ecoEnergy Archives | Elizabeth May

Challenging the government to take concrete and meaningful steps to meet our Paris obligations

Elizabeth May — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 18:42:27 +0000

Elizabeth May

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pursue a question that I asked in question period not that long ago, on Friday, June 2. I suppose it is now June 9. Though the Table still says it is June 8, it is a bit after midnight.

The context of my question to the Minister of Environment was that just the day before, the president of the United States had claimed he had exited the Paris agreement. In legal reality, which is the reality, the United States is still part of the Paris agreement and remains legally bound by its obligations. The earliest possible date on which Donald Trump can pull the U.S. out of Paris is November 4, 2020, which, ironically, is the day after the next U.S. presidential election. There is no question that the president of the United States intended to do maximum damage to the global effort.

My question for the minister was what more Canada could do under the circumstances. I named some specific actions. One was to revisit our target, which is still too weak. It is 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. That is the target that was left behind by the previous Harper administration. It is inconsistent with the Paris goals. If we achieve that target by 2030, it is insufficient to fulfill our obligations under the Paris agreement. We need to do much more if we are serious about avoiding a 1.5° global average temperature increase.

The exciting thing that happened in the days since I asked the question, and I will return to the minister’s answer, is that, if anything, Donald Trump has galvanized sub-national levels of government throughout the United States to commit to the Paris agreement. Ironically, his rhetorical flourish that he was elected by Pittsburgh and not Paris led to the mayor of Pittsburgh, Mayor Peduto, to say that Pittsburgh is committed to Paris and Donald Trump should not speak for Pittsburgh when he says he was elected by Pittsburgh. He was not elected by Pittsburgh and it wants the Paris agreement to go forward.

There are 211 mayors across the United States who have recommitted their city governments to reducing greenhouse gases, as have more than 30 states. Just yesterday, the state of Hawaii passed the first law in the United States specifically mentioning the Paris accord and saying that Hawaii and state officials are now legally bound to come up with a treaty with plans within the state of Hawaii to meet those targets.

The answer I received from the hon. Minister of Environment was excellent. I have to say it was excellent. She said, “If the U.S. administration is going to step back, we are going to step up.” However, the only specific concrete measure she suggested was that the House would debate the Paris agreement, which we have already done. She said we would vote on it, and we know how that went. It was 277 to one in support of the Paris agreement.

To meet our targets under the Paris agreement and to play a global role that could be called leadership, we need to do much more. Setting a price on carbon is merely a foundational piece. It will not achieve even the weak Harper target. We need ecoENERGY retrofit programs, we need to make sure that we encourage the transition to electric vehicles far more aggressively than we are doing. We cannot afford to postpone, as the government just did, our methane regulations. We need them right away. We need to do much more and faster on our infrastructure fund. Money that has been re-profiled for after the next election needs to be spent sooner.

In other words, what I am hoping to get to tonight in this debate is the clear understanding that the world is not abandoning Paris and Donald Trump is not going to destroy the Paris agreement, but without more action from governments that support it than what we have declared so far, we will not achieve our Paris targets. Canada needs to do much more than we are currently committed to doing.

Joël Lightbound – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, with or without the government of the United States, the momentum around the Paris agreement and climate action is unstoppable. We in Canada look forward to working with many states and U.S. stakeholders and partners and communities around the world to build these relationships while protecting the environment.

I am proud of the instrumental role we played in negotiating the Paris agreement. Today, we are steadfast in our determination to implement our commitments through our domestic efforts, which included the pan-Canadian framework, and through our global leadership, including through advancing the implementation of the agreement.

Canada’s historic $2.65-billion commitment is our largest climate investment ever, and it shows our commitment to global action.

As a member of the High Ambition Coalition, we want to see more ambitious and accelerated climate action, not less. We want to move forward, not back. We want to build on the exceptional success that is the Paris Agreement and see the results, not bring the world back to discussions that took place years ago.

Canada will continue to play a leadership role when it comes to climate change. In September 2017, Canada will host and co-chair a ministerial meeting with China and the European Union to move forward on the implementation of the Paris agreement and encourage clean economic growth. In 2018, when Canada holds the G7 presidency, it will give priority to action on climate change and promoting clean economic growth.

Since forming government, we have worked hard here at home to develop pan-Canadian solutions with provinces and territories.

In the Vancouver declaration, the federal government and the provinces and territories agreed on two essential things. The first is to implement GHG mitigation policies in support of meeting or exceeding Canada’s 2030 target of a 30% reduction below 2005 levels. The second is to increase the level of ambition of environmental policies over time in order to drive greater GHG emissions reductions, consistent with the Paris agreement.

In the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change our government, along with provinces and territories, put forward a comprehensive, detailed plan that shows how we will meet our emissions reductions target, a plan that the previous government always failed to deliver.

Our government made it clear from the start that it was taking a very different path from the one the Harper government infamously took, which consisted in setting targets without ever coming up with a plan to achieve them and taking no real action to fight climate change. This has made Canada’s targets that much harder to achieve, but we are determined to do so.

Elizabeth May

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary to help us in the wee hours to debate this, but although measures under the current Liberal government are better than what we had under the previous nine years under Stephen Harper, they are not as good as what we had under the Right Hon. Prime Minister Paul Martin. It seems to me that if we could dust off the 2005 budget that was put forward at that time by the minister who is now the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we would have more for the climate and actually have eco-energy retrofit.

Although it was in the Liberal platform that we were getting rid of them, we still have fossil fuel subsidies. We now have seen the details on how the pan-Canadian framework will deal with the largest polluters in those jurisdictions that do not have their own carbon price. They are getting all kinds of loopholes. We are letting Nova Scotia get away with still burning coal when it has weaker commitments under the pan-Canadian framework than it had before.

We have to do much better. While I applaud the government for being more on the right track than the last one, I cannot in all conscience let it off the hook when my children and grandchildren’s future is at stake.

Joël Lightbound – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, there is a world of difference between the previous government and our government, not only when it comes to rhetoric, but also when it comes to action

I want to remind the House and the hon. member of some of the measures we have taken to fight climate change. Canada is doing its part and is a leader on climate change.

We are pricing carbon pollution right across Canada, accelerating the phasing-out of our traditional and highly polluting coal-fired power plants, developing a clean fuels standard to stimulate greater use of biofuels, investing in public transit and electric vehicle infrastructure, putting in place strong regulations on methane emissions, and taking action on short-lived climate pollutants, including HFCs. We have introduced a lot of measures.

I think what really sets us apart is that we allocated the necessary resources to see our plans through and that our goal is not to constantly pit economic growth against the environment, but to ensure that they continue to go hand in hand.

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Flaherty has changed – and more than just his footwear

Craig Cantin — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:30:04 +0000

There is a distinct change of tone in the 2013 budget. It is a matter of tone more than substance, but the jackboot style of Budget 2012 — the “we will build pipelines and the environment be damned” tone — has been replaced with a kinder, gentler message.

This budget shows a sensitivity on issues where the Harper Conservatives have been repeatedly hammered. There is money for the burial of our veterans and $8 million for the restoration of Massey Hall. Public outcry over the savaging of fisheries habitat leads to a small sop this time around — $10 million over two years to work with local conservation groups to improve fish habitat.

I was keeping a little mental checklist of all the suggestions in my submission to Flaherty where some action at least was taken: new funding for the Sustainable Development Technology Fund (although at $325 million over eight years, less than what had been recommended by the Pembina Institute); a commitment to go after offshore tax-havens; less money wasted in Government of Canada travel and greater use of telecommunications and video-conferencing; and (some) money for First Nations education.

I was pleased to see the funds for municipal infrastructure; while it’s less than what the crisis demands, it is certainly a step in the right direction. And finally, a sign that the Harper Conservatives have given up efforts to prop up the domestic asbestos industry: $50 million over seven years for retraining workers in that shameful industry.

There is language about mental health and homelessness, as well as small amounts of money for each. Unlike last year’s budget, the word “climate” is actually used without being restricted to the “investment climate.” The Copenhagen target is referenced, albeit with the predictable falsehood that we are “halfway to meeting (it).” (p.242) The same page even boasts of the accomplishments of the ecoEnergy retrofit program — a program they killed last year.

The problem with the budget documents is that they are increasingly “fudge-it” documents. We no longer receive the appendices with the total budget numbers for departments. So is the total envelope going up or down? Who knows?

For instance, VIA Rail is mentioned and gets money — $54 million this year and $58 million spread out over the next five years. But there is no context to tell us if the 50 per cent cut in VIA support in the Main Estimates would be redressed in the Supplementary Estimates, or whether the cuts are devastating and these amounts are band-aids on a fatal wound.

There is an announcement of $248 million over five years for Environment Canada for much-needed investment in our Meteorological Service. But without seeing any overall estimate for Environment Canada, it isn’t possible to know if this is robbing Peter to pay Paul — money taken out of some other part of the department.

The overall direction of this government is unchanged. Aquaculture is getting more funding, without any response to the Cohen Report on the fate of wild salmon ($57.5 million over five years). Accelerated Capital Cost allowances for mining remain, but are reduced to the same level as oil and gas, while the access 15 per cent Mineral Exploration Tax credit for flow-through shares for mining exploration, an incentive to widespread ecological damage, is extended another year.

What we will not know until we see the implementing legislation is how many egregious measures will be rammed through the House in a 2013 omnibus bill that claims to derive its legitimacy from this budget. The reality is the 2012 budget made no mention of the Fisheries Act — but C-38, claiming to implement the budget, destroyed fish habitat.

Originally published on iPolitics.ca.

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Budget 2012: environmental laws run over by an omnibus

Craig Cantin — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:34:41 +0000

Since my last article for Island Tides, Parliament has been dominated by the March 29 Budget and the April 26 budget implementation bill, Bill C-38. The first set out the fiscal plan with a heavy dose of promised laws to reduce/fast-track environmental assessment; the second went far beyond the words of the budget itself, to deal stunning blows to the foundational laws to protect nature.

Given limitations of words and space, let me cover some of the main points.

Budget 2012 cuts government spending, overall, by about $5 billion for next year. (Green Scissors, my submission to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, cut by $6 billion, but went after very different things—like government advertising and the Prime Minister’s Office budget.)

Budget 2012 delivers the expected news of increasing the age of entitlement to Old Age Security to 67, while deeply cutting CIDA, CBC, Environment Canada, Statistics Canada, Parks Canada, Library and Archives, and DND (cuts there largely due to the end of involvement in Afghanistan). It also cuts $7.5 million from Elections Canada, $14 million from tourism, and over $50 million from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (leading to the announced closing of the Canada Plant Health Centre on East Saanich Road). It also did away with the youth volunteer-service program, Katimavik.

There is no mention of climate change. The hoped for extension of the eco-Energy home energy retrofit programme was not to be, ditto hopes for funding to keep the Polar Environmental Arctic Research Laboratory–Canada’s critical research lab on Ellesmere Island and the world’s closest to the North Pole–from closing. No reprieve there, nor for funding of climate science. Scientific research through the National Research Council is now directed to focus on work that is ‘business-led and industry-relevant.’ (I can just imagine what Einstein would have said about that.)

Also announced in the budget was the surprise termination of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy– the only effort remaining within the government to develop consensus between industry and environmentalists to pursue sustainable development. As I was feverishly reading the budget document in ‘lock-up’ (the invitational, embargoed preview of the budget), I scanned for any reference to climate change, I got excited when I saw the word ‘climate,’ only to focus and realize it was a discussion of the ‘investment climate.’

Instead, Budget 2012 commits the country to expansion of fossil fuel production: oil sands, pipelines, super-tankers, seismic testing and off-shore drilling. Consistent with that is the funding of an attack on environmental charities with a new $8 million to spend on going after groups alleged to be conducting ‘political’ advocacy, a charge which has been directed at groups opposing the Enbridge super-tanker scheme.

The budget was very grim news indeed, but did not really prepare me for the introduction of the omnibus Budget Implementation Bill. It’s bizarre tabling was without prior notice—not even the usual advance ‘lock-up’ with technical briefing.

I picked up my copy and made for my desk in the House, where I sat, reading, near tears, for the next three hours. C-38 is over 400 pages repealing, amending or otherwise revising 70 different pieces of federal legislation. Aspects never even hinted at in the budget itself include removing oversight from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, changing entitlement to Employment Insurance (this is still vague but appears to allow refusing EI to anyone if there is any job available, even one not in their field), and allowing the Cabinet to overrule the National Energy Board (NEB).

Not Mentioned In the Budget

Nearly half of the budget implementation bill is directed at rewriting Canada’s foundational environmental laws. The Budget itself never mentioned that the Fisheries Act was to be re-written, gutting habitat protection and restricting federal action in many instances to commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries. This essentially means that if humans aren’t catching a fish, there is no protection for its habitat.

There nothing was mentioned in the budget speech about the changes to the Species at Risk Act which put the NEB in charge of permitting destruction of endangered species and their habitat along the proposed route of a pipeline; nor about the supplanting of the NEB as arbiter of pipelines under the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The NWPA is amended such that pipelines are no longer considered an obstruction to navigation–even if they are.

Although it was abundantly clear that a large focus was to be ‘streamlining’ the environmental assessment process, the advance hype focused on time limits for hearings. It was nowhere mentioned that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was to be repealed. C-38 wipes out the entire CEAA and introduces an entirely new law. Under the new act, ‘environmental effects’ (that which is to be studied under a federal EA), is, for many circumstances, restricted to fish and migratory birds.

Not Clear On the Concept

With so many new laws and the repealing of old laws and complex text, the Conservative ministers speaking in the House in support of C-38 frequently claim the budget implementation act will include measures that are simply not there at all, or misstate how the new laws will operate.

I go up to them afterward and, for example, ask ‘I cannot find any reference to increased tanker safety in C-38. Can you show me what section you were referring to?’ Or, ‘I can’t find anything that says environmental reviews will only be transferred to the province if the environmental assessment in that province is ‘as good or better’ than the federal one. Where is that?’ Of course, when I ask these specific questions, it is because I am pretty sure that I haven’t missed anything.

The ministers tend to look back at me, blinking slightly. They mention that it is a very long and complex bill. Yes it is, but I have read it and I missed the section they just told the House was in the Act. Where is it? Then the look on their face is like the ‘lapine’ word from Watership Down for a rabbit caught in headlights on a road: ‘tharn’.

There is much more, but for now, I urge constituents to join growing calls for removal of environmental laws from Bill C-38. The Harper Conservatives have gone too far. Previous Progressive Conservative Fisheries Ministers Tom Siddon and John Fraser have both spoken out against the horrifying changes to the Fisheries Act.

Write letters to the editors of the nation’s newspapers. Contact the other Opposition leaders (Rae and Mulcair) and urge that they join me in a strategy to derail this juggernaut of abuse. For more details about Bill C-38, go to www.elizabethmaymp.ca. Together, we can make Stephen Harper regret taking aim at nature.

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Next on the chopping block: ecoEnergy Program gets the axe

Craig Cantin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:45:35 +0000

Not only has the Harper Conservatives terminated a highly popular energy efficiency program, but they are dropping the guillotine even earlier than planned, a move that has the Greens seeing red. “The ecoEnergy program represents low-hanging fruit in terms of investment to greenhouse gas reductions. It should be continued indefinitely and expanded. It creates jobs, it helps working families reduce their heating bills; it is really a great program. Cutting it was a mistake but now announcing that it will end two months earlier than planned is really an insult to all who work in the retrofit industry,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced a sudden closing of the ecoEnergy Retrofit – Homes program on Sunday, January 29, two months before expected, and has limited what is left of the program to 250,000 registered homeowners. Representatives of the Save ecoEnergy Coalition are crying foul, saying that Prime Minister Harper has broken his budget promise to invest $400 million into the program. With the registration capped, the investment will be less than half of what was promised.

“We should be maximizing this program, not incapacitating it,” said May. “Investing in energy efficiency and providing small grants to home owners is economic stimulus that actually works, not to mention the benefits to the environment.”

Home retrofit incentive programs have been shown to generate double the tax revenue for every dollar invested in homeowner grants. The Green Party of Canada has proposed increasing the home energy retrofit grants by 50% and introducing programs for low income housing, municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals.

“Now that they have shamed Canada by severing our involvement in the Kyoto Protocol, the Harper Conservatives are going full force into gutting Canada’s environmental programs and regulations. This latest salvo reinforces that this government is truly out of step with the rest of the world and with what Canadians want for their country,” said May.

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