Manitoba Committee Hansard — 25 October 2018 (Legislative Affairs Committee, Sitting 6, 41st Legislature, 3rd Session)

41-3-la6

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Third Session – Forty-First Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba Standing Committee on Legislative Affairs Chairperson Mrs. Sarah Guillemard Constituency of Fort Richmond Vol. LXXI No. 6 - 6 p.m., Thursday, October 25, 2018 ISSN 1708-668X

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Forty-First Legislature Member Constituency Political Affiliation ALLUM, James Fort Garry-Riverview NDP ALTEMEYER, Rob Wolseley NDP BINDLE, Kelly Thompson PC CLARKE, Eileen, Hon. Agassiz PC COX, Cathy, Hon. River East PC CULLEN, Cliff, Hon. Spruce Woods PC CURRY, Nic Kildonan PC DRIEDGER, Myrna, Hon. Charleswood PC EICHLER, Ralph, Hon. Lakeside PC EWASKO, Wayne Lac du Bonnet PC FIELDING, Scott, Hon. Kirkfield Park PC FLETCHER, Steven, Hon. Assiniboia Man. FONTAINE, Nahanni St. Johns NDP FRIESEN, Cameron, Hon. Morden-Winkler PC GERRARD, Jon, Hon. River Heights Lib.

GOERTZEN, Kelvin, Hon. Steinbach PC GRAYDON, Clifford Emerson Ind. GUILLEMARD, Sarah Fort Richmond PC HELWER, Reg Brandon West PC ISLEIFSON, Len Brandon East PC JOHNSON, Derek Interlake PC JOHNSTON, Scott St. James PC KINEW, Wab Fort Rouge NDP KLASSEN, Judy Kewatinook Lib. LAGASSÉ, Bob Dawson Trail PC LAGIMODIERE, Alan Selkirk PC LAMONT, Dougald St. Boniface Lib. LAMOUREUX, Cindy Burrows Lib. LATHLIN, Amanda The Pas NDP LINDSEY, Tom Flin Flon NDP MALOWAY, Jim Elmwood NDP MARCELINO, Flor Logan NDP MARCELINO, Ted Tyndall Park NDP MARTIN, Shannon Morris PC MAYER, Colleen, Hon. St.

Vital PC MICHALESKI, Brad Dauphin PC MICKLEFIELD, Andrew Rossmere PC MORLEY-LECOMTE, Janice Seine River PC NESBITT, Greg Riding Mountain PC PALLISTER, Brian, Hon. Fort Whyte PC PEDERSEN, Blaine, Hon. Midland PC PIWNIUK, Doyle Arthur-Virden PC REYES, Jon St. Norbert PC SARAN, Mohinder The Maples Ind. SCHULER, Ron, Hon. St. Paul PC SMITH, Andrew Southdale PC SMITH, Bernadette Point Douglas NDP SMOOK, Dennis La Verendrye PC SQUIRES, Rochelle, Hon. Riel PC STEFANSON, Heather, Hon. Tuxedo PC SWAN, Andrew Minto NDP TEITSMA, James Radisson PC WHARTON, Jeff, Hon.

Gimli PC WIEBE, Matt Concordia NDP WISHART, Ian Portage la Prairie PC WOWCHUK, Rick Swan River PC YAKIMOSKI, Blair Transcona PC

197 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS Thursday, October 25, 2018 TIME – 6 p.m. LOCATION – Winnipeg, Manitoba CHAIRPERSON – Mrs. Sarah Guillemard (Fort Richmond) VICE-CHAIRPERSON – Mr. Greg Nesbitt (Riding Mountain) ATTENDANCE – 11 QUORUM – 6 Members of the Committee present: Hon. Mr. Pedersen, Hon. Ms. Squires Messrs. Altemeyer, Bindle, Mrs. Guillemard, Messrs. Lamont, Lindsey, Marcelino, Nesbitt, Wowchuk, Yakimoski APPEARING: Mr. Wab Kinew, MLA for Fort Rouge Hon. Steven Fletcher, MLA for Assiniboia Hon. Jon Gerrard, MLA for River Heights PUBLIC PRESENTERS: Ms.

Courtney Tosh, private citizen Mr. Gene Degen, private citizen Ms. Alanna Phillips, private citizen Mr. Hank Venema, Strategic Community Consulting Mr. Ian Walker, private citizen Mr. Barry Prentice, private citizen Mr. Zach Fleisher, private citizen Ms. Molly McCracken, private citizen Ms. Jazmin Alfaro, private citizen Ms. Gloria Taylor, private citizen Mr. Matthew Lawrence, private citizen Mr. Edward Burgener, private citizen Mr. Zainab Mansaray, Canada Sierra Leone Friendship Society Inc. Ms.

Angela Reeves, private citizen WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS: Ervin Bartha, private citizen Deborah Judith, private citizen Alex Green, private citizen Jennifer Lukovich, private citizen Joseph Kornelsen, private citizen Robin Bryan, private citizen MATTERS UNDER CONSIDERATION: Bill 16 –The Climate and Green Plan Implementation Act * * * Madam Chairperson: Good evening. Will the Standing Committee on Legislative Affairs please come to order. Our first item of business is the election of a Vice-Chairperson. Are there any nominations? Mr. Kelly Bindle (Thompson): I'd like to nominate Mr. Nesbitt. Madam Chairperson: Mr.

Nesbitt has been nominated. Are there any other nominations? Hearing no other nominations, Mr. Nesbitt is elected Vice-Chairperson. This meeting has been called to consider Bill 16, The Climate and Green Plan Implementation Act. I would like to inform all in attendance of the provisions in our rules regarding the hour of adjournment. A standing committee meeting to consider a bill mu st not sit past midnight to hear public presentations or to consider clause by clause of a bill except by unanimous consent of the committee.

In addition, if necessary, the Standing Committee on Legislative Affairs will meet again to consider Bill 16 Mon day, October 29th, at 6 o'clock p.m. We have a number of presenters registered to speak tonight, as noted on the list of presenters before you. We will therefore continue from where we left off last night. Written submissions on Bill 16 have been received from the following persons and distributed to the committee members: Ervin Bartha, Deborah Judith, Alex Green. Does the committee agree to have these documents appear in the Hansard trans cript of this meeting.

Agreed? [Agreed] Before we proceed with presentations, we do have a number of other items and points of

198 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 information to consider. First of all, if there is anyone else in the audience who would like to make a presentation this evening, please register with the staff at the entrance of the room. Also, for the information of all presenters, while written versions of presentations are not required, if you are going to accompany your presentation with written materials, we ask that you provide 20 copies. If you need help photocopying, please speak with our staff.

As well, in accordance with our rules, a time limit of 10 minutes has been allotted for presentations, with another five minutes allowed for questions from committee members. If a presenter is not in attendance when their name is called, they will be dropped to the bottom of the list. If the presenter is not in attendance when their name is called a second time, they will be removed from the presenters' list. Lastly, I would like to advise members of the public regarding the proce ss for speaking in committee. The proceedings of our meetings are recorded in order to provide a verbatim transcript.

Each time someone wishes to speak, whether it be an MLA or a presenter, I first have to say that person's name. This is the signal for the Hansard 'recorner'– recorder to turn the mics on and off. Thank you for your patience. We will now proceed with public presentations. Bill 16–The Climate and Green Plan Implementation Act Madam Chairperson: I have received a request from Courtney Tosh, N o. 28 on your list. She has school early in the morning and has requested to present early. Is it the will of committee to hear from her first? [Agreed] I will now call on Courtney Tosh. Ms.

Tosh, do you have any written materials for distribution for the committee? Ms. Courtney Tosh (Private Citizen): No. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Ms. Tosh : Good evening, everyone. First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to voice my opinion here today. I first heard of this opportunity yesterday morning. I read that there was a lack of youth participation, which was not a surprise. There aren't very many young people who are politically involved.

This is my first time giving a big speech and I feel that it is important for you to hear this from a youth perspective. I'm here today to share my opinion on Bill 16 and my–believe that the –that government legislation is the first of many steps to reducing climate change. Climate change is an undeniable is sue. All of you have heard this before and are probably tired of hearing it, but it is repeated because it is important. Transportation, agriculture, deforestation and all other sources of greenhouse gases emissions into the atmosphere are causes of climate change.

The release of these g reenhouse gases is causing the E arth to warm up and is harming our planet. Since the end of the 19th century the E arth's average surface temperature has nearly risen by 1°C. Most of this warming occurred in the past 35 y ears. Since 1969 the top 700 metres of the oceans have warmed by more than 0.4°F. Sea levels rise every year; oceans are becoming more acidic and the albedo is continuously decreasing. The rate of Antarctica's ice loss has tripled in the last decade. We ar e using so much of E arth's resources that we are acting as though we have 1.7 planets.

Earth Overshoot Day is a day of the year on which humans' resource consumption exceeds the amount of resources that our planet can produce in a year. Our overshoot day for 2018 was August 1st. In 1971, Earth Overshoot Day was on December 21st. Climate change is evidently an issue and our planet is clearly heading in the wrong direction. Why aren't we, the ones who caused this problem, trying to fix it? It is clear that if our actions don't change, the planet will not be with us for much longer. Complacency is one of the most dangerous societal issues.

People are absorbed into a daily routine that keeps them from questioning their actions. They might hear about environmental issues and they might sometimes feel concern but they're always soon sucked back into that –the way that they think is reality. Reality is the fact that our planet is suffering and we aren't doing anything about it. While complacency is major cause for the lack of actions that humans are taking to help the environment, another reason is because the E arth has a population of seven and a half billion people. Many people feel

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 199 as though they're so small and unimportant that anything they try to do and any change they try to create will never be big enough to make a difference. We are all one in seven and a half billion, so our lives can easily feel insignificant. Imagine if instead everyone felt like they could make a difference. Everyone would do their part and Earth's environmental problems would be solved, but this will never happen.

We know with our complacent society and by looking at the past that humans on their own will not make the necessary changes in their lives to save the Earth. The changes need to start here in the government through legislation. Without it, people will not change. There are many politicians who do not believe in climate change. It sounds ridiculous for people not to believe in something that is so obviously one of Earth's biggest problems. Politicians need to recognize environmental issues. Although Bil l 16 is

an act with environmental concerns, it is a plan without actions. I would assume that prioritization is a major component of what is discussed and decided upon here at the Legislature, and making room on your list of priorities for the environment is crucial. Please demonstrate your priorities with your actions. I understand that many of you will not be here to see the Earth reach its tipping point, but that does not mean that solving this problem is not your responsibility. We all dug this hole f or ourselves and it's everyone's responsibility to dig ourselves out.

The people who aren't here with us today are the future generations who will suffer. It is important to hear from young people on this topic because we know that climate change will af fect their future and they will need to have a say in how we go about handling this issue. Severn Suzuki gave what I like to consider one of the most powerful environment -centred speeches 26 years ago.

Suzuki stated: You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer, you don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream, you don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct and you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert. If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it. * (18:10) Today, we're still breaking our environment, and I believe that humans don't know near enough to mess with the environment. Did Suzuki's speech motivate people? Yes. But did anything change? No. The Earth's conditions are far worse now than they were back then.

Just like Severn Suzuki, the people who are going to be bravely presenting to you today may leave you feeling motivated to create change. You might have a feeling of hope within you. That feeling for most of you will be gone by tomorrow. Speeches like these will only make us temporarily care about the environment. What you have to understand is that the Earth is reaching a tipping point. We are pushing our planet to the limit. I don't know what the future holds for me and my generation or the generation that will follow.

As for the generation after that, well, I'm convinced that the Earth will no longer be here by then. You will have to find a way to keep this feeling of motivation and hope alive in you. Please take the following words into consideration. A sustainable future is an expensive one. But, without sustainable development, there is no future. Thank you. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. Do members of the committee have questions for the presenter? Hon. Rochelle Squires (Minister of Sustainable Development): Thank you, Ms. Tosh, for coming here this evening to present.

And for someone who's had her first experience presenting at committee, I commend you for your words and your well-articulated presentation and for sharing your views. You're absolutely right when you say that it's very important that government listens to the voice of your generation, and so I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your busy

schedule with your academics to come down here tonight and present, and I wish you all the best tomorrow in your exam. And please come back and present again and again, because we need to continue to hear your voice. Ms. Tosh: Thank you. Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): Thank you for your presentation.

200 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 Yesterday we heard a presentation from a parent who's very worried about her son and the legacy that we'll be leaving to the next generation. But I think your presentation tonight is so much more immediate, top of mind, relevant because you are the generation that is going to inherit this problem.

And so I want to thank you for taking the time, for being here, for composing your thoughts in such a cogent and elegant fashion, and also for speaking with bravery, because it's intimidating to come to the Legislature and give a speech, and yet you've handled yourself very well. So I want to thank you for all of that. You're right that it is your generation that's going to inherit this issue, but it is up to pol iticians elected today to act.

I think one of the recent conflicts that's sort of erupted between, you know, the government and our party and other parties is the issue of putting a price on pollution and carbon pricing. The idea being if pollution is free , then there'll be more of it, but if you put a price on pollution, then perhaps people will put–pollute less. So I'm wondering–it sounds like you've done a lot of research –whether you have a view on the issue of carbon pricing and whether you think tha t that's something that the government should pursue. [interjection] Madam Chairperson: Ms. Tosh. Ms. Tosh: Sorry.

I think if there's a chance that it will reduce pollution, then we better try it. And, if it doesn't work, we'll try something else. Mr. Ro b Altemeyer (Wolseley): Thank you very much. That was really well done. I hope this is by no means the last time this room hears from you, whether I'm here or not to hear it. Can you –I mean, obviously we're all old. All right? Let's be honest. And you've got a –such a unique perspective to offer because the decisions made around this table tonight and later on are going to impact you way more than it's going to impact us.

What do you want to say to us to encourage us to do right by your generation, because it's not fair what you're inheriting? What do we need to do to make things right for you and your friends in your future? Ms. Tosh: I guess you could either try to put yourself in the shoes of younger people and try to imagine what kind of world we would be coming into. And also try to get us involved, just like how you did tonight and get us to share our opinions. Madam Chairperson: Seeing no further questions, thank you very much for your presentation. Oh, Mr. Kinew. Mr.

Kinew: Yes, if there's still time, Madam Chair, for sure I'd like to ask another question. Recently, there was a report by –you did recognize me? Madam Chairperson: Yes. Mr. Kinew: Okay, thanks. So, recently there's a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just a few weeks ago, and it kind of basically said that the challenge of global warming is much more immediate than was previously thought. Basically, there's 11 years to pursu e dramatic action to stop climate change. And they set out some very aggressive targets that we should all meet.

I'm wondering if you can maybe share your view of that matter and whether you think that the targets that these experts are putting forward a re ones that we should aim for. Ms. Tosh: Well, even if they are going to –hard to achieve, we should definitely be aiming for them. And, if we aim for them, and we don't get exactly all the way there, I think we're still going to at least make some big improvements. Hon. Steven Fletcher (Assiniboia): Thank you for an excellent presentation. You mentioned that many of us here will not be around at the tipping point.

Perhaps everyone alive who has heard your words have already witnessed the tipping point already. So, if the tipping point has already occurred, I wonder if you have some observations or suggestions as we go forward. Madam Chairperson: Before I recognize the presenter, I just want to let everyone know that our time has expired for questions and answer, but I will allow an answer, if it's brief. Ms. Tosh: Well, if the tipping point has been reached, then I think it would be a little bit more obvious.

And, if we did, if we ever were aware that a tipping point had been reached, I'm sure everyone would start to believe more that this is an actual issue and people would take action.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 201 Madam Chairperson: Thank you very much for your presentation. I will now call on Gene Degen, private citizen. Mr. Degen, do you have any written materials for distribution to the committee? Mr. Gene Degen (Private Citizen): No, I don't. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Mr. Degen: Well, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I'm a retired psychologist and now the identity that's most important to me is that I'm a grandfather. I t ake that role seriously. To me, it is one of responsibility and care for my family and for the community.

Part of my grandparent role is to support our leaders in creating a healthy community for all. Right now, that means addressing the urgent threat to our species, climate catastrophe. I want to speak to your relationship to the climate change

section of the green plan. I've been very impressed by the presentations that I've heard here. Presenters have given a wealth of research - based facts, brought pra ctical ideas of what actions can be taken and been eloquent in expressing their passion on the topic. I'm encouraged and touched by the intelligence and selfless dedication of many of these people. But will it make any difference? My concern is that climate catastrophe is just another file for this, and all governments, to manage. And all governments have many other ongoing responsibilities that are also important.

Many of these responsibilities involve life -or-death decisions and have an urgency to them. The climate catastrophe file is just one more issue. You individual members have overwhelmingly busy jobs, working until 12 o'clock some evenings, plus all other responsibilities of personal and family lives. Further, you have the ongoing need to get re-elected. With all of the competing priorities, with all of the competing priorities for your attention, how can you fit the climate catastrophe file in, in a meaningful way? To add to the challenge, this is not an urgent, high-priority issue in the minds of most voters.

You only need to look at the increase in the sales of SUVs and pickup trucks to see that, or notice the number of empty vehicles idling. In some groups, you will still get a response of outrage by saying that we must take action or even make some sacrifice to deal with this issue. * (18:20) As we all know, there are many powerful interests who are quick to attack any meaningful government action. It appears that the loudest voices and the most powerful lobbyists oppose meaningful action.

So it seems that many of the pressures that you members and the government are living with will make it very difficult, and unlikely, that strong action will be taken. I've read the green plan, and it has some good ideas, but both the plan and the government managing of it show a lack of meaningful commitment. As an example of that, the government has decided to shun carbon pricing and prepare to do battle, because the federal plan would not be as good for Manitoba as the Manitoba plan.

The government uses one analysis to estimate that the federal plan would slow the economy 0.04 per cent per year more than the made -in-Manitoba plan. That's 125th of 1 per cent, clearly less than any margin of error. So the government is turning its back on carbon pricing, a strategy that Nobel Prize -winning economists have shown is effective, because it might slow the economy less than the margin of error. Another example of commitment is cutting the grant to Winnipeg Transit, while speaking in the green plan of how electrification of our buses is a triple win for Manitoba.

We now know that the electrification is not happening, because transit lacks the dollars to handle the upfront costs. These are clear statements of politics as usual, but that's not surprising. Politics are important if it means keeping your job, and that's the cold reality for our leaders. But politics as usual is not good enough for this issue; this is not just another file. None of the rest of the issues provide a threat to our species. This issue trumps everything else. I hope that word hasn't been ruined. Every year of treating it like another file is wasting the time we are running out of.

We need leadership now, which takes a strong, science -based position and educates our population to bring it along. You need to be bold in facing the attacks that will surely come if you act. You don't have the luxury of waiting until the majority of voters demand

202 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 action on climate change. You need to put principle ahead of politics and truly lead. It's not ease –an easy time to be a leader. Fortunately, just as there will come a tipping point for the electrification of transportation, there will be a tipping point of voter support for climate action. When it happens, politicians who have t aken action may be given the rewards they deserve. The question is, will it be too late? I expect my grandchildren to hold me accountable for what I did about climate change when we still had a chance to address it.

I'm a little frightened about my granddaughter; she's really tough. I expect historians to be ruthless when they deal with political leaders if they do not rise to the occasion. This is a time of opportunity for greatness or the risk of sinking into shame. I've had this image in my mind today of the Prime Minister in 20 years making an apology on behalf of the Canadian government to the generation of the day for what our government has failed to do. Let's all look within ourselves for the strength and integrity we need to be a part of the sol ution. Thank you. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation.

Do members of the committee have questions for the presenter? Ms. Squires : Thank you very much for coming down here and presenting your views, and I really appreciated hearing your pers pective. And I, too, have the joy of being a grandparent, and I know I look at my grandchildren and know that everything we do is really for them. So I appreciate the perspective that you shared with us tonight, and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Madam Chairperson: Mr. Degen–Mr. Kinew. Mr. Kinew: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your presentation.

I will just add, you know, one of the things we've been doing over the past few days here at the Legislature is doing condolence motions where we memor ialize former MLAs who've passed away. And, during some of those speeches, I've noticed that maybe not all politicians deserve to be tarred with the same brush. There are people, like Howard Pawley and Roland Penner, who stood up and did things which were unpopular in the day, like supporting LGBTQ rights, and standing up for French language rights here in the province, and you know they staked their political careers on it.

And they were not necessarily always rewarded at the ballot box, but they did the right thing. So there is reason for optimism, reason for hope, but perhaps greater reason to be feeling the urgency of the moment. But that little soliloquy aside, I guess one of the things that we're grappling with in the Leg. and in the media and all that is around the issue not just of putting the science first but also of the IPCC standards. The IPCC came out with this report, called this to action over the next 11 years in a very dramatic way, very urgent way.

And I’m wondering, in your view, if you can just share your perspective on whether we should be meeting those targets, aiming for those targets, and what the imperative is for us to do so. Mr. Degen: I guess it really brings me back to the main point of what I want to say. This trumps everything. This is not something that we can deal with as another file. This science is giving us a very clear message and that's –there's very little time to act. We can't put this –kick it down the road a little farther and kick it down the road a little farther.

If we don't take meaningful action now, then the action that we'd have to take in four years and eight years becomes impossible. Now we're talking about inconvenience in trying to take action that will get us to where we need to go. But it's not inconvenience if we're up against the wall in 10 years saying, okay, now we have to make it all happen in the next year. Then it's social disruption on a major scale. The economy–we're afraid to have the economy affected by taking any kind of meaningful action. If we put it off, the effects on the economy are going to be much grander than they are today. Mr.

Altemeyer: I couldn't agree more. And thank you for bringing that point home. Inaction on climate change would be far worse and, indeed, taking action on cli mate change could, heaven forbid, actually create good jobs, create more opportunity. I mean all of us could be living in homes that don't cost as much to heat in the winter. We could be riding on electric buses that cost a fraction of what a diesel bus costs. These are all, you know, part of the exciting part of the transition to a green economy that we don't hear about as often.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 203 As my leader just pointed out, we believe very much that in order to make sure that this does trump everything else, we believe that the science of climate change needs to be embedded in legislation, and we will be bringing in an amendment tonight that hopefully will be supported that will require exactly that, that all future governments in Manitoba will have to act on climate ch ange based on the scientific recommendations of the United Nations.

So I would ask you, if you were one of us sitting around this table tonight, would you vote in favour of that or would you vote against it? Mr. Degen: I would vote in favour of it. It seems like a good place to start. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. I will now call on –before I call our next presenter, we just received a written submission from Jennifer Lukovich on this bill, and s taff is distributing copies. Does the committee agree to have these documents appear in the Hansard transcript of this meeting? [Agreed] Because she is registered to present, you can remove her name from the list.

That would be No. 4 on your list. I will now call on Alanna Phillips. Ms. Phillips, do you have any written materials for distribution to the committee? Ms. Alanna Phillips (Private Citizen): I indeed have written materials. I've added a Web page for the sustainable development information from the Prince of Wales on there with my own writing, and I sign and whatever. Do I have permission just to sort of introduce myself a little bit, just from where I’m coming from? I just wanted to add that, be cause I have to speak very fast on this presentation, I have a lot there, as you can see.

I’m going to– * (18:30) Madam Chairperson: Okay. You can go ahead and start your presentation. Ms. Phillips: Okay, I'd just like to add into it, you can find, on Wikipedia, 77 billion –77-point billion Euros being produced by tourism in France –2016. And 171 billion Euros by Italy and we can tell, just as war 2,000 years ago, our infrastructure could show us what war was doing to the community. Today they're having problems with pollution –our beautiful architectures are showing what is going on. So we should be doing that. So I'll just read this really quick for you guys; you can keep up.

Living under the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, tucked away in a beautiful l ittle community, with all the 'anemities', why was the rent $350 a month? When the traffic on the bridge simmered down at night, the pollution would drop onto the water and down onto the community. Every morning, the dust wiped off the kitchen counters, as it floated and settled into the waters around the city. It's okay to run a vehicle in a closed space if you're suicidal. We are in a closed space. My uncle created our telecommunication satellites for, I guess, the Russians and NASA, to first put people out into space.

So we have to consider saving our resources, not for war. I understand everybody's trying to get a hold of the resources so the bad guys don't get it and, you know–and the paperwork and the Xerox copying and the medians and, you know, do we have capital punishment? And, you know, it's crime. You know, we have to understand the chemistry. We also have to understand the chemistry of crime, and we waste so much time on our planet dealing with criminal activity that it is causing the disaster. So I believe our problem is crime. We're not 'in-volving' into our highest potentials.

For example, we could, as a government, create shoes that–with our Manitoba logos, T -shirts, shoes, leave a Manitoba footprint behind, right. That could go out and make us, you know, as much money as Nike. We don't have to ask for Imelda Marcos shoe collection, but we can add a shoe collection item into many of the people's foots –footprints. So there's a logical, viable, sustainably developed idea that could bring in money for anything that you guys may need to do. So that's one of the potentials we can have. Another thing is the elections.

We should have models, so that the people can go to the voting stations and know what they're voting for. It's lovely. I've grown up with all of you. My parents are on both sides of the table, you know, in the political realm, so I'm like one of the divorced kids, you know, who wants to satisfy everybody and rebel, you know. So we all, you know, can be relating to those directives, looking at all the people that we want to impress and continue our legacy for. So that's the models.

204 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 Global warming –oh, is this working? Sorry, somebody just bought me this computer so that I could get my work done. Global warming's no different. If we get it wrong here on Earth, we will not survive. We came from the waters, they say. Octopus, you know. We walk, we swing in trees, we build–we–the crows use tools to pull out grubs, you know, from the trees, you know. They make the hooks. It's like little crochet hooks, and we probably got the idea for crocheting from the crows. So we're going into space. We have to study muscles. We have to study bone masses.

We need to–you know, maybe we're all going to end up octopi again. You know, who knows what's going to happen? But this was created to get us to the North Star, right. So we are looking for resources to save in safe places for our expansion into the universe. Clean, healthy food, shelter and clothing–I don't know if you notice my legs, but I worked hard on gardens and I have been working in community gardens. We have one left on Sherbrook and Broadway. It's the only one left from 1993, and–so there's other gardens. I'm not saying that's the only garden, but collecting the gardens.

The criminal activity within our different administrations are stopping the people from actually being able to feed themselves with their own work. I know that there was people here speaking about food security yesterday. So they're not luxuries; they're necessities. We shou ld be having workshops, places where the children can go and learn how to make their own clothing still–you know, we can't forget our legacies. We can't forget our indigenous pasts, and we have to bring all the best up.

We need to achieve equality so that we can have as many witnesses as is humanly possible to analyze these global warming issues–universal travel, getting through arguments such as whether the world is flat or not –you know, that was going on. It still is, you know. Did we get to space? Do we have telecommunications? How many people use a telephone? You can see in the Speaker's galley so many people looking like the Grahams who created the telephones.

Practicum, better witness and simply memorizing text books –I believe that we should be having a universal universities offered so that we can have universal education available to everybody. And this was sort of my deep breath, and relax: so we need to worry about oxygen, right. And we need to worry about what pollution we're challenging ourselves with. And, like I said, with war, we see what happens on the outside of the building and we see the war through the pollution. And we know that it's war, and it's not anybody here that's causing wars. Jesus said forgive them if they don't know.

So, while you all do the jobs that you have won the contracts to achieve, build the models to scale so that the public knows what stage we are at in our collective governance. We should not be finding it difficult to make peaceful transitions into clean energy, clean lifestyles, clean surroundings and completely well-rounded society. For 20 years, I've been –I put a proposal in 20 years ago. The last election I was hit by a truck, and I was hemorrhaging and I still delivered to all of the MLAs my proposals. So you can get my advice on infrastructure, through there, education. So this day, itself, is expensive.

We still have homelessness. We have the sex slave trade being our largest growing economy. We can't waste any more time arguing about constructing indus tries that cause our society to become more economically segregated before our people are educated enough to make educated votes concerning global warming. Let us first expose the pattern of embezzlements that are causing the haves and the have- nots to be better segregated. Build the education that our government has been 'agendaed' to do. Why else would we be here?

Let us then see about creating more industrial productions that excel our 'exportations' of fun marketplace games. The marketplace is a race. You know, we're trying to get the best ideas and the bes ever–you know, the Mad Men sort of theory in advertising. But don't let the race label our government and why we're all here. Let's see, slackers creating meetings, meetings and meetings. I would like to invite everybody to spend a day a week –I would like two days a week– out building.

This community was built on barn building, and lots of people came over here from all over the place without any money and they gathered one piece for a barn and then they built it and then they went and gathered another piece and they built it, and people had their farms, and from both political parties–three political parties–sorry. So once we protect our people with the highest standards, then let us see which brothers and sisters have the best ideas and let us celebrate their accomplishments, reaching the highest standards in everything that we attempt to accomplish, including

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 205 creating the very best industrial economy, veering not from a legal economy, creatin g public spaces to have tangible workshops for our people with equal opportunity to analyze different COT –or CO2 levels, different pollution levels, like, you know, the Children's Museum or something that adults can go to. Here's my chastising. I'm not chastising anybody personally, I'm bringing us all into this as a collective group. I'm appalled that we are here arguing about who gets to have the money to provide our people with our living standards that are humane.

Children are being sold into slavery daily, and no matter what anyone's opinions are, we must make the strictest regulations to provide the highest potential to any industry's requirements. You cannot allow children to be put at risk because people make money off of ghettos–not even a question. Our city right now, you can go from Higgins to Redwood and see all the pharmaceuticals that were built from the embezzlement of human traffickers within our hospitals taking the medications. Then you have Xerox machines going for them, against them, w ith them, and it's taking money from our medicare. Marijuana, the same.

Injuries aren't being looked at now because you can just have weed and you won't feel it. So we need to get our, like, MPI, different things like that, producing food for the people without taking away our independence when we get put on the front of a truck at highest speed possible for the truck to go. * (18:40) So reaching our highest potential again, we can get our jobs done by recording us in the annals of history as blatant human traffickers– Madam Chairperson: Ms. Phillips– Ms. Phillips: Oh, sorry. Is that time? Madam Chairperson: Yes.

You have reached the end of the presentation time, but it's been fascinating listening. We're going to start our–thank you for your presentation, and do any members of the committee have questions for Ms. Phillips? Ms. Squires : Thank you very much, Ms. Phillips, for coming here again today. I know you were with us last night until midnight, and then you're back again today, and I know that t hat takes an incredible commitment to carve out the time and to be here, but that is what makes democracy such a wonderful system as it allows for full participation from everyone in society.

So I thank you for coming here and expressing your views and also for providing us with your written presentation. Ms. Phillips : Thank you as well. I appreciate the work that you all have done to be here. I know, growing up here, how much work it is and how much work the children are doing at home and not everybody is being able to be appreciated for what they are doing, and a lot of people are getting much more slack than is necessary, and I hope that we can all just come together. Madam Chairperson: Thank you very much for your presentation.

I will now call on Zainab Mansaray, Canada Sierra Leone Friendship Society Inc. Zainab Mansaray? Zainab Mansaray will now be moved to the bottom of the list. I will now call on Hank Venema, Strategic Community Consulting. Mr. Venema, do you have any written materials for distribution to the committee? Mr. Hank Venema (Strategic Communit y Consulting): I do. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Mr. Venema: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I will start with four key messages. Climate resilience is an economic and technology development opportunity for Manitoba.

Cli mate resilience in Manitoba requires a high technology water management strategy for distributed flood and drought protection. Developing and implementing such a strategy de-risks Manitoba from disaster liabilities, will increase agricultural productivit y and creates high demand technology and services. Invest in a high technology water strategy to demonstrate technical and political leadership and attract infrastructure investment. Thank you. Dear committee members, my name is Henry David Venema. Mos t people in the province know me as Hank. Thank you for the opportunity to present before committee.

206 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 I'm the chief technology officer at a clean tech company, Strategic Community Consulting, where we're focused on ways to energy and ways to fertilizer te chnology as well as resilience strategies based on high- tech knowledge, i.e. water resources management. You've heard from many other colleagues regarding the merit and demerit of various carbon-pricing strategies. I'm here to discuss the risks of neglec ting climate resilience and the economic and technology development opportunity associated with leadership on climate resilience.

I've previously held various directorships at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, including, most recently, as a director of the Prairie Climate Centre. My shift to the private sector mirrors the broader trend of investment in climate resilience as a new growth sector. In my previous role I was asked to endorse this government's climate and green plan di scussion document released one year ago at Oak Hammock Marsh. I did so as I was impressed with the clarity with which that document expressed the real risk climate change poses to our society.

Precariously situated at the bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz, among other impacts we can expect more floods and more droughts from climate change. What we used to think of as extreme events will become more commonplace. The 2011 Assiniboine River flood is a foreshadowing of future climate risk. It caused over $1 billion in distributed infrastructure damage: blown apart culverts, bridges and

section roads, and if that were not bad enough, another billion dollars of crop losses resulting from flooding and drought conditions. Some sections of land were under both flood and drought insurance claims in the same year. Unmanaged exposure to climate risk imposes a huge financial risk. Last year, Moody's Investors Service warned hurricane- prone US cities that their debt would be downgraded if they did not develop and implement a resilience strategy. Conversely, two weeks ago, Bloomberg business weekly published a report entitled Climate Change Will Get Worse.

These Investors Are Betting on It, which detailed how venture capital firms, private equity firms and technology fir ms are embracing the investment opportunities associated with climate resilience. In a very similar vein, I recently co-authored a report for the Insurance Bureau of Canada on the use of natural infrastructure to reduce flood risk, and concluded that the investment case for the multifunctional storage system at Pellys Lake near Holland, Manitoba, had a net benefit -cost ratio of at least 2.8 and probably closer to 4. And this was vetted by the economists at the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

When the sum of flood and drought risk reduction, irrigation and ecosystem services values were considered, the project is reducing flooding, preventing nutrients from travelling downstream to Lake Winnipeg, storing carbon, creating new economic development opportuniti es associated with biomass and biomass processing. Projects like this are extraordinary infrastructure investment opportunities and need to be scaled up and designed for private sector co-investment.

The provincial investment in the conservation trust through a one-time endowment of $100 million is a commendable commitment to natural infrastructure, but it is also at least an order of magnitude below the required level of investment. The major upside is that the necessary capital need not come from government alone, as resilience is such a good investment that the right planet investment model will attract private and pension capital pools. Infrastructure that creates climate resilience is exactly the investment that smart, patient money seeks.

For an investment of one half of 1 per cent of the capital cost of the Lake St. Martin channel –that is, $2.5 million invested, compared to the $500- million Lake St. Martin cost, local technology firms, in collaboration with the R & D community, can build this province a 21st-century resilience strategy based on high- tech water resources management that will attract private and institutional capital. For Manitoba to seize the opportunity of expanded agriculture in a warming climate, we need a more reliabl e water supply.

Moreover, the underlying technology that we apply will be extremely valuable and exportable to many other agricultural regions of the world also experiencing increased frequency of flood and drought risk. Our company is building resilient s trategies for local governments for whom climate risk infrastructure is a here- and-now priority. The major innovation opportunity is taking these concepts to scale and leveraging previous provincial investments in artificial intelligence, high -performance computing,

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 207 big data, P3 models potentially. Manitoba has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, foresight, innovation and do our forebears proud. Two generations ago, this party was led by Duff Roblin, who willed the Red River Floodway into existence–not because it was politically expedient or easy–because it was such an excellent investment that would allow future generations to survive and thrive in this environment. He believed the scientists and engineers. The benefit -cost ratio of that investment is now approaching 100 to 1.

Let's build the 21st -century analogue: distributed, networked, intelligent, highly attractive to investors. Let us help you. Thank you. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. Do members of the committee have questions for the presenter? Ms. Squires : That was a great presentation, Dr. Venema, and thank you so much for coming down here tonight.

I appreciate all the work that you've done in your former roles as well, and the time that you've spent with our government talking about the importance of our natural infrastructure and how investments in our natural infrastructure can certainly be a key solution to climate change adaptation. And that's exactly what we're doing with moving forward on many green investments and starting with our conservation trust, which we certainly do think will reap benefits for rebuilding our natural infrastructure, that will be a key in climate adaptation as well as other benefits.

So I appreciate y ou very succinctly putting it together for us in your presentation tonight. Thank you. * (18:50) Mr. Venema: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The conservation trust is a great start. It needs to go to scale, and to do so requires the application of technology to make it attractive to investors besides government. Mr. Dougald Lamont (Leader of the Second Opposition): I just–I was wondering, you mentioned droughts and floods, can you–do you have any information about wildfires or the increase that climate change is having on wildfires? And a response to that? Mr. Venema: Indeed, Mr.

Lamont, there is a large body of research that associates increased frequency of forest fire with climate change. The–basically, you increase the likelihood of spontaneous ignition, you increase the dry biomass on the forest floor, you increase the volume of that and its relative dryness. So when there is a lightning strike, it's more likely to combust because it's hotter and drier. The association, the correlation between lo nger, hotter, drier summers and forest fires is well established in the scientific literature. Mr. Altemeyer: Thank you very much, Hank, for coming down.

Very interesting presentation, as always. For the benefit of the committee, can you tell us a bit more about the Pellys Lake project? Mr. Venema: Yes, it was actually the current executive director of the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation encouraged us to consider this project as a prototype of multifunctional natural infrastructure. And so we went and met with the La Salle Redboine Conservation District and the local landowners, all of whom recognized that there would be value in retaining water.

There would be value in the release of that water, dewatering that site in the fall to increase ecosyste m flows to prepare for the following spring freshet, and would allow us to harvest the biomass that was produced in this area thereby removing the phosphorus that would otherwise pollute Lake Winnipeg. So we have three, probably five, co- benefits because, in fact, in addition to the flood risk reduction, the drought risk reduction, the phosphorus removal, the biomass production, we're actually seeing better habitat quality there than was the case prior to management.

So management, sophisticated management, can actually improve ecosystem services in habitat conditions, as well. Mr. Altemeyer: A brief follow-up, if I may. How replicable is that case study to other parts of Manitoba? And has there been any other project similar to it that has been implemented since Pellys Lake was, you know, initiated, measured, studied and reported on? Mr. Venema: It has been well studied. We're very fortunate to–that there's been academic research on it that allowed me to document the economic case, the investment case for that project.

We're currently working for the –under a Federation of Canadian Municipalities' contract for the rural mu nicipality of

208 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 Norfolk Treherne on the application of those same principles for the investment case for the Treherne dam. The Treherne dam is we believe likely necessary to mitigate water scarcity in south central Manitoba. We believe that the investment case for the Treherne dam is very good, and if we apply the logic of Pellys Lake and manage as a multifunctional natural ecosystem, the investment case will only increase. It's an interesting point. There are many irrigators in south central Manitoba who could benefit from increased irrigation, increased water storage.

Some irrigators were cut off this August because of drought conditions in the Stephenfield Reservoir, and the prior allocation necessary for the Pembina Valley Water Co -op. It's an example o f water scarcity affecting agricultural production, economic development, rural economic development in Manitoba. We believe that with intelligent water management, we can increase the water supply, increase our food security and allow rural economic development in Manitoba to flourish. But it will require investment. The investment case is high. Madam Chairperson: The time for questions and answers has expired.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Before I recognize our next presenter, we received a written submission from Joseph Kornelsen, and staff is distributing copies. Does the committee agree to have this document appear in the Hansard transcript of the meeting? [Agreed] He appears as No. 19 on your presenters' list, and you can remove his name. I will now call on Ian Walker, private citizen. Mr. Walker, do you have written materials for distribution to the committee? Mr. Ian Walker (Private Citizen): No. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Mr.

Walker: Good evening, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for taking the time to listen to members of the community on this very important issue. Climate change is the defining issue of our time. If we manage to lower our emissions, we may give future generations the same opportunities that many of us had. If not, we are condemning them to a dangerous future with dwindling resources and frequent severe weather events.

I am speaking to you not only as a private citizen, but I'm also here to speak to you on behalf of my two sons, Owen [phonetic] and Max [phonetic], and I'm speaking on behalf of the hundreds of students that I've taught and the hundreds more that will come through my class year –classroom in the years to come. I'm also here to speak on behalf of my friends and family who are unable to attend due to time constraints in life. Climate change has become a very serious concern for many of my friends and family, and many of them are making personal changes to lower their own carbon footprints.

Let 's be clear: the IPCC is calling for dramatic cuts in emissions. By 2030, global emissions need to drop by 45 per cent if we are to remain at or below 1.5°C of warming. This is a monumental task, but one that I believe is possible using current technologies. I've been concerned about climate change for the past two decades. In my teens and early 20s, I recall reading about climate change and the effects that scientists said it would have on our society. I was troubled by these findings and started on my journey to be a better steward of the environment. I started with the easy cuts to my emissions.

I rode the bus and walked to avoid using my pickup truck when I started–sorry–when I started with –I reduced my consumption of meat. I eventually scrapped the truck and bought a succession of smaller vehicles. When we bought our home, we decided to buy a home that was within a short walk or bus ride from my wife's workplace so we could be a one -car family. It worked out really well because we found a multi-family home that made buying a home in our neighbourhood more affordable and environmentally friendly because we were sharing space with other people in a former single-family home.

When my first son was born, I decided to start riding a bike so my wife and I could remain a one-car family while she was at home on maternity leave. I embraced cycling, and it became my primary mode of transportation year -round. I generally put 100 to 150 kilometres on my bikes on an average workweek. We take our kids to school on bikes, although now they're on their own bikes, and my wife and I both ride our bikes to work. My wife is more of a fair- weather rider, so she walks or buses on days when there is a lot of precipitation.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 209 While I didn't cycle much in my 20s, getting onto a bike to start commuting was easy for me. I had a great role model to teach me what I needed to commute successfully in Winnipeg's climate. My father had cycled for decades as a primary mode of transportation. When he rode his bike in the winter in the '90s, there weren't nearly as many people doing it as there are now. But that didn't stop Dad. He wanted to ride a bike because it was the most economical way to get around, and it allowed him to stay in good shape without having to visit the gym.

Unfortunately, my dad had to hang up his bikes last December when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Fortunately , his bikes have both been given new homes, and I'm proud to say that my city councillor and one of my city planner friends will be taking up winter cycling this year on them. My dad was pleased to know that they will be going to good homes. I know he misses the freedom that he had when he was able to ride a bike. After becoming familiar with a lack of cycling infrastructure in Winnipeg, I decided to become involved with a local cycling -advocacy group called Bike Winnipeg.

Bike Winnipeg is an amazing organization that is made up of some very talented volunteers with a variety of backgrounds. We have had many successes over the past couple of years with the adoption of the pedestrian cycling strategy and with the construction of many dedicated bike lanes in our downtown, Exchange District and in Winnipeg's suburban neighbourhoods. * (19:00) I would appeal to your government to inject some much-needed funds into the City of Winnipeg to help us develop our cycling network at a faster pace. There are already a significant number of people that cycle regularly in Winnipeg.

A survey commissioned by Bike Winnipeg and CAA earlier this year found that 21 per cent of Winnipeggers are already cycling daily or a few times a week for transportation. We also found that 45 per cent of people said that they would cyc le a few times a week or more if the conditions were optimal. When asked to consider and rank options that would get them moving, literally and figuratively, from an aspiring cyclist to an active user, one improvement quickly rose to the top of the list: m ore protected bike lanes on major routes. Cycling isn't the only place that my family has made cuts to carbon emissions.

A few years ago, our furnace broke down and we decided to install a geothermal heat pump to heat and cool our home. We accessed two g rants from the provincial government to help pay for it and have been able to depreciate a portion of the heat pump through incentives on our taxes that we pay on the income we generate from our tenants. Switching from a gas furnace to a heat pump lowered our emissions by approximately eight tons a year. Our home is also very comfortable throughout Winnipeg's cold winters and our increasingly hot summers. Our most recent change has been the purchase of an electric vehicle.

In March, we found a used 2015 Nissan LEAF at a local dealership and we purchased it. It is an excellent car to get us around town. We generally use it on evenings and weekends to take our kids to activities that are too far away to reasonably cycle to. When we leave town, we trade th e electric car with friends and use their cars to travel longer distances, as there are no fast chargers available outside of the city of Winnipeg. We will rent a car should our friends' cars be unavailable.

Now, all of the changes that we have made are great, but they are only a drop in the bucket when we look at overall emissions in Manitoba. If we want more people to make the necessary switch from fossil fuels to renewables, we need to provide incentives to switch to lower emitting forms of transportation and home heating and cooling. This is where a carbon tax fits in. Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize -winning economist, was recently interviewed on CBC's As It Happens and he says that this crisis can easily be averted through economic policy.

The policy is very simple: if you just commit to a tax on the usage of fuels that directly or indirectly release greenhouse gases, and then you make that tax increase steadily in the future, people will see that there's a big profit to be made from figuring out ways to supply energy where they can do it without incurring the tax. Please listen to the experts. Scientists are ringing the alarm bells. They're telling us that if we don’t act now, we risk our children's future. Economists say that the best way to deal with greenhouse gas emissions is to put a price on them, so act now.

210 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 Put a price on pollution. Let people figure out innovative ways to reduce their own emissions. My kids and my students are counting on you to get this right. Please don't let them down. Thank you. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. Do members of the committee have questions for the presenter? Ms. Squires: I want to thank you for coming down here tonight and making your presentation, and I want to commend you.

And I hav e to say that I'm in awe of you for your commitment to sustainable active transportation and modifications that you've made to your lifestyle and your family's lifestyle to transition to a low -carbon future. And, of course, none of what you've outlined is easy, but I applaud you for the steps that you've taken. I'm probably more along the lines of –and the classification of your wife –a fair -weather cyclist. I do find it intimidating to cycle in certain weather, certain climates that we have in Manitoba and in the dark, but I commend you for your commitment to cycling and for being a leader.

You're influencing many people throughout your community and in your role as a teacher. So thank you very much for your commitment to the environment and for being a le ader in our province. Mr. Walker: Thank you, Minister. Mr. Lamont: Did you find a place to put your bike today? Did you miss the meeting last night because you couldn't find a– Madam Chairperson: Mr. Walker. Mr. Walker: I didn't miss the meeting last night.

I found an alternative place to lock my bike up, but this evening I drove my electric car because there wasn't adequate bike parking outside the Legislature because on October 23rd, they removed the bike racks so that they can do winter snow-clearing. So I would ask the folks at the Leg. here if you could find an alternative space for people to lock up their bikes. I have quite a few friends that ride bikes through the wintertime. Mr. Altemeyer: That's an excellent suggestion. I hope we can take note of that. There is a very small bike compound that I use here.

It'd be nice to maybe make that more accessible to the public or some side of it. Certainly, I want to echo the minister's comments. Many of the changes you've made or changes I've made– you've managed to get to the electric vehicle stage, which I hope to do in future. My question for you is, again, kind of riffing off the minister's comments, is –when she said all of this is hard. We need to change that, don't we? So that more people can do more of the things you've done already more easily. And we have to do it really quickly, as the IPCC report that you referenced says.

So let me ask you this: What are the main barriers for the people in your community? What's preventing them from doing what it is that you've done? Is it information? They just don't know. Is it motivation? They just don't care. Is it financial? You know, they'd like to do it, they know about it, but they just –they can't m ake the numbers work. Or maybe it's something else altogether? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. Mr. Walker: Thank you for the question, Mr. Altemeyer. I think there's multiple aspects to it. Education's a big one.

Being an electric car owner now, I frequently have questions about vehicle range, how I charge it, how long the battery pack will last. Folks think, you know, with our cellphones only lasting a couple of years, that the batteries will need to be replaced every three or four years at a great cost to them. And they find that that's an impediment to owning a car.

But I understand that the batteries in our cars should last the lifetime of the vehicle, and, if they do need to be replaced over, you know, a longer period of time after the eight- year warranty's up on it, it's still less than the cost of replacing a transmission or a motor in a vehicle. And one of the motivations to purchasing an electric car for us was that we don't drive our vehicle as much as most people, and our gas car was breaking down frequently because it sat a lot. So the electric car is nice, because you can just leave it until you need it and you know that it's always going to work.

In terms of installing the geothermal, it's a technology that not very many folks in town know about. I learned about geothermal by visiting rural folks that had installed it in their homes when they didn't have access to natural gas, because it would significantly drop their energy costs. So I had some

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 211 friends that built a house out of town, and they put geothermal in their house. And I thought, boy, I sure wish I could do this in town. So I did a lot of research, and I phoned a lot of companies before I could find someone that was willing to come do it in the city, because of the size of our property. But we did end up finding a company with a drill that could come in and drill the two wells that we needed on our property.

Unfortunately, that drill has left the province in the last year, and I don't know of any companies that would be willing to come and drill in the city now. Madam Chairperson: We have 10 seconds left on our question and answer time. Mr. Altemeyer, if you can make it brief. Mr. Altemeyer: I can do that. As an educator, how do we reach the people who don't know about the crisis that we're facing? At–is it government's job? Everyone's job? How –as–you're an educator. How can we support the work that you do? What do we need to do more of? Mr.

Walker: I would like to see a lot more top-down information coming f rom the government mandating education in classrooms. A lot of my colleagues aren't very aware of climate change. The colleagues I work with directly are –because they see me coming into the school, in January, on my bike and frequently ask me why I do it. And, when I explain my motivation to them, they understand it. But what I'm trying to do in our school division is I've been reaching out to superintendents and colleagues, and we've been forming our own groups of climate leaders so that we can educate o ur colleagues.

So, in the last couple of years, we've been putting on professional development for teachers, so they can come out and find out what the problem is and what the solutions are. But it's not happening fast enough, so I really do feel like it would be something that I'd like to see coming from the Department of Education. Madam Chairperson: The time for questions has now expired, but thank you for your presentation. I will now call upon Dr. Barry Prentice, private citizen. Dr. Prentice, do you have any written materials for distribution? Mr. Barry Prentice (Private Citizen): Yes, I do.

Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Mr. Prentice: In the interest of time, I'm going to confine my comments to only the economics of this issue, and I'll leave the other sides apart, which I know you're well 'bersed' on. * (19:10) My first comment is that from a 'frovincial' strategy point of view, Manitoba has a lot to gain from having a very high fee on carbon emissions and asking for this to be done nationally. Obviously, it has to be done nationally because if one province does not, then they have an advantage as a free rider and firms might locate there to make investment.

But, in our particular case, and there is a typo, by the way, in the first line. It should read: the largest per capita producer, but I think we're the largest per capital producer as well with the cost of our dams and transmission lines and we've invested a lot in the production of green energy. Having that green energy as our resource, it's in our interest to maximize their benefit for having that, and it's all about relative costs.

So, as a result, if other places are imposed, are paying carbon taxes, and our industries have less of that because they have access to green energy, we're a more attractive place to invest and to grow. So I would say that from Manitoba's perspective, where I live here, I would say maximize a national carbon tax and get on with it because we have a lot to gain from that provincially. The second point I'd like to raise is economic efficiency, and we know the Nobel Prize winners who endorse the notion of charging carbon directly.

It's always best to charge directly, and there's two types of pollution, or carbon emissions, if you wish. There's what they call point source and non- point source. The big emitters are the point sour ce, so you could identify there's a coal -fired thermal plant letting go a lot of carbon. You can attack that one or you can attack a fertilizer plant or whatever. The non- point source are the tailpipes of thousands of vehicles, and they're very hard to initially to actually cause to recognize the pollution that they're making. That's why a charging for the actual consumption of the carbon makes sense.

It's the most efficient. It's the easiest and least expensive way of administering a charge that applies to everybody and most fairly.

212 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 I'd like to point out the notion of the economics of a nudge. This is a growing literature on this idea, that you can get people to change their behaviour with a very small nudge in the right direction. You don't have to hit them with a sledge hammer to get their attention. You only have to have a small nudge, and in terms of the pricing for the consumption of carbon or non-carbon fuels, a nudge is all you need.

It's relative prices that matter, not absolute prices, so if there's incentives for people to make a switch from one use of energy to another, then that small nudge will cause them to do that and then it starts to feed upon itself. And, of course, it really comes down to altering behaviour, purchases and consumption. The Manitoba solution: Letting the federal government impose a carbon fee upon us, and, again, maybe the government will be successful in defeating that. I hope not. I think it's something that's really necessary, but it's also not in our interest.

Having the federal government collect a tax and then just hand it back to consumers without making any effort to try and reduce the causes of carbon emissions and/or take opportunities from there seems like a lost opportunity for Manitoba. So I would highly re commend Manitoba to take advantage of this, collect the tax and then direct it to where we can actually reduce our carbon emissions for our future efficiency because there will be a competition worldwide in this matter. It's only just a function of time.

So, again, I would encourage the Province to stick with its previous plan and to actually have our own carbon emissions' fees, collect the money and spend it as we see fit to spend it. Obviously, you've heard before, climate change is real. This is a big problem. It's a real problem. And you don't have to look very far.

I've been studying the ice roads in Manitoba for now some 20 years, and what I've observed is that they're getting shorter all the time, even notwithstanding the efforts of the Province, and good efforts in many cases, to put in wooden bridges over rivers to try and move off the lakes onto the land. But, notwithstanding that, we're still seeing problems, and the problem is not the opening and start date or the closing date; it's that week of warm weather in between that knocks out the road and the time to get the road back in, and it's getting worse. And I don't think it's ever going to get better again.

So there's a cost to Manitoba to allowing that to happen, both a social cost, but also there's a cost that's going to be there in terms of trying to deal with not having a road, having to fly everything in to those locations, so everyone will be worse off if we don't take action sooner rather than later. Finally, I'd like to close on one of the opportunities, I think, we have in Manitoba that I haven't heard discussed very much publicly, and that's the notion of a hydrogen economy. We're moving towards electric power; we're moving towards hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells.

This is no longer a technology in its infancy. This is a technology that's now well developed, and we're seeing it many places. Most new warehouses being built have hydrogen fuel cell forklift trucks. We're seeing great advances in this and in many places : China with hy drogen-powered buses; Europe has a hydrogen-powered train. I'm not saying we have to go that extreme, but what I am saying is there's a growing demand for hydrogen, and we have in Manitoba excess electrical power, and we have especially an excess of electr ical power in the evening and nights which could be used to produce more hydrogen.

I would recommend that the fee we charge for the emissions of carbon be used to try and develop this hydrogen economy which would then give us a double benefit. And with that, I will stop at this point. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. Do members of the committee have questions for our presenter? Ms. Squires : Thank you, Dr. Prentice, for coming down here tonight, and you've raised some great ideas and some new technologies that will certainly help all of us reduce our carbon footprint and transition to a low-carbon future.

And I'm reminded of words that His Right Honourable Edward Schreyer had said to me when we were on a panel not too long ago discussing some of these very topics. And he said, I've been around long enough to see engineers have the great ability to come up with solutions to the problems that we're facing and that we have faced in the past and that we're facing today. And between all the engineers and the geoscientists and the scientists that we have, we certainly do have reason to be optimistic that there is, you know, solutions to the challenges that we're facing.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 213 So thank you for coming here tonight and for reminding us of some of those opportunities ahead of us. Mr. Prentice: Thank you very much. Again, there are many opportunities. One of my colleagues said going into this last recession that this is not like recessions of the Great Depression. This is more like the recession of the 1890s, which we all remember very well, I'm sure. And I said, what are you talking about?

And he said, well, going into the 1890s, it was horses and wagons and steam engines; coming out of that recession with electrical power and chemistry and internal combustion engines. And a lot of technology's changed because the economics changed at that time and a lot of technology came together. I think, and he said, and I agree with him, that coming out of this past recession, we have many opportunities ahead of us that we didn't have: solar power and wind turbines and electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell technology, and many other things. Maybe I'd even say airships, if I could be permitted to be so bold.

I think there are a lot of technologies and a lot of hope and opportunity for us, and we do have the engineering talent. It's not a matter of the lack of talent or lack of ideas; typically, it's the lack of investment and risk-taking to do things that are new. And that's where something like the carbon fee and the collection of a fund like that is available to make a difference, because most businesses aren't going to take a lot of risk; they can't afford to. But the public, collectively, we can take a risk on ideas and try new things that are new and see if th ey work.

And if they don't work, well, all right, we lost some of that fee but at least we found out and–but not doing anything, that's a bigger crime, if you wish, in my books. Mr. Altemeyer: Thank you, Dr. Prentice, for giving your time and expertise. I'm sorry I had to step out to talk to a previous presenter, but I've scanned your very nice, compact

summary here. One of the difficult parts it seems for the Premier (Mr. Pallister) has been the concept of the nudge, as you put it, that increases each year. In my reading of, say, the BC example, there was a gradually increasing nudge in the price of carbon and there was a corresponding drop in emissions. And then when the nudge stopped and held steady, well, lo and behold, behaviours stopped changing. Do you have any advice for me or further comments on that?

Or am I reading that situation correctly that it would make sense that, as the price of a type of pollution increases, that people will continue to take action to avoid those costs as the economic theory goes? * (19:20) Mr. Prentice: I think the notion is it's all about expectations. And so, if you expect that prices are going to keep rising in the future and you can factor that in–should I buy electric car? Should I buy a gas car? Well, you know, then you say, yes, if they're going to keep rising, I think I'm going to buy that electric car and save myself money in the long run.

So, absolutely, you have to have the expectation there. What is the appropriate level for this? I have no idea, and I don't think anybody does. I mean, if we wanted to really get serious about this, it'd be a very high price, but I'm not about to kill the economy and nobody else should be either. We have to be careful about what we do, and measured steps are the way to do it. And, again, if it's a small nudge, it's not going to hurt the economy very much, and we will adjust. Don't forget, we're not just going sit still.

We're going make the changes, so I know there's great concerns in the farm community, and I would sincerely accept that. I have a farm background and an education in that area. I know farmers can't pass their costs on, but will farmers ever adopt an electrically powered tractor or a hydrogen fuel cell tractor as long as diesel's cheap and it's always there? And I would say, well, no. Why would they? Why would they make that change? There's no incentive for them to do so.

But, if there's assistance or help or there's a nudge in that direction, then gradually, over time, when things wear out, they replace it with something that's going to be for the long term. So, yes. Madam Chairperson: The time for questions and answers has expired. Thank you very much for your presentation. I will now call on Shirley Thompson, private citizen. Shirley Thompson will now be moved to the bottom of the list. I will now call on Colleen Shipp, private citizen. Colleen Shipp will now be moved to the bottom of the list.

214 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 I will now call on Solana Pratt, private citizen. Solana Pratt will now be moved to the bottom of the list. I will now call on Peter Chadwick, Rainbow Forest Gardens. Peter Chadwick will now be moved to the bottom of the list. I will now call on Marianne Cerilli, private citizen. Marianne Cerilli will now be moved to the bottom of the list. I will now cal l on Angela Reeves, private citizen. Angela Reeves will now be moved to the bottom of the list. We will now be calling names for a second time. I will call on Jill Verwey, private citizen.

Jill Verwey will now be removed from the list. I will now call on Everett Rudolph, private citizen. Everett Rudolph will now be removed from the list. I will now call on Zach Fleisher, private citizen. Mr. Fleisher, do you have any written materials for distribution to the committee? Mr. Zach Fleisher (Private Cit izen): I do. It's a supplement to part of the presentation. I apologize to the page that the last staple came off here. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Mr. Fleisher: So how's everyone doing tonight? So good evening, everyone.

My name is Zach Fleisher, and I apologize if I come across a bit weary. Last night I was working in the civic election campaign and was unable to make the first round of presentations, so if I'm slurring my words at all, you know folks around this table know what it's like to be elected. The next day is a bit groggy and then the real work starts. So I am thankful that members of the opposition pushed the government to consider a second evening of consultations and presentations to the committee.

Manitoba is unique in allowing presentations of this nature, and I think it's a unique factor that makes our province so special. I remember when I worked in Saskatchewan for the official opposition there and they were kind of aghast. They said, you mean, like, everyone just gets to speak and say their minds and interact with, you know, politicians and Cabinet ministers? And I said, yes, it's a foundation of our democracy. So, regardless of where you stan d on the political spectrum, you know what? We may agree or disagree at the end of the day, but, you know what?

We're going to have a respectful dialogue and I look forward to continuing that fine tradition tonight. So, for my day job, I am employed as a communications and research officer with the Amalgamated Transit Union 1505. I'm here presenting on behalf of Aleem Chaudhary. He's our president for the union. For those who may not be familiar, we represent 1,400 transit workers in Winnipeg and Brandon, Manitoba. So that's Winnipeg and Brandon transit . In addition, we also represent the maintenance workers within the Winnipeg plant.

Winnipeg Transit is unique in that we actually save millions of dollars every year by having the work done in- house as opp osed to contracting out. That means that work gets done faster, and it means that we actually have one of the leading maintenance departments in North America. I'd also like to indicate that I'm also a board member for Bike Winnipeg as well as a Winnipeg resident. I'm not quite as dedicated as Ian; I took the bus to work today. I'll probably walk home from here, but most days I do bike and some days, you know, when it's really cold out, I might take my car.

But none of this really is particularly important, as titles don't even register compared to the challenges and threats that we see from climate change. It goes beyond saying climate change is the biggest issue facing the world today. Recent studies show a catastrophic outcome if we continue business as usual. Pretty much, if we continue with business as usual, we won't have any business to continue with.

But you'll hear this over and over again, and I'm confident that departmental officials and previous presenters have let you know this, so I'm going to, you know, try and make a more impassioned case as to why I think this bill needs some major changes. So, on behalf of our members, we support a price on pollution. We need carbon pricing and climate action to change citizen behaviour. We support a price on pollution, because we know that other volunteer initiatives have thus proven ineffective in decreasing our emission levels. Years of missed targets have made this clear.

I watch question period most days and, you know what, as a former staffer for the previous

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 215 government, you know what, I see both parties blaming the previous party in government for all the pitfalls within the province. You know what, when the world reaches uninhabitable levels, I'm sure we'll take solace in this. We know t hat the way forward is to support a low-carbon or no- carbon economy and to prioritize investments in public transit. Electric or diesel, it is clear, that a bus or light -rail vehicle, subway, rickshaw, whatever you want to put on there, it's a more e fficient way to get around than a single-occupant vehicle.

And the government at all levels–provincial, civic, federal –should be investing in public transit as a viable way to meet our targets. Government's record here is a bit puzzling. In the budget last year, they wrote off the 50-50 funding arrangement between Manitoba and our cities that affected transit in Winnipeg and Brandon. Now, with the closure of Greyhound in Thompson, Manitoba, that means that they're looking for a new public transit service provider. That means that the province, under the existing legislation, would not be able to come forward and help them.

This legislation was some of the most progressive in the country. It allowed cities and the province to invest in public transit, an important and vital public service. In the 2016 election, the PC government defied Conservative logic at the time and quietly announced their price on carbon. This was a refreshing thing to see. I think that there was, you know, a lot of pressure from across the spectrum to say, you know what, it's just another tax; we're not going to do it. Later, in 2017, as part of this climate plan that they are now debating, they announced 100 electric buses for Winnipeg Transit.

I was looking for the answer, and I wanted to see if that was to replace existing buses or to add more buses, because, right now, we do not have enough buses or operators to meet the needs of a city of 500,000. We are currently at 750,000, and, as the newly re -elected mayor of Winnipeg likes to say, we're approaching a million. So far, we have not delivered on this promise. In fact, as confirmed by media reports last week and initially reported by some citizens and some of our members, there are now less electric buses on the road than the re were last year when the Premier (Mr. Pallister) made his promise.

We wanted, as a union, to put aside and help the government move forward on this file, and you might be thinking to yourself, you know what, it might be a bit odd that –or the PC government might have a closed mind to ideas from a public sector union. We believe that if the government wanted to make a difference, that they would prioritize public transit, reverse the 50 -50 funding, provide dedicated funding. Who better to help them navi gate this reality than those with the knowledge and expertise from those who help move Winnipeg on a daily basis?

We are ready to take a chance to help the government and to work together for our future. We reached out to the minister on several occasions to offer insights and supports, and we didn't hear back. Then we found out in the budget that the carbon tax, as presented, provided no money to transition to the green economy –no additional funds for transit, no additional dedicated funding for electrifying the fleet, even a bit of fare relief. You know, a targeted program of that nature would be helpful. But we didn't hear back. * (19:30) So what we did was we researched our own case.

We presented a model called pay as you save. We borrowed it from other –or, other areas as well, and we released it publicly. MLAs who are reading the supplement right now will see thi s is as an op -ed piece that we published in the Winnipeg Free Press. Under this model, the Province would have loaned the City of Winnipeg the cost difference on the electric bus, making money after the fact based on operational savings and providing Mani toba Hydro–which, I would note, is in financial trouble and needs more revenue–with a solid revenue source.

So, instead of the money that Transit spends leaving the province to pay for diesel gas, we could actually– we could fund it using locally produced e lectricity, and electricity that is fairly renewable at that. After we went public with our plan, the minister called the proposal interesting and promised to review it. We haven't heard back yet to this point. And, you know what, I would like to, you know, say for the record that I'm not interested in the partisan bickering that's going to come out of this.

And I want to make an offer to the government and to the opposition and to the second opposition that we want to be on your side. We want to work for the betterment of Manitobans. We want to work for local jobs, for local clean solutions and to get more people on the bus.

216 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 So we hope that the government will see the light on climate change and invest money to prioritize transit. We need to get people out of their cars and onto a cleaner way of transportation. Even if it's not electrified, transit is still a greener choice than single-occupant vehicles or even carpooling. So I'd ask MLAs here–and I apologize; I didn't think of the rural MLAs when I was th inking this. But, you know, I understand you stay in Winnipeg during the session. Do you ever take the bus? Why or why not? It's probably not efficient for you.

If you have to go to a committee meeting or if you have to get out of the Legislature, you know what, you don't want to be waiting 30 minutes outside at that bus stop out there. I've been there. It's cold. It's not fun. So, the reason that that is, is because current levels of investment are not sufficient to provide reliable, affordable and safe s ervice, so why not make the investment and make a difference? If the government is serious about fighting climate change, then they'll turn this bill around and ensure that public transit gets the resources it needs. Our future depends on it.

The solution here is pretty simple: take the bill back to the drawing board; bring in some dedicated provincial funding for municipal transit systems; allow them to grow their networks, creating good, local jobs in the operations and maintenance and bus manufacturing sectors. These are jobs that are well paying. That means that people who are trained in these sectors will spend money in the economy. The money gets recycled back in. That grows our economy. The government is correct in stating that there's not a lot of low -hanging fruit when it comes to Manitoba's emissions profile.

Essentially, transportation makes up a third of our emissions, so why not focus on this? It just makes sense. While we've been on a bit of a bumpy road so far, I want to offer my union's support, insight and advice to the government, should they want to hear it. I'm happy to clear a

schedule at a moment's notice to make a meeting possible. As transit operators and workers, we know where to invest so that the Province can work with transit to invest smarter. We want to be part of the solution to clear–cleaner air, to create local jobs and to ensure a sustainable future. We think this is a fair deal, and I want to ask, is the government on board? Thank you very much. Madam Chairperson: Thank you for your presentation. Do members of the committee have questions for the presenter? Ms. Squires : Thank you very much, Mr.

Fleisher, for coming down here this evening and for offering to work with us as we transition to a low -carbon future and, specifically, to get more people on the bus. And that is certainly a goal that we have in our government, and thank you for extending the offer to help, and I will take you up on that. Thank you. Mr. Fleisher: I appreciate the comment from the minister. I would like to add, for the record–and one of the reasons I'm so exhausted right now is I spent a large portion of the last few months door knocking across south Winnipeg for a city council candidate. He got back in; I'm very proud of him.

And I got to spend a lot of time in the St. Vital area and –as well as the Riel constituency on both sides of the previous and potentially future boundaries. And one of the things I heard from people, and I also heard it from people in Sage Creek, is that they want better public transit. So this isn't a hard sell to people. And I think, you know what, this is a government that has, you know, for example, on the cannabis file, identified high driving as a major, major issue, so why not invest in transit? This is–this can work across a spectrum, and we want to be there to help you.

And, you know what, like, we're open. We want to work with the government, and we want to get this done. Madam Chairperson: The honourable minister, on a follow-up. Ms. Squires : Just a quick comment. I want to say congratulations to you and your candidate, and I look forward to working with my city council. Mr. Altemeyer: Thank you, Zach, for what I think is actually quite a remarkable presentation. Your union, the people that yo u work for, the people that you represent deserve our thanks day in and day out.

So please pass that along, on behalf of all of us here at the committee, and to Aleem, as well, a difficult job he has, you know, following your advice or changing it, as the case may be, but also still managing to put forward really positive suggestions and really kind offers to help when you're getting not a whole lot in return. And then, I mean, you're very diplomatic in your presentation. I commend you for that.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 217 We have tried on various occasions to invite the government to also tone down the rhetoric, realize the severity of the climate crisis that we're in, and, you know, the 50- 50 deal is gone, the electric buses are gone. There's no additional support on the horizon for any municipality, and yet you're here putting forward a really neat idea like PAYS. You had to skim over it a little bit. Do you want to dive in, you know, for a government that is apparently very concerned about money? Talk about the return on investm ent, as Aleem identified in his

article here. Like, share a little bit about the numbers of what we're actually talking about here and how that could benefit workers and transit users and the environment and the government as a whole. [interjection] Madam Chairperson: Mr. Fleisher. Mr. Fleisher: Oh, yes, sorry. It's been a while since I've been at committee, so I apologize for my informalities here. I think, you know what, in addition to the

article that we passed to members of the committee here, Dr. Ryan Meili, in Saskatchewan, the Leader of the Opposition there, has put together a fairly comprehensive proposal, as well, to recycle the money that you save. So the basics of it are: you know, think about it as if you were heating your house.

If the government came forward to you and you were, you know, spending $500 a month–that's an arbitrary figure –and they came forward and said, you know we're going to install geothermal and it's going to cut your savings down, but we'll give you the loan up front and then you pay back through an increase on your electrical bill, or your heating bill, to cover the costs for government. They can even make a few extra bucks off of it, and you're still saving money. You know what, we've seen this already. The model–I wish I could say, you know what, me, Zach Fleisher, I came up with this entire model; I didn't.

But we applied it to the model here. It's already happening with Aki Energy. So, for example, people –residents of First Nations reserves, predominantly, poorly insulated housing with electric heating, when you transition them away from costly heating that escapes the housing that they have, it means that they have more money in their pockets to spend.

Now, you know what, I'm not a fan of Reagan or Thatcher or any of the Conservative, kind of, thought leaders on this, but this is actually a pretty good example of trickle-down economics, of putting more money in people's pockets and it actually having a positive effect. So I think that this is something that we could look forward to. Within the article, you know what, we said, with the savings you have there, buy more buses, hire more operators, drop fares a few bucks. It's not too hard. The possibilities are endless.

The only issue that you would run up into is where to spend the money, which is not a bad place to be when you're saying, well, you know, we have $10 million that we've saved from operational review. Should we cut fares? Should we hire more drivers? Should we have more frequent service? You know what, if you're hearing about these things, it's not a bad thing. Madam Chairperson: The time for question a nd answer is expired. Thank you very much for your presentation. I will now call on Molly McCracken, private citizen. Ms. McCracken, do you have any written materials for distribution to the committee? Ms.

Molly McCracken (Private Citizen) : Yes, I do. Also, Mark Hudson was scheduled to present from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and was unable to attend, so I have his as well. I don't know if –I thought I'd ask to see if you could distribute it as well. Madam Chairperson: Okay, we will ha ve a staff member help you with that. So you can go ahead with your presentation. Ms. McCracken: I'm a fifth generation settler here in Manitoba. My family came here right after Treaty 1 was signed, and we got farmland near Neepawa and ran the lumber mi ll.

My grandfather was one of the first insurance salesmen at Great -West Life – when they were called salesmen; they are now salespeople–and my mother, an historian and journalist. I'm a policy analyst. * (19:40) And my husband and I have a one-and-a-half-year-old that I am not with right now so I could be here with you because I really care about our collective future here as Manitobans, and I really want the best for all of us into the future.

218 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 Climate change poses extreme risk for all of our families, communities and the province, and as our elected officials, you have a responsibility to act in the face of threats. The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change says we only have 12 years to change and avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change. Here in Winnipeg, the Prairie Climate Centre, their climate atlas for Manitoba finds that we are in a trajectory for a high -carbon future. This will impact agriculture via more droughts.

Hotter summers will result in more, larger and more intense for est fires. Manitoba will have floods in the spring and then droughts in the summer. These will have huge economic costs to the Province, the business sector and inhuman suffering. This is a catastrophe in the making unless we make drastic changes now. I have several points. My first is we must work back from our goal. In 2016 in Paris, Canada committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Many scientists were critical of the Paris commitments not going far enough.

The United Nations itself audited the Paris Agreement and said that it would only limit rising Earth's temperatures to 3°C warmer by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels. So even what was agreed to in Paris does not go far enough, but it's what we have to work back from. This past August, Harvey Stevens, a well-respected former civil servant and quantitative researcher released An Analysis of Manitoba's Proposed Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions as Contained in the Manitoba Climate and Gre en Plan, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba.

Stevens writes that the Paris commitment to Manitoba means that by 2030, the greenhouse gas emissions for that year have to be 14,158 kilotons. They were 20,936 in 2016. They must be reduced substantially, but the Made-in-Manitoba Climate and Green Plan falls short of these goals, and I will highlight three ways. It does not address the fixed goal of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 but instead uses cumulative reductions over time. It sets no cumulative reduction target. This is not the standard method of reporting. All countries report to the United Nations using total annual emissions.

It sets out five cumulative pathways. The most aggressive falls short of the needed 2030 goal by 1,400 kilotons or 1.4 million tons. The social cost of carbon is estimated at between $50 and $200 per ton, depending on what assumptions are made, and these are the social costs if we look at the full cost accounting of carbon on on agriculture, forests, water availability and pests. So this means that the shortfall could cost Manitoba and Canada $70 million to $280 million.

And the carbon accounting system in the act described in sections 5, 6 and 7 is not clear on how it will measure how Manitoba will be Canada's cleanest, greenest and most climate-resilient province. Stevens used a FIPPA to receive the two reports the government used to create the climate plan. The EC-PRO report commissioned finds –it compares the current federal plan of $10 a ton a year, increasing to 2022 with no further increases, to one that increases continuously up to $130 a ton.

And this EC -PRO number finds that the price on carbon would have to continue an increase – $6.78 a ton, to prevent an increase in gr eenhouse gas emissions, which is our goal here: to prevent greenhouse gas emissions. And Stevens found that the reports commissioned by the Province said that a carbon tax is needed and it must be high enough to reduce emissions. But instead, this governm ent is ignoring these reports and backed out of the provincial carbon tax. Now that the federal backstop will apply to Manitoba, the provincial government should do nothing more to fight this.

Number 2: Climate action must be fair. The Ecofiscal Commiss ion's report Provincial Carbon Pricing and Household Fairness identifies that a price on carbon affects household budgets differently as it increases the prices of emission -'intentious' goods and services, which represent a larger share of expenditures for lower income households: things like food, gas, home-heating. So Ecofiscal estimates the cost of a $30 carbon tax on a household with an income below $50,000 a year is $288 a year. The federal climate action plan incentive will pay a family of –$685 a year when the

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 219 carbon tax rises to this $30 a ton in 2021. It is sufficient to cover the costs for low -income households. The price on carbon is like the stick, and it must be matched with a carrot, which is help for families to get off carbon. And these ar e items to reduce carbon costs by supporting better, more affordable public transit–as we just heard –affordable local food and home energy retrofits. Number 3: the Climate and Green Plan cannot be done in isolation of other government policy.

This act replaces the sustainable develop at –act, and important provisions will be lost and should be reinstated. For example, regulatory codes and standards for green buildings and green vehicles and principles and guidelines for sustainable development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to 2030 are widely used. For example, the United Way Winnipeg and Economic Development Winnipeg are using the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and I suggest the Province should do the same. Currently, the plan ignores government's actions that will increase greenhouse gas emissions.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Eichler), for example, wants to increase the number of cattle from 400,000 to 750,000. This will increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to Harvey Stevens' calculations, by 789 kilotons a year, for a social cost of carbon of between 39 and 157 million. The hog industry is calling for 1.2 million more hogs over the next five to 10 years. This will add an additional 251 kilotons a year, for a s ocial cost of carbon of 12.5 to 50.2 million. There's nothing in the plan to address new emitters.

The cumulative emission reduction metric described in 7(2) only considers measures that lead to a reduction it emissions, not those that lead to an increase in emissions, such as the increase of cattle or hogs. Annual emissions by sector and subsector should be included in the reporting. And moreover, there are currently no details in the Climate and Green Plan on implementation. Recent government actions undermine the goals. For example, ending the 50-50 cost -sharing agreement with the City of Winnipeg on transit, which is a loss of $5 million last year.

And transit ridership is lower today than it was 20 years ago. Transportation is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in Manitoba, and we need to improve public transit to get people out of their cars across the province. Earlier this month, William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won the Nobel Prize in economics for their work studying the consequences of c limate policies, such as carbon taxes. Their key recommendation is that governments, corporations and households should have to pay a rising price on carbon emissions.

This is what's called –if you ever studied economics–internalizing the externalities of the cost of carbon to all of us. British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2008. The tax covers most types of carbon–of fossil fuels. And according to Professor Stewart Elgie of the University of Ottawa and Richard Lipsey of Simon Fraser University, since it came in, BC's total use of fuels has dropped by 16.1 per cent. By contrast, in the rest of Canada, fuel use went up by 3 per cent. BC's dramatic drop since the tax marks a big change from the previous eight years when fuel use was actually rising.

Also, notably, BC's GDP outperformed the rest of Canada since the carbon tax has begun, something that a slow -growth province like Manitoba should pay attention to. And No. 4, action is an insurance policy on the future. As the granddaughter of an insurance salesperson, the insurance sector warned of the effects of client change in –early as 1973 and continues evolving its busine ss model, including increasing rates to adapt to changes.

The Fort McMurray fire is 'attribuled' to climate change, and the cost of –to the insurance industry was between 5 and 9 billion dollars, which is now passed on to property owners and businesses in their new insurance. If the anti -tax business groups think that any government can prepare for climate change, including the disproportionate impact it will have on the poor, creating green infrastructure, all without somehow increasing revenues, it needs to get a reality check from those in the insurance sector who increase in their revenue as they understand the world we find ourselves in.

And yet this provincial government is bent on placating certain business interests and cutting taxes and bringing down the deficit all at the same time. This austerity at a time of climate crisis is irresponsible and will create an undue burden on our future generations. The Province could do a number of things to bring in new revenue. It could keep the PST at 8 per cent and direct money to make life affordable in a post -carbon Manitoba. It could

220 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 introduce mobility pricing so cars pay the full cost of using roads– Madam Chairperson: Ms. McCracken, the time for your presentation has now ended. Before we move on to ques tions and answers, I just want to notify you that we did receive Mr. Hudson's submission yesterday, so it is included with the presentations. Thank you for your presentation, and do members of our committee have questions for our presenter? * (19:50) Ms.

Squires : I just want to thank you for coming down here this evening and forgoing that precious time with your one -and-a-half-year-old to express your opinions. And I also thank you for your presentation here that we can read again and much appreciated. Mr. Altemeyer: Thanks very much, Molly. Really good stuff, as always, and I'm sure educational for any member of the committee who isn't yet subscribed to receive the very important updates that CCPA sends around. I know I always learn lots from them. I w ould encourage others to do so; there's no cost.

And, you know, we learned some really important things in the last 10 minutes, things like the Premier's (Mr. Pallister) been using this report all along, claiming that, you know, the plan, which now doesn't really exist in Manitoba, would be better than the federal one, but it would require for the price of carbon. And that very same report, if I'm not mistaken, from what you said, the price of carbon has to go up by almost $7 a ton just to stop emissions from increasing. He's left that part out. That's never reached the light of day.

You've also done an excellent job of pointing out that we have to keep on eye on increases in our emissions, and not just talking about any place where there might be a redu ction, and agriculture also a very big emitter, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you've laid out the argument very clearly. And I think of my three -year-old at home in particular, my 14-year-olds, and you've got the one-a-half-year-old. What would you like t o see this committee do tonight? Is this bill good enough?

Is it, you know, an appropriate start on something or does it need just a radical overhaul before it's going to do anything even close to what the science and what you are telling us needs to happen? Ms. McCracken: Thank you. Well, it's a rapidly changing area, as we've seen, and so I think it would be wise to take a small pause. It's unfortunate I know, the committee hearings are right before you consider voting on the bill, but I really think this is a non-partisan issue.

This an issue of all of our collective futures here in Manitoba and we really need to have something that addresses all of our concerns, in terms of measuring impact and working back from our goal, and a whole of government appr oach. So I would hope that you could reconsider the act.

I also think the sustainable development goals that the UN uses, I mean, I think this is something that perhaps has been missed by the public here, that The Sustainable Development Act is being repl aced here and that we really need to use those goals in our work and to really consider how all of government will–we need all rows in our boat rowing together. And so I –that's–you know, I know you're in a tough spot but that's what I would suggest. Mr. Altemeyer: Just a quick follow-up: I mentioned this earlier in the evening; I think you and others may have come in later on.

I'll be introducing an amendment later on tonight, picking up on your theme of starting with your goal that would require current and all future governments in Manitoba to implement a climate action plan that is directly linked to what the scientists at the United Nations are calling for the world to do. So in this most recent instance, should this amendment pass, Manitoba would be c ommitted to a 45 per cent reduction minimum of 2010 levels by 2030. So I would ask you, if you were one of the MLAs sitting around the table here tonight or as a citizen of Manitoba now, would you be in favour of the initiative? Ms.

McCracken: Yes, definitely. I think we have to work back from our goal. If you're going to have a goal, you need to uphold that, and it's very, very important here in Manitoba because the risks that we face, and we also have to do our part as global citizens. Madam Chairperson: The time for questions has now ended. Thank you very much for your presentation.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 221 I will now call upon Jane McDonald, International Institute for Sustainable Development. Jane McDonald will now be removed from the list. I will now call on Ben Hanlon-Dearman, private citizen. Ben Hanlon-Dearman will now be removed from the list. I will now call on Karlo Aguilar, private citizen. Karlo Aguilar will now be removed from the list. I will now call on Jazmin Alfaro. Ms. Alfaro, do you have a nything–any written material for distribution? Ms. Jazmin Alfaro (Private Citizen): No. Madam Chairperson: Please proceed with your presentation. Ms.

Alfaro: I would like to sit, if that's okay. I'm not feeling very well. I prefer not to stand. Madam Chairperson: Go ahead, Ms. Alfaro. Ms. Alfaro: Thank you. My name is Jazmin Alfaro. I live in Fort Garry electoral division, in Osborne Village, just over the river. I want to thank the standing committee for your time today to listen to the voices of the public. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to speak here, and I really appreciate the positive and welcoming attitude of everyone, from Julie at the Clerk's office to Dave at the back table and all of your support staff. Thank you.

This is an enjoyable experience. The role you play for Manitobans cannot be understated, and it's truly valuable to our communities to have a voice. I also want to acknowledge the other citizens who have had the courage to speak to you today, before me and after me. Miigwech, ekosani, thank you, merci. And I'm here to share with you today who I am and where it is that I come from and my opinions on why removing carbon tax from Bill 16 is bad for us. I'm an immigrant. I came to Canada, as a child, with my mother a nd older brother.

My family was, and is, very fortunate to have had the opportunity to shelter ourselves from civil war, economic unrest, corruption, brutal violence, terrorization from the state. Leaving El Salvador and becoming a citizen of Canada has been a very confusing experience for me. My brother and mother have taken the responsibility to survive so that I can self -actualize, and I have had the immense opportunity to familiarize myself with our lands and our connections internationally.

I am fo rtunate to be educated, and I have been directly active in the environmental realm for 12 years as a community organizer, activist, advocate, researcher and messenger. My name given to me by one of my elders is Pluma Voladora, and it means flying f eather. My environmental science and biology degrees focus on policy and ecology, respectively, with a focus on water resources and social implications. This led me to work directly with indigenous peoples who want to share their voices.

I've had the honour to work in a very diverse environment, in non- for-profit and research at the federal level, provincial level. I've had the honour to work on Clean Environment Commission. I’ve had the honour to work on national actions with, and alongside, Indigenous leaders and allies at the United Nations, at the Organization of the American States. I've had an extremely privileged bird's -eye view of what's happening in the world, and it's all focused on climate change and climate action.

Merging my environmental research experience, the relationships I have with my communities, it's undeniable how important it is for us to measure our impact. By removing the carbon tax, we are removing measures that focus on where our success is and where our success is not. I worry that we will fall in line to rhetoric, that we are siding with current, you know, needs for the government for re-election. I really worry that we are not focusing on our moral and legal obligations to the world. All of the work I do is directly connected to climate change.

And all of the work I do–we need legal action. * (20:00) I do apologize. I'm not feeling very well today, and I'm a little nervous. So I might be a little –places, here. But, basically, there are opportunities. There's a lot of opportunities for us to take action on climate change. You know, several people here h ave talked about the science. Several people have talked about individual activities that we do, right? We can cycle, we can eat vegan, we can do a lot of things. And I think people have presented–very valid places where we can go. I really don't think you need to hear more

222 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA October 25, 2018 from the public. I think we are forgetting our responsibilities. We are party to United Nations convention on climate change. We have also signed the rights of the child, which supports a healthy life for children and their futures. Without a measure, where can we go? It is rhetoric. We are positioning people in scenarios that I think honestly, are beyond our capacities. I shouldn't be here presenting to you today. I'm doing my master's.

I volunteer for a variety of networks and communi ties, including Honduras right now, where over 7,000 people are leaving in mass exodus. And we forget these are asylum seekers. They are affected by the policies that we have and that we do in the world. And a lot of this is climate change. This is highl y complicated because there is no legal framework release that –for environmental refugees. You know, these people are leaving as a result by our actions. If –we are not taking action on climate change.

If we look even further to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of 2030, we are still not meeting our obligations to the world on this. You know, we've been also talking about how the IPCC report is a softer version of the actual science. Where are the indigenous peoples? I'm one of the only people of colour here and this greatly upsets me. You know, it's –we have so many articles of responsibility. Climate change is happening. We do need measures. I do apologize for being a little bit all over the place. I have been involved in this work for so long, so my mind takes several avenues.

But, you know, we have ILO 169 recognizing the autonomy of indigenous and tribal people, and it identifies their governments and governance institutions. Where are they at the table? I do not see any indigenous involvement within the plan that we have right now. I stated before, the rights of the child,

article 6: The child's right to survival and development claims the right for children to realize their fullest potential. We are going to see every year an in crease of migrants around the world–asylum seekers. You know, the correct term is asylum seekers. The majority of people are not going to leave their lands because they want to; they're leaving their lands because they have to. You know, we can look back at the research and look at the push and pull of why people leave their lands, but, fundamentally climate is involved within all of this, right? I did speak to a – Honduras.

Honduras is seeing higher dry events, more intense rains, unpredictable weather. Peo ple cannot survive. Again, we have the right to them and responsibility to them. If we're looking at the convention on climate change, you know, we also need to speak to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We need to–like, these are universal minimum standards. And, if we are looking for–to meet these standards for survival, dignity, well-being and rights of indigenous peoples, we do need to be much more stringent with our impact in the environment.

You know, we are an An nex 1 country of the United Nations. This is directly related to our agreement that we are going to co -operate and support climate change initiatives and activities. We should not just be funding these programs in developing nations; we should be investing that within ourselves. And there are several models of community economic development in which we can do more progressive work. As you know, someone earlier mentioned how the government is risk- adverse in many places. We need to invest more in our communities. It's clear that there is a lot going on, a lot that we can invest in.

And carbon pricing should not be a deterrent. You know, many other people mentioned it's an opportunity for us, within agriculture and in business. And also, you know –again, one of the only people of colour here. In Winnipeg, we have–I found a report from 2011 from c anadaimmigrants.com that collected data from Statistics Canada. Unfortunately, it was a 2011 copy. One in five; 20 per cent of Winnipeg's population are immigrants . Where are they? You know in that –the day that this meeting was originally scheduled, a filibuster was held. We all went home. We had no idea what was going on.

You know, yesterday, I was here again. Things proceeded, unfortunately, too long. I had to leave. And today, I'm finally speaking, and I'm happy for that, but again, disappointed that I am one of the only people of colour. I –you know, I may be one of the only people coming from a indigenous perspective, working with indigenous peoples– Madam Chairperson: Ms. Alfaro, the time for your presentation has now come to an end, so we are going to move on to question and answer time.

October 25, 2018 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 223 And do any of the members of the committee have questions for our presenter? Ms. Squires: First of all, I want to say I'm very sorry to hear that you're feeling unwell and I hope that you get better soon. And I also want to thank you for coming here to this room; not once, not twice but three times. And so I really commend your perseverance for coming here to make s ure that your voice is heard. And you had a very compelling presentation, very well-thought-out and very well articulated. So, thank you for coming down here to let us hear your views. Ms.

Alfaro: Thank you. Hon. Blaine Pedersen (Minister of Growth, Enterprise and Trade): Ms. A

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	41-3-la6
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	41st 3rd hansardpdf la6.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	81f4399fdc0e886324b612e64afdfea60b1f4ad3

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