Hon. Rosa Galvez: Thank you, Senator Marshall. Every time you talk about the budgets and the money bills, I learn a lot. Your work is incredible. It’s true that it is difficult to go through the budgetary cycle and all these estimates and tracking the government expenses. I have a degree in engineering; math doesn’t scare me, and I’m plunging into the numbers, but it’s true that it is difficult to reconcile them in some areas.

We heard the PBO. He recommended several easy things that we can ask of the government in order to increase the facility to do our jobs. Out of the many recommendations that the PBO gave, do you have some preference or priority in asking the government to put some order in the way it puts forward the information? Thank you.

Hon. Rosa Galvez: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

[English]

Senator Gold, a recent report by Nature Canada and three other environmental organizations identify shortcomings in Canada’s approach to measuring and reporting carbon dioxide emissions from the forest sector. The report showed that Canada’s accounting approach fails to include more than 80 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions associated with logging each year in its emissions totals. That’s the equivalent of failing to report all the emissions from the heating of every building in Canada.

This understatement of the climate impact of logging is putting the achievement of Canada’s climate targets, as well as the protection of Canada’s forests, at risk. Will the government agree to appoint an independent expert group to review Canada’s approach to forest carbon accounting and issue recommendations for greater accuracy?

Senator Galvez: Canada’s failure to accurately report the true climate impact from its logging sector is perpetuating a myth that logging in Canada produces minimal CO₂ emissions when in reality industrial logging emits more carbon than the entire agricultural sector. Will the government review its forest carbon accounting practices in order to put in place more effective practices in advance of its fifth biannual report on climate change to the United Nations in 2022?