Environment committee engaging in ‘junior high behaviour’: former climate advisers

OTTAWA — Two former advisers on Ottawa’s climate policies say recent antics by parliamentarians at the House of Commons environment committee demonstrate why they resigned from Canada’s independent net-zero advisory body last year.

Simon Donner and Catherine Abreu were at the centre of some committee fireworks on Thursday, when Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs tried to move a motion to invite them to speak.

The committee is studying Canada’s 2030 emission reductions plan. The net-zero advisory body, or NZAB, was created in 2021 as part of Canada’s Net-Zero Accountability Act. It requires the environment minister to take into account the advisory body’s advice when setting emissions targets or changing the emissions reduction plan.

Donner and Abreu both resigned from NZAB in December after accusing the Carney government of not seeking the group’s advice on key policy decisions, including the Alberta energy deal and the major projects bill.

But the motion to invite the former NZAB members never made it to a vote as Liberal MPs on the committee spent the remaining time asking questions about why the two should be heard, leading to filibustering accusations from the Conservatives and Bloc.

Liberal MPs accused the Conservative and Bloc MPs of filibustering themselves by flooding the committee with motions recently. They said those motions are slowing down the committee’s work.

The committee was adjourned before a vote could happen because the available time for interpreters had expired.

“In a nutshell, this type of junior-high behaviour is why I resigned. And I want to be clear, it’s junior-high behaviour by the Conservatives, the Bloc and the Liberals. Like, they’re all guilty here,” Donner told The Canadian Press on Friday.

Reached by text message Friday, Abreu told The Canadian Press it’s clear there have been attempts to obstruct the committee’s work with a flood of motions, but she’s surprised the Liberals took issue with the motion to hear from her and Donner.

“The idea that this was proposed and filibustered by the Liberals themselves, who set up this advisory body in the first place, is yet more evidence of the current government’s disinterest in transparently communicating their plans to address the climate crisis,” Abreu said.

“Basically, this is why I left.”

Conservative MP Branden Leslie told the committee Thursday it was reasonable to hear from Donner and Abreu because of their decisions to resign from NZAB.

“I think (it) is a great opportunity (for them) to come and understand why that happened, and for the government to better understand how the body can be a functioning body to provide reasonable advice to the minister,” Leslie said.

Bloc Québécois MP Patrick Bonin told The Canadian Press on Friday the move by the Liberals to prevent climate experts from speaking publicly is similar to the muzzling of scientists during the Harper years.

After a five-year investigation, the federal information commissioner reported in 2018 that claims about former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government preventing government scientists from talking publicly about their work were well founded.

“The main thing the government has put in place (the NZAB), they don’t want to shed light on it so we can understand what isn’t working, how to improve it, and have transparency regarding the documentation related to that body,” Bonin said in French.

“For us, that’s completely deplorable. There’s no justification for it. Even the Conservatives believe that it is important to shed light on this.”

Liberal MP Eric St-Pierre told The Canadian Press the committee has heard already from Donner on this particular study. And while he said he’d love to have Donner back, he added there is other, more pressing business for the committee to tackle.

St-Pierre pitched a study on industrial carbon pricing last year. But the topic hasn’t been allocated any time beyond the initial meeting to launch the study in December.

“I’m just thinking of like, priorities of what’s most important for the country right now. It’s like, real policy instead of shenanigans,” St-Pierre said, adding the number of motions that have been filed lately amounts to obstruction of the committee’s work.

Donner said he wishes all parties would realize they aren’t taking climate change seriously.

“The Conservatives claiming they need to hear from me when they didn’t ask me a single serious question last year is laughable,” Donner said.

“The Liberals saying you don’t need to hear from me because I testified last year is ridiculous. Because first of all, between last year and this year, we’ve released a new annual report — the NZAB did. And second of all, I was the head of an advisory body that resigned even though that report was finished, before it was released, before I had the chance to brief the minister.

“Aren’t you at least a little bit curious to talk to me?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 13, 2026.

Nick Murray, The Canadian Press