Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.

My name is Keith Stewart. I am the senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada and a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto, where I teach a course on energy and environmental policy.

I've been meeting with Canadian banks about their funding of fossil fuels since 2008, so if I seem a trifle impatient, it's because after the first decade or so of delay, a certain amount of frustration does set in.

It's also been nine years since Mark Carney gave his “tragedy of the horizon” speech on how the financial sector has a short-term focus built into how it operates, wherein three years is considered long term.

This structural myopia makes bankers largely blind to climate risks or, worse, they can see the risks and have even begun to measure them, but their incentive structure doesn't allow them to respond appropriately, so we stumble towards disaster. This myopia can be overcome, but it will require elected officials to step in. This is not new terrain for governments, as we've been regulating banks to protect them from themselves since 1929.

On climate change, the banks have been very clear: They are not going to be leaders. They are not going to do this on their own. We see it in their balance sheets. Canada's big five banks are still among the largest funders of fossil fuels in the world. According to a recent international report, they funnelled more than $130 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2023 and have put over $1 trillion into oil, gas and coal companies since the Paris Agreement was signed. That's a trillion dollars dedicated to making the climate crisis worse, which dwarfs what the federal government has been spending to try to put out the climate fire.

We also see their unwillingness to lead in their backing away from their net-zero commitments in the face of an assault on ESG investing in the United States. They can claim to have the courage of their convictions, but those convictions seem to change, depending on whether they are writing to a Republican state treasurer in Texas about how much they support funding fossil fuels or testifying before this committee last spring about how much they care about stopping climate change.

We also see a lack of leadership in their lobbying efforts, which have sought to slow down the energy transition. They say they want an orderly transition even if the greatest source of disorder is climate-fuelled extreme weather that results in fires, floods, roads washed away, homes destroyed and drought-stricken fields.

Whether it was Jasper in July or Florida last month, the costs of inaction are all around us, and we should not look away.

A wise women once said that when someone tells you who they are, believe them. Banks are telling us that they are committed to follow, not lead, on climate change, yet financial regulation is still a missing piece in Canada's climate strategy.

We are here today asking you to once again save the bankers from themselves, and thereby help save the rest of us from climate chaos, by using all of the regulatory and legislative tools at your disposal to align Canada's financial system with the Paris climate agreement.

To this end, I join with my colleagues in the environmental movement to express our hope that your report will include recommendations to, first, keep fossil fuels out of any sustainable finance taxonomy; second, develop regulations under existing law to require all federally regulated financial institutions and large federally regulated corporations to implement climate transition plans that align with the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement; and, third, support the adoption of comprehensive legislation such as Bill S-243, which is the climate-aligned finance act.

We recently saw some movement on the taxonomy that's under development. The taxonomy and disclosure rules are important, but as planned, they will only provide information that others can use to hopefully do the right thing.

We need to stop hoping big money will do the right thing and make it mandatory for them to stop being a part of the problem and start becoming a big part of the climate solution.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

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