QUESTION PERIOD — Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Business of the Committee
May 17, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is directed to Senator Marwah as Chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration and is related to the climate crisis the world over, but also as it relates to the Senate.
The Sierra Club and six other non-profit organizations recently reported that fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks reached US$4.6 trillion since the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released April 4, warned it’s now or never and underscored the imperative to the financial sector to rapidly reduce its support for fossil fuels.
Senator Marwah, my question to you as chair of Internal Economy is informed by all of the big five banks in Canada — Scotiabank, RBC, CIBC, BMO and TD — being among the world’s top 20 financiers of fossil fuel producers, and the Sierra Club report named three Canadian big banks among the “dirty dozen” of top international fossil fuel financiers. RBC is number 5, Scotiabank is number 9, and TD is number 11. Senator Marwah, could you please inform us as to the bank or banks that the Senate of Canada uses for administration of the Senate, including payment of salaries to senators and their staff?
Thank you, senator, for that question. You are correct. There are several financial service providers that the Senate uses, but in terms of the climate, reducing our carbon footprint, I would imagine that many, many facets of the Senate’s operations have to change if we are going to reduce the Senate footprint. To that extent, that’s why we approved the environment working group to really look at all aspects of the Senate’s operations to see what actions we could take, what we could do, and I assume that working group will look into our financial service providers — not just them but also all vendors, all contractors — to see what they plan on and what should be done in terms of hiring them for any future work.
Senator Marwah, can you give us a sense, please, of the timing of the work of this special committee, and when we can expect to receive a report back to senators?
If my memory is right, we gave the working group until the end of December. Colin Deacon is the chair of the committee. We gave them to the end of December to report back to Internal Economy and then onwards to the Senate.
