A Week After Canada’s 43rd Election and the Parties of Climate Change Action Are the Winners

October 28, 2019 – The Liberal government of Canada was returned to office by the electorate last Monday albeit with 20 fewer seats and a minority in Parliament. But almost 65% of voters marked their ballots for political parties of which the Liberals are one, that supports concrete action on climate change. The European Union and Germany applauded the outcome because it means “continuity of the work” being done collectively to address carbon emissions and the climate crisis.

Besides the Liberals, the New Democratic Party (NDP), Greens, and Bloc Quebecois, the latter a nationalist party in the Province of Quebec, all have stated a commitment to putting a price on carbon as a step in the right direction in addressing global warming and the frequency increase in extreme weather events. Only the Conservatives and the Peoples Party of Canada presented policies that experts described as being insufficient to drive down the country’s carbon emissions. In the case of the Conservatives, promises to repeal carbon pricing and tougher fuel standards appeared to put them on the wrong side of the climate issue even though they included platform planks providing credits and tax breaks to new technologies that could be used to fight global warming. The Peoples Party, on the other hand, decried climate change as a hoax. The won no seats in Parliament.

The Liberal Party as the government is the same one that purchased an oil pipeline and its planned expansion while nixing another pipeline project and reserving judgment on any future investments in oil and gas capacity building. The pipeline purchase was a political act, certainly not an environmental one. It was seen as a way to ensure that Alberta’s oil-based economy would no longer be landlocked with only the United States as a customer. This situation had seriously depressed the province’s economy with it only capable of selling its fossil fuel products at deep discounts. At the same time, fracking in the United States had created an enormous surplus of domestic oil and gas further limiting demand for oil sands products. Only a pipeline outlet to the Pacific ensured Alberta producers access to world markets and world prices.

One would think that making the investment would have yielded a positive political outcome in the producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the Liberals won no seats in these two jurisdictions. To make matters worse, the provincial governments openly speculated about negotiating a new contract with the federation or separation. So much for respecting good intentions.

Now moving forward, the Liberal government, with support of the climate change action parties will move on an agenda to meet if not exceed the 30% reduction in greenhouse gases pledged by the country in 2015 at the Paris conference.

So what exactly is to be expected in the new political mandate?

In looking at the Liberal Party platform it makes the following commitments to Canadians and the world:

• They have never called putting a price on pollution a carbon tax. Starting in 2019 at $20 CDN per ton and rising in annual increments of $10 until 2022 when it reaches $50 is the current level of commitment. Will this change under a minority government? The NDP and Green Party will press the government to stay the course raising carbon pricing even further beyond 2022. The government still has to fight Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, the provinces that have challenged carbon pricing in court. The provinces have been ruled against in lower courts and now the Supreme Court will decide likely in the federal government’s favour.
• The Liberals also put in place tax rebates to offset the cost to consumers of carbon pricing to limit the impact on lower-income households from its implementation. Conservative provincial governments and the national Conservative Party have never acknowledged the offset in fighting carbon pricing. Clearly the majority of the Canadian voters felt that the combination of carbon pricing and rebates was a fair approach to fighting climate change.
• The Liberals also pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 with legally-binding milestone target reductions set in five-year increments to be established through the appointment of scientists, economists and climate experts who will provide guidance. Net-zero is an ambitious target to achieve, but many climatologists question a thirty-year timeline as too little, too late. The political parties to the left of the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois would favour more aggressive timing in reaching net-zero. This will probably require negotiation to come up with an agreed-to set of goals.
• The Liberals also acknowledged a new climate reality with policies aimed at creating a national action plan and insurance coverage for homeowners at risk to extreme weather events. The Liberals promised to update all province and territory flood maps, and develop relocation strategies for communities at risk in watersheds and on coastlines where increased flooding and rising sea levels are expected.
• The Liberals announced a plan to plant two billion trees including urban canopy growth in Canada’s cities over the next decade as a way of reducing atmospheric carbon and mitigating extreme temperatures. Along with this, the Liberals committed to fighting forest infestations and developing better wildfire management strategies.

In an effort to justify the pipeline investment and approval of any other oil sands projects, the Liberal Party may get support from both opposition on the left and right with the following policies:

• Announcement of the Clean Energy Transition which will produce an estimated $500 million in tax revenue from pipeline expansion once completed, to be invested in clean energy and natural climate projects.
• The Just Transition Act, new legislation to give energy workers and their communities (largely in Alberta and Saskatchewan) access to training, support, and new business opportunities in the clean energy sector and other industry segments relevant to a low-carbon economic future.
• Cutting the corporate tax rate from 9 to 4.5% for small businesses developing or manufacturing zero-emission products, and from 15 to 7.5% for larger companies with eligible sectors including renewables, zer0-emission vehicles and batteries, carbon capture and removal technology, and electric vehicle charging systems.

And although parts of Canada, largely those in the business of fossil fuel extraction, feel abandoned by a reelected government focused on climate change action, it is pretty clear that much of the world applaud the results. Germany’s ambassador to Canada noted that her country will work closely with Canada in the coming months on a climate change agenda. The European Union is promoting a “green deal” as a top priority, and see the outcome of Canada’s election as an opportunity to coordinate efforts to deal with the climate crisis.