Can Canada break its fossil fuel addiction?
Canada has an uneasy history when it comes to fossil fuels and climate change. Our leaders have been great at setting far-off targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) or carbon emissions, then failing to meet them. As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, Canada committed to a 30 per cent reduction in […]
Building a cleaner, stronger economy—today and for the future
Canada’s most recent job numbers are absolutely staggering. Our economy has added more than one million jobs across the country since 2015. Unemployment is at the lowest level ever recorded since we started tracking this statistic more than 40 years ago. More than 300,000 children have been lifted out of poverty and thousands of Canadian families […]
Canada needs ocean conservation leadership to stem loss of marine life
VANCOUVER—Healthy oceans are an invaluable source of life and wonder. Many people look over the ocean and only see a great expanse of water and waves. They don’t see the highly productive web of life below the surface—the enormous whales, millions of salmon, colourful anemones spreading their tentacles, ancient glass sponge reefs harbouring a multitude of marine life and warm hydrothermal vents creating an oasis for many rare species. This abundance and […]
Lack of clear definitions behind Liberal lag in phasing out fossil fuel subsidies: experts
Ten years after the federal government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, the Liberals are lagging in slashing funding for non-renewable energy sources. The plan to cut subsidies was established during a G20 summit in 2009, and aims to mitigate the consumption of fossil fuels and encourage the growth of the low-carbon […]
The clean fuel standard is coming to Canada and there’s lessons to be learned from past Canadian struggles
Soon, the federal government will be requiring that all fossil fuels consumed in Canada be less emissions intensive. And no, we’re not talking about the carbon tax. We are talking about the Clean Fuel Standard (CFS)—the government’s latest and potentially most ambitious climate policy yet. The goal of the CFS is to strengthen Canada’s efforts […]
Liberals to move ‘quickly’ after Alberta chops carbon pricing, says McKenna
As Alberta’s carbon tax is on the chopping block, Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna wouldn’t provide a specific timeline for implementing the federal backstop in Alberta, but said the government will “move as quickly as possible” and that she’ll have “more to say in the coming weeks.” Alberta’s new United Conservative government ended […]
Canada slow to come clean on removing fossil fuel subsidies
A few weeks ago, researchers in Hawaii found our atmosphere’s concentration of carbon dioxide is the highest it’s been in three million years. Back then, humans didn’t exist. Earth was significantly hotter. Sea levels were 15 metres higher. We’re heading toward a similarly unrecognizable world. The need to take bold climate change action could not […]
When Canada knew how to lead on the environment
This is Environment Week in Canada. It was created decades ago by an act of Parliament to raise awareness and support environmental action. The first week of June was chosen in order to bracket June 5, World Environment Day. Back in the 1980s, when I was the senior policy advisor to the minster of the […]
Canada’s effort to reduce plastics pollution have been found wanting
Recently, Canada has been getting some bad press. Since 2013, the Philippines has been asking Canada to take back some 69 shipping containers filled with garbage, erroneously labelled as recyclable material. Fed up with the Canadian federal government’s inertia, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte finally threatened to “declare war” on Canada if we continue to let […]
Senate amendments, ‘toothless’ regulations undercut Bill C-69
This June marks the 120th anniversary of Treaty 8, which, according to our tradition, is solemnized by the Creator to bind both parties in a promise between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians that is supposed to last “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows.” However, the latest legislative brinksmanship unfolding […]
