QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
Carbon Capture Tax Credit
March 3, 2022
Mr. Minister, this is an easy question.
I understand that the government seems to view carbon capture, storage and utilization technologies as an important part of an overall plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. However, in January, more than 400 climate scientists and other academics asked the government to reconsider that approach and to create tax credits for these facilities.
Minister, do you think a tax credit is an important incentive to efficiently reduce the carbon footprint, or is it another subsidy to oil and gas at a time of soaring revenues?
Thank you for that question. I saw that letter from those scientists and experts. I know and respect many of them.
That being said, we are going to need this technology, not just for the oil and gas sector, but for the cement sector and probably for the steel sector because we will not be able to reduce our emissions fast enough to avoid global average temperatures from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
Maybe if we had started not just in Canada but everywhere around the world — and a few countries did — but if we collectively had started tackling climate change 25, 30 years ago, like some of us have been calling for, maybe we wouldn’t need it, but we are going to need it. I do not think, and no one thinks that the federal government alone should invest in that technology.
We’ve committed to have a just transition, meaning that we are going to work with every region of this country, every sector, to help them decarbonize their operations. It includes steel. It includes cement. It also includes oil and gas. We’re not going to abandon the sector and say, well, you deal with this on your own while we’re ready and willing to help all the other sectors.
