Legislative Assembly of Ontario · Committee

Monday, March 23, 2026

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

The official transcript of the meeting, from Hansard, by heading. Ministers, officials and witnesses appear as the transcript names them; committees have no live transcript, so the record appears once the Assembly publishes it.

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Meeting ended

Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks; Ministry of Energy and Mines; Ministry of Transportation; Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness

01:56:53Official transcript

Mr. Alex Wood

Thank you for the question. Ontario is taking a number of actions to position itself as a leader to support the growth of a clean economy. We continue to focus on achieving our climate change objectives while prioritizing needs arising out of the economic uncertainty facing the province. Ontario is committed to long-term decarbonization, and our province will continue to evaluate and consider approaches to reducing greenhouse gases beyond 2030. The investments Ontario is making in its electricity system, in its transportation system and in industry are helping Ontario build a competitive low-carbon economy while protecting communities and the environment. In terms of the specific, I will point to the fact that we are developing a carbon management framework. I mentioned this a little earlier. That framework would help accelerate the use of new technologies and support the growth of a strong carbon management sector. It would build on the government’s efforts to enable geological carbon storage and would open the door to new export markets and attract investment while reducing industry’s carbon footprint. We are also supporting clean steel investment that will fundamentally reduce the environmental impact of clean steelmaking and deliver low-carbon materials throughout Ontario’s automotive and manufacturing supply chain and work to establish Ontario as a global player in steel production. We are making gasoline cleaner and reducing emissions through the cleaner transportation fuels regulation, which requires fuel suppliers to gradually increase renewable content, such as ethanol, in regular gasoline to 15% by 2030. The regulation is expected to have an annual reduction of up to one megatonne of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road. We are also supporting our clean fuels industry through domestic content requirements, ensuring that GHG reductions are achieved using made-in-Canada clean fuels. I already mentioned and discussed the Emissions Performance Program. We are returning, through the Emissions Performance Program, proceeds raised through the EPS Program that we have, to help sectors of the economy make transformational investments that lower their emissions and help make them more competitive. Funded projects included energy-efficiency, electrification, waste water energy recovery and waste heat recovery projects—and I mentioned projects like the Algoma project as well, as a recipient of our Emissions Performance Program. Finally, I’ll just mention the release of Ontario’s first-ever Critical Minerals Strategy and the launch, in November 2022, of the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund. These initiatives are designed to help Ontario businesses thrive and tap into new and growing markets, securing Ontario’s future and our place in the global supply chain. I believe Deputy Laaksonen-Craig would like to add as well.

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02:00:00Official transcript

Ms. Susanna Laaksonen-Craig

Yes, I’m happy to speak to the electricity side and cover a little bit of the government’s Energy for Generations plan and the very broad suite of actions there. In chapter 1, it talks about energy-efficiency. We have talked about it. This is the largest investment in energy-efficiency programs in Canadian history. It was the $10.9-billion investment over 12 years, as I mentioned. The framework is expected to reduce peak demand by 3,000 megawatts, which is the equivalent of taking three million homes off the grid, and save families and businesses $12.2 billion. While MPP Bell asked me about natural gas expansion, I would also, in this context, then, want to mention that the government is also supportive of ratepayer-funded natural gas demand side management programming, which is to reduce natural gas consumption. And for 2023-25, the natural gas demand side management plan had a total annual savings target of 352 million cubic metres of natural gas by the end of 2025, which, of course, then has corresponding GHG avoidance with it. Chapter 2 of the plan speaks to affordable, secure, reliable and clean electricity. It speaks to the largest competitive procurement in the province’s history, the LT2, which will target an annual supply of up to 14 terawatt hours from new energy resources and up to 1,600 megawatts of new capacity resources that are able to enter commercial operation in 2034. We talked about the refurbishments of our nuclear fleet, which will secure 12,000 megawatts of capacity at least for 30 years. And we have been talking about, to some extent, the new nuclear we are building, including the SMRs, but also looking at large-scale nuclear builds in Bruce and Wesleyville. Those would total 15,000 megawatts. I mentioned that the plan also speaks to the transmission. The plan advanced the development of five transmission projects by identifying them as priority projects, which will add over 650 kilometres of new transmission lines and over 1,500 megawatts of new transmission capacity to Ontario’s electricity grid. The plan also highlighted Ontario’s ongoing work with the Independent Electricity System Operator to develop a transmitter selection framework to continue to introduce competition to development and construction of transmission projects. In terms of the future electricity grid, the plan advances a new distributed energy resource strategy that will leverage local technologies to give Ontarians more control over their energy use and make homes and businesses part of a more modern and efficient electricity system. And the plan also highlights government’s commitment to create resiliency, whether it’s through the work of adoption of EVs and the network there, as Ms. Gilbert has spoken to, or those continued connections, improved connections for new businesses and homes. There are a lot of other energy resources the plan also covers. We have mentioned the expanded Hydrogen Innovation Fund and the hydrogen interruptible rate pilot that are also continuing to drive down emissions. In terms of looking at this, then, as not just an Ontario issue—because climate change doesn’t know borders—we are working very closely with other provinces and territories. The plan championed new energy corridors from Western Canada and established principles looking at how we can work with our neighbours in terms of an electricity supply. We have been talking a lot about plans. Specifically, the plan advances a series of reforms and enhancements to integrate and streamline planning processes to better support growth, whether it’s through an enhanced regional and bulk system or other advancements and further work requested by the electricity system operator and the Ontario Energy Board. The plan also speaks to the commitment to expand the Indigenous Energy Support Program, as well as—I earlier talked about government’s commitment to be able to support the true participation of our Indigenous communities in energy progress. There are many more, but these are some of the key tenets that are part of the plan that really maps out our energy future and is working to position Ontario’s energy future around those four words that I have mentioned quite a few times at this point, but also how we continue, then, to be partners in Canada and work with our neighbours both in Canada and in the United States, when it’s the right choice for us to make. Because that way, we can all really push these energy-efficiency, generation, transmission aspects forward.

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02:05:21Official transcript

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We are at just over 10 minutes remaining. MPP Smith, please proceed.

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02:05:26Official transcript

Mr. David Smith

Thank you all for your presentation here this afternoon. Measuring Ontario’s emissions is critical to understanding what happens within the province. We also recognize there is a fair amount of uncertainty in long-term projections, including technology demands and timeline. What is the government’s approach to modelling greenhouse emissions?

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02:05:50Official transcript

Mr. Alex Wood

Thank you for the question. The question of modelling and the modelling framework that we use has been discussed already a bit, but I’ll endeavour to get deeper into your question by providing a bit more information on that. We follow best practices and will continue to employ those best practices in our GHG emission projection analysis. As I mentioned earlier, we are committed to continuous improvement to ensure modelling remains robust. MECP continues to assess and refine the approaches, tools and processes used to develop GHG emissions projections as new information becomes available. We, as a matter of business, have a subscription access—and the deputy mentioned this earlier—to basically Canada’s leading energy environment model, run by an organization called Navius Research. It is a peer-reviewed energy economy macroeconomic model that is used by most governments across Canada, including Environment and Climate Change Canada, Natural Resources Canada, British Columbia and Alberta. It has also been commissioned by respected third-party institutions such as the Canadian Climate Institute, Clean Prosperity, the Public Policy Forum and Clean Energy Canada. Our teams continue to collaborate with Navius and to follow best practices to regularly update that model and to reflect the latest emissions data, economic trends and policy developments. To get specific, we use the following approach to modelling updates: Most updates involve calibration of the model undertaken by Navius using publicly available data to reflect historical trends across all sectors of Ontario’s economy. So in this case, we use the National Inventory Report, the National Energy Use Database and related reports, Statistics Canada’s report on energy and supply and demand; macroeconomic projections; electricity sector data; and trends from the Independent Electricity System Operator, including energy supply and demand and energy conservation management frameworks—all inputs that go into that basic framework that we use. At least annually, or as new policies are proposed, MECP collaborates with the leads on MECP initiatives to reflect updates to policies such as the Emissions Performance Standards Program, whenever amendments are made to that program; changes to the cleaner transportation fuels, which I’ve already mentioned; and then food and organic waste policy statement changes as well. We also utilize annual federal consultation processes to track updates to relevant Ontario policies. These are exercises and reports issued by the federal government, such as the biennial transparency report, the emissions projections and the national inventory report, which I also mentioned. Finally, policies and commitments announced in Ontario and in federal budgets, or updates to the federal emissions reduction plan itself, are reviewed for new developments on an ongoing basis. MECP collaborates with Navius, the model provider, to make any necessary policy updates. We also attend regular federal webinars on new climate policies to stay abreast of policy understanding. If a policy is unclear, MECP would follow up with other ministries to clarify or rely on the expertise of the service provider. Again, all of that to underline the work that goes into the model, that is itself the basis by which we generate and issue the emissions forecast, is an ongoing work in progress, constantly being calibrated, constantly being updated with up-to-date assumptions. Thanks for your question.

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02:10:04Official transcript

Ms. Jess Dixon

As we saw in the report, ultimately transportation is a significant source of emissions in the province, but for a lot of people, particularly those that are outside, basically, of urban areas, the reality for them is that driving isn’t optional. Of course, also our freight and trucking industries are an important part of Ontario’s economy. Given that reality—and you know what driving looks like in Ontario—can we talk a little bit more about some of the efforts that are being made to reduce emissions in the transportation sector, just given the challenges that Ontario faces naturally?

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02:10:47Official transcript

Mr. Alex Wood

I’ll start and then hand it over. I’ll speak specifically about a regulation that exists under our ministry, which is a cleaner transportation fuels regulation. What I can speak to there are changes that we already referenced to that regulation over the last few years. Basically, that regulation is expected to have an annual reduction of up to one megatonne of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030. That’s basically by adjusting the blending requirement in that transportation fuel from 10% to 15% over that time period and, from that single policy, a reduction of one megatonne. We’re also, as I mentioned earlier, looking at increasing the blending requirements in diesel fuels as well. That renewable content will need to emit 70% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel diesel on a life-cycle basis. Both gas and diesel are affected by that policy. Finally, I mentioned this earlier as well, but just to underline that we’ve made recent changes to the cleaner transportation fuels regulation to require 75% of the current renewable content requirement for diesel fuels and 64% of the renewable content requirement for gasoline to be produced in Canada. So we are supporting not only the reduction of emissions through that particular regulation but also the economic development of that particular sector in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

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02:12:26Official transcript

Ms. Tamara Gilbert

Thanks. I’m pleased to round out that answer and tell you more about initiatives the government is undertaking to support the adoption of zero-emission vehicles to lower transportation emissions and revolutionize the automotive sector. First, on behalf of colleagues at the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and their Driving Prosperity auto plan, Ontario is committed to supporting investments that specifically support investments in the automotive sector. For example, there have recently been successful efforts to attract over $46 billion in transformative investments from global automakers, part suppliers and manufacturers of EV batteries and battery materials. For example, in St. Thomas, Vianode has announced a $3.2-billion investment to build North America’s first large-scale, low-emission synthetic graphite facility, which will create 300 new jobs in its initial phase and strengthen Ontario’s EV and critical mineral supply chain.

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02:13:39Official transcript

Ms. Tamara Gilbert

Also in St. Thomas, construction is under way at Volkswagen’s PowerCo gigafactory, with major contracts awarded to Ontario-based firms. And in Windsor, NextStar Energy has begun production of its multi-billion dollar battery plant, which will employ over 2,500 people directly and anchor Ontario’s EV battery supply chain. The facility began manufacturing energy storage system batteries in November of last year. We’ve also already mentioned it a number of times, but the ministry is proud of its EV ChargeON program, which is investing over $180 million to increase the number of public charging EV stations across the province, including at community hubs, Ontario highway rest areas, carpool parking lots and Ontario parks. The program will help reduce range anxiety, fill gaps in underserved areas and build a more affordable and connected charging network. As I’ve mentioned, the EV ChargeON program reduces greenhouse gas emissions by expanding access to that network. By significantly increasing the number of chargers, the EV ChargeON program really helps remove one of the key barriers to EV adoption, which is one of the most effective pathways to reducing emissions in the transportation sector. Through round 1 of the program, the province approved over 270 projects that will add approximately 1,300 public charging ports across Ontario, and it is expected through round 2 that we will add a further 200 projects and another 1,000 ports, further strengthening province-wide charging availability. Building on that success, stay tuned. The ministry will soon be announcing our intention to consult on a transportation electrification strategy, which is intended to build off the momentum of recent federal announcements on a new auto sector strategy.

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02:15:48Official transcript

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Thank you. We’re at time. That concludes the time for questions this afternoon. I’d like to thank all of you for appearing before our committee today. We will now pause briefly as we go into closed session so that the committee may commence report writing.

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02:16:41Official transcript

Ms. Jess Dixon (Kitchener South–Hespeler / Kitchener-Sud–Hespeler PC)

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