Did the support of 24 per cent of the electorate on election day give the federal government a mandate for its radical project to gut environmental protection? Apparently. In our apathy-inducing first-past-the-post political system a small minority can translate into a big majority, which can disregard public opinion and do whatever it wants.

Here is a list of what the feds have accomplished so far in their three-pronged environmental strategy of deregulation, cutting information and research and targeting dissenting voices:

1. Eliminated Canada’s international commitment to mitigate climate change, including the repeal of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
2. Undermined global climate negotiations to avoid climate action.
3. Failed to create a plan to address climate change.
4. Eliminated energy conservation and efficiency and renewable energy funding while continuing subsidies to fossil fuels.
5. Eliminated funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
6. Eliminated the climate adaptation research group within Environment Canada.
7. Eliminated scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice core data.
8. Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Environment Canada.
9. Repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, weakening the federal environmental assessment process.
10. Eliminated accepted criteria for compulsory environmental assessments, leaving such reviews to the discretion of the Minister of the Environment and political appointees.
11. Eliminated the jobs of hundreds of scientists working for various government departments that focus on the environment and wildlife.
12. Weakened elements of the Species at Risk Act.
13. Amended the Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters in the way of any pipeline.
14. Allowing the federal cabinet, rather than the National Energy Board, to make decisions about approvals for major pipeline projects.
15. Introduced cuts to ozone monitoring.
16. Ended monitoring of smoke stack emissions.
17. Eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.
18. Weakened the Fisheries Act in the areas of habitat protection and eliminated the marine contaminants program.
19. Fired all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia.
20. Killed the Navigable Waters Protection Act, replacing it with the Navigation Protection Act, which effectively makes major pipeline and interprovincial power line projects exempt from requirements for proponents to prove they wouldn’t damage navigable waterways.
21. Reduced federal protection of waterways to a small number of water bodies and rivers.
22. Parks Canada no longer has to conduct periodic environmental audits or management plan reviews.
23. Eliminated funding for the National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.
24. Eliminated support for the Experimental Lakes Program.
25. Eliminated funding for a dozen Arctic science research stations. Closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory and the Yukon Research Lab.
26. Started privatization and eliminated ecological staff positions in National Parks.
27. Made a systemic effort to cut research, information and analysis with respect to environmental issues.
28. Attacked environmental and First Nations organizations for critiquing resource development.
29. Provided the Canada Revenue Agency with an extra $8 million to crack down on environmental charities.
30. Provided oil companies with unprecedented access to senior government leaders.
31. Muzzled government scientists who have been conducting research on various climate and environmental issues.
32. Cut funding to the Network on Women’s Health and the Environment.
33. Cut funding of the Canadian Environmental Network.
34. In addition to changing the definition of “aboriginal fishery” in the Fisheries Act, without consulting First Nations governments introduced changes to the Indian Act designed to make it faster and easier for First Nations to “take advantage of economic opportunities” by leasing designated reserve lands based on a majority of votes from those in attendance at a meeting or in a referendum, instead of waiting for a majority vote from all eligible voters.
35. Gave the aboriginal affairs minister the authority to call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of considering a surrender of the band’s territory.
36. The minister can accept or refuse the land designation after receiving a resolution from the band council.
37. Eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Indian Head Tree Nursery and the PFRA pasture management program on millions of acres of sensitive grasslands.
38. Provided unprecedented support to industries to exploit natural resources with minimal environmental oversight.

Originally printed in the Star Pheonix.

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Now that the Senate of Canada, the corporate lobby in the Council of Chief Executives, and the premiers are all willing to talk about the need for a national strategic energy vision, perhaps there is some hope that we can, at long last, have a plan. For years, Canada has been the only country in the OECD with no energy strategy. That failing has meant that, de facto, our energy strategy was whatever the oil patch wantedor more precisely what foreign owned energy multinationals decreed.

No wonder we still import foreign oil at world prices to half the country while shipping out Canadian oil at lower prices to the U.S. market. No wonder we have no climate plan, subsidize oil and gas, and have no carbon pricing (other than due to provincial action in British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec).

Nationally, despite the Prime Minister’s crowing about Canada being an “energy superpower,” we are establishing ourselves as a compliant resource colony for the United States and China.

Now that we are talking about having a national energy plan, what are those core principles that could form the beginning of a national consensus?

Let’s start with energy sovereignty. We should ensure that we control our own resources. Foreign state-owned corporate control over Canadian energy resources should be scrupulously vetted for national security and sovereignty risk. Such scrutiny is particularly important when the state-owned enterprises are attached to undemocratic regimes. China’s brand of Capitalistic Communism, with human rights repression and downward pressure on environmental regulations, requires particular review.

When we look at our energy future, a key goal should be to structure planning around demand-side management. We need to develop our energy planning with the goal of doing more with less. Canada’s built infrastructure, whether residential, business or institutional, is woefully wasteful and in need of retrofits. We are literally heating and cooling the outdoors. And energy policy should be about more than drilling and scraping out new supply. We need a strategy for wise use of resources.

Next, can we all agree that energy security makes sense? Should we not ensure that Canada has adequate energy resources for our own use before shipping exports overseas? The dependency of Eastern Canada on oil imports from Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan makes no sense. Nova Scotia imports coal from Venezuela for its dirty electrical grid. To build energy self-sufficiency, we need to diversify and build capacity in renewable energy for the long-term.

Another principle that would take us out of the resource colony trap will be to ensure that we build “value-added” into our energy exports. Canadian crude should be processed and refined in Canada, at least in sufficient amounts for domestic markets, but for export as well. We have been allowing promising energy developments in renewable energy to be commercialized in other countries. We have export opportunities in value added in petroleum products and also in renewable energy that we are abandoning.

Another key element for a viable energy future is found in diversifying our energy portfolio. Canada has huge potential in renewable energy – wind, solar (both passive and photovoltaic), geothermal, district energy, small scale hydro, tidal and, where sustainable, biomass. So far, our energy conversation seems limited to fossil fuels.

A national energy plan must be designed to meet climate objectives. Any viable energy strategy must start by eliminating all subsidies to fossil fuels and placing a price on carbon. An energy strategy must set out a reasonable plan for capping and reducing greenhouse gases throughout the Canadian economy.

All of this is possible. The largest missing ingredient at the moment is federal leadership. Thus far, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has displayed no enthusiasm for any energy plan other than more than tripling oil sands production to six million barrels of oil a day. While B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford clash over Enbridge’s proposed risky pipeline and supertanker scheme to Kitimat, Harper is firmly on the side of one governmentthe one in Beijing.

If we are to have a national energy strategy, it has to start with an effort to build consensus. Ideally, it will provide a vision that advances the needs and aspirations of all parts of Canada. An energy plan should have at its core that it meets the needs of all of Canada while building our common wealth. That might just get everyone around the table.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
Originally published in the Hill Times.

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Most Canadians do not like paying taxes, especially if they think that the taxes are unfair or do not deliver good value for money. People do not like wasteful spending by an over-bureaucratized government. Fair enough. However, about half of Canadians say that they would not mind paying more taxes for a cleaner environment, better health care and education, and to support people in need.

Taxation and spending policies shape society by sending signals about which sectors of society governments think are important. Over the last six years, both the Conservatives and Liberals have used our tax system to benefit large corporations, reducing federal corporate taxes. Back in 2000, the general rate of taxation on corporate profits was 29.1%. By 2006, when the Harper government came into office, the corporate tax rate had been cut to 22.1%. We all remember our budgets consistently posted surpluses at that time.

No longer. Canada moved into a deficit just before the economic meltdown in September 2008. Due to cutting the GST, cuts to corporate income taxes, and increased spending, the Harper government had eradicated the surplus just in time for a recession. For the first time since former Finance Minister Paul Martin under Chretien slayed the federal deficit – at enormous cost to health care and education – Canada started running deficits. Deficits can be managed, but debt erodes public revenue through interest payments. The debt has ballooned. The federal debt now stands at more than $600 billion. An astonishing 24% of that federal debt was run up on Stephen Harper’s watch. The cost of servicing that debt is $29 billion per year.

There is an alternative to borrowing from commercial banks and paying that $29 billion to banks. Many Canadians want to revisit the role of the Bank of Canada. Monetary policy could shift to reduce the high levels of interest-bearing debt.

Meanwhile, all through the recession, the Conservatives have continued to cut the corporate tax rate. In 2008, the rate fell to 18%. By 2012, it fell to 15% – the lowest tax rate on big corporate profits in the industrialized world. Canada’s tax rate on the largest and wealthiest corporations on earth is now half that paid by corporations in the U.S.

When the corporate tax rate was slashed, the spin from the Harper Administration was that the largest corporations in Canada were ‘job creators.’ The justification for eroding government revenues in favour of greater corporate profits was that it would result in a big boost in employment.

However, the evidence is now in. Corporations have not used the extra cash to create jobs. They have not re-invested it in the Canadian economy. In the words of Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, the money that would have gone to pay for critical infrastructure, veterans’ benefits, and environmental research is “dead money.” It has not created jobs. It is sloshing around in the bank accounts of Canada’s biggest corporations. It is an astonishing $629 billion – 35% of Canada’s GDP.

At the same time, the cost of living has increased. Canadians save less, carry more debt, and work more hours for the same money. Even before the current recession hit, people were having a harder time providing for their families and paying for a decent place to live.

The Green Party believes in reforming our tax system to make it fairer and more in tune with Canadians’ desire for a healthy environment, a sustainable economy, and a vibrant, caring society. It makes no sense to subsidize the wealthiest corporations on Earth – the oil companies. We must remove these perverse subsidies immediately, not in the slow ‘grandfathered’ approach of the Conservatives’ 2007 budget.

The Green Party will reduce taxes on things we all want, like income and employment, and we will increase taxes on things we do not want, like pollution that harms people and our environment.

Our ‘green tax cuts’ will be progressive, with a schedule that gives industry time to gear up or gear down. The ecological fiscal reform undertaken by Greens will include carbon pricing as well as taxes on cancer-causing substances and junk food that harms our children. And they will be revenue neutral because a tax shift is not a tax grab. Income and payroll taxes will decline and the changes will help, not hurt, less fortunate members of our society. In the case of Green carbon pricing, the funds collected will never enter the general revenues of Canada but will be redistributed in full to Canadians. This system is called ‘carbon fee and dividend.’ The fee is charged at the point of production and the funds are divided equally among all Canadians, received as a cheque for your share of the carbon dividend. Those with lower incomes will receive a proportionally bigger impact as the cheque received will be a larger percentage of their total income compared to those of higher income.

To set the right prices, we have to change to a ‘true’ or ‘full-cost’ accounting method that incorporates economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits in the national accounts. Using this method, products and services are taxed, and thus priced, according to the positive or negative impacts caused throughout their lifecycle. We have already done this with tobacco products. Such taxes help consumers make more rational choices.

There are other ways to put taxes to work improving our society. Our tax system must be designed to reduce poverty, encourage environmentally-beneficial activities, and generate more wealth for the 90% of Canadian families who are currently working harder without getting further ahead.

The Greens’ fiscal plan is straightforward: gradually reduce our debt, give clear tax signals that enable companies to pursue profits on a level playing field, and shift taxes to ensure that both revenue streams and expenditures meet social, economic, and ecological goals.

Green Party MPs will:

• Institute a full range of ‘polluter pays’ taxes, including a carbon fee and dividend designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels by sending a market signal to producers. All these taxes will be revenue neutral;
• Apply border adjustments to ensure Canadian businesses do not face unfair competition from polluting jurisdictions. In order to maintain a level playing field for Canadian businesses with respect to foreign competitors, carbon-based tariffs will be introduced against countries that  apply no carbon tax (or other equivalent mechanism to curb GHG emissions) or apply a lower rate of carbon tax than Canada. These border adjustments will also be distributed in the ‘dividend’ to Canadians;
• Return Corporate Tax rates, except for the Small Business tax rate, to the 2008 level;
• Eliminate personal taxes on incomes below the low-income cut-off (no taxes on incomes of $20,000 or less);
• Review the economic and fiscal implications of returning to borrowing from the Bank of Canada;
• Work with the provinces to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol;
• Encourage use of Canada Revenue Agency’s online NETFILE tax filing system (which saves Revenue Canada money) by giving users an automatic $10 tax credit;
• Develop a specific tax-shifting schedule to provide tax incentives and direct rebates to businesses and individuals investing in the modern clean-tech economy (e.g. installing solar hot water systems, refitting homes and businesses to conserve energy);
• Provide increased tax breaks for Canadians who donate to registered charities.

(See Part 4: PEOPLE for more on family-friendly taxation, including income splitting)

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Seconded by Elizabeth May on February 1, 2012

Click here for the complete document.

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