this huge issue that Canadians are facing. People are being evacuated from their homes. We are seeing kids choking on smoke.
One of the proposals that we put forward is a national firefighting force, a force that could respond to wildfires. We know that fighting forest fires is a provincial responsibility, but crews get quickly overwhelmed when we have unprecedented fires, and we are going to see more and more unprecedented wildfire seasons. They could also work year-round thinning forests and doing the kind of management that will hopefully prevent some of the catastrophic impacts.
I'm curious about where your government is on this proposal.
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:25
NDP (BC)
Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:25
NDP (BC)
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I'd love to hear just the answer to the question about the proposal.
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Hon. Steven Guilbeault - 16:25
Francis Scarpaleggia - 16:48
NDP (BC)
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On a point of order, or a point of clarification, I heard the official mention that “most of them don't drive cars”. I wonder if he can follow up in writing with—
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Jean-François Tremblay - 16:48
Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:01
NDP (BC)
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all of the officials for coming today and sharing their expertise and knowledge.
One of the questions I wanted to ask the minister but didn't get a chance to ask was around forestry emissions. Many experts, including the environment commissioner, have noted that emissions in the forestry industry are wildly under-reported. They estimate the government is under-reporting emissions by 100 megatonnes.
When are we going to see a review of these forestry emissions?
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:02
NDP (BC)
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Do you have any comments on the discrepancy? That's a huge number.
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:02
NDP (BC)
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The environment commissioner has noted this discrepancy, and experts are saying we don't have integrity in our accounting and that we're missing 100 megatonnes. That's huge.
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John Moffet - 17:03
John Moffet - 17:03
NDP (BC)
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Thanks.
I want to give you a quick opportunity to.... Maybe this is a question for Mr. Tremblay as well.
We've heard about the cost of the carbon pricing system, but there is a huge cost to climate change.
When we are comparing the impact of crop failures, droughts and extreme flooding on grocery store prices and folks who are struggling to pay for their food, do we have numbers on what the impact of the carbon pricing system is for Canadians?
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:04
NDP (BC)
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There are 15,000 preventable deaths every year.
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:05
NDP (BC)
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Could you follow up to the committee with the same kind of analysis that Mr. Moffet provided with the 0.33% figure? Could you find a similar number?
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:05
NDP (BC)
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If there is a larger look at one year or something along those lines, that would be helpful as well.
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John Moffet - 17:05
NDP (BC)
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Given the report showing that there's going to be a $25-billion slowdown in our economy because of the climate crisis, clearly this needs to be accounted for.
How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:06
NDP (BC)
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I know that there's other business, so I'll cede my time.
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:07
Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:18
GP (BC)
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I understand I have 30 seconds, Mr. Chair.
The question I'd like to pursue.... I may get more time from Madame Pauzé, I hope.
The question is related to the Supreme Court of Canada reference case. It's clear from this reference case that the entirety of the unconstitutionality within the impact assessment regime stems from changes made under the Harper regime in the so-called CEAA 2012.
What I want to know is this: Is the department examining using the recommendations from the expert panel in order to remedy the illegalities that crept in in 2012?
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:19
Terence Hubbard - 17:19
GP (BC)
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With all due respect, I don't have much time. That wasn't my question. My question was whether you are looking at the expert panel chaired by the former chair of BAPE, Johanne Gélinas. Are you looking at those recommendations to fix the errors that crept in in 2012?
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Terence Hubbard - 17:19
Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:19
GP (BC)
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Thank you so much, Madame Pauzé.
I hated to cut you off like that Mr. Hubbard, but the reality is that the expert panel report would, if enacted even now in remedying the environmental impact assessment regime, provide a full, comprehensive, legal and constitutional response that would remedy all of the defects identified in the reference case.
Given the time I have, I can't go through my annotated copy of the Supreme Court decision. What I'm asking is if Environment Canada, the Impact Assessment Agency and the Department of Justice will consider using Madame Gélinas' report now to completely repair the environmental assessment regime.
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Terence Hubbard - 17:20
GP (BC)
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With all due respect, Mr. Hubbard, the expert panel report was completely ignored by the agency and by the minister. Had those recommendations been accepted, we would be back in the four corners of federal jurisdiction from 1975. We've been paying a lot of tributes to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, and certainly when the Mulroney government passed the environmental impact assessment regime, it was completely constitutional.
If we had returned to the advice of the expert panel—and we still could—then we would have a completely constitutional regime that would also deal comprehensively with federal projects, whereas currently a great number of them are no longer reviewed at all.
I mention, just for the committee's benefit, paragraph 242 of the referenced case, which pointed out that in the past, thousands of federal projects were reviewed every year, but that after the passage of the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, in 2012, that number dropped to 70 a year. In other words, the government was doing less while being found by the Supreme Court to be conducting itself in a way that was ultra vires.
I don't accept at all your evidence, Mr. Hubbard, that the department used or leveraged the report of Madame Gélinas, and I would urge you to consider it now.
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Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:22
NDP (BC)
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Thank you.
I want to follow up on the question around costing the climate crisis.
I am curious. Right now with the modelling you do, you mentioned disaster by disaster, but are you doing yearly reports on the cost of the climate crisis in total? Is that something your department is tracking?
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:23
NDP (BC)
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The minister talked a little bit about at-risk whales and some of the numbers in terms of how we're protecting land, air and water.
Can we get an update specifically on land? I heard 14% or 15%. When the minister says that we are actually on track to meet those targets, what are the next steps the department will be taking in order to ensure that we'll meet those targets by 2030?
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Jean-François Tremblay - 17:24
Francis Scarpaleggia - 17:25
Jean-François Tremblay - 17:25