Canada and the Environment: From Maverick to Miscreant

Canada’s international reputation is shaped not only by its foreign policies, but also by its stance on environmental issues. Canada was, not so long ago, a principled leader – some would say maverick – on the environment, punching well above its weight at international fora. For example:

• Throughout the 1970s Canada drew international praise for its pioneering work on environmental assessment.
• Canada co-sponsored the first Earth Conference held in Stockholm in 1972.
• Canada showed leadership in negotiations to protect the ozone layer, culminating in the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
• In 1987, Canada reacted positively to the Brundtland report, Our Common Future. The federal, provincial and territorial governments created round tables on the environment and economy (only two of which still exist).
• In the late 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney succeeded in coaxing US President Ronald Reagan into taking measures to curb acid rain, culminating in the Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement in 1991.
• In 1988 Canada hosted the Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, the first major international meeting that brought governments and scientists together to discuss action on climate change, a meeting that was instrumental in establishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• Two years later, the Canadian and Manitoba governments establish the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Winnipeg as a global centre of expertise.
• Canadian Maurice Strong headed the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, the largest meeting of world leaders in history. There, Canada signed conventions on climate change and biodiversity. Under Mulroney’s government, Canada became the first industrialized country to ratify the biodiversity convention.
• Canadians were instrumental in the creation of the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank in 1992.
• In 1993, Vancouver hosted the first in an ongoing series of conferences entitled Global Opportunities for Business and the Environment.
• Canada has converted about 10 per cent of its total land mass – an area larger than Germany and France combined – to parkland, and we’ve protected over three million hectares, roughly 0.5 per cent, of our oceans.
• Most of our cities have waste recycling programs and these programs continue to expand.

IImpressive, yes, but the McLeod Group believes that Canada has fallen from grace to the point where many now view Canada as a miscreant.
Canada’s backsliding gained momentum in the mid-1990s when the Liberal government severely cut Environment Canada’s budget. Many advisory programs disappeared, including the Canadian Global Change Program. Canada pretended to attack climate change by spending a lot of money on public relations with virtually no tangible results. While many other industrial countries moved forward, Canada lagged behind.
Where are we today?

• A study conducted by an independent team of researchers at Simon Fraser University, based on data collected by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), concluded that Canada has one of the worst environmental records in the industrialized world. Of 30 OECD member countries, Canada ranked 28th in energy consumption, 29th in water consumption, 27th in sulfur oxides pollution and 30th in nuclear waste and carbon monoxide production. Particularly worrisome was that Canada showed no improvement relative to other OECD countries over the previous 10 years.
• According to OECD data, Canada now has the worst record of all G8 countries with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At Kyoto in 1997, Canada pledged to cut GHG emissions by six per cent from the 1990 level. Since then emissions have risen by more than 25 per cent. No other signatory has done so poorly and Canada has signaled its intention not to participate in a second round in 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol’s legally binding commitment period is due to be renewed.
• Canada ranks 46th of 163 countries measured, according to the world’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by Yale and Columbia universities. We fared reasonably well on indicators for forestry, water and agricultural practices, but we ranked 125th of 127 countries measured on fisheries conservation and 151st of 164 countries on GHG emissions per capita. A comparison of the green content in economic stimulus programs of several G8 governments in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis shows Canada falling further behind its G8 partners.
• Prime Minister Harper went to the UN climate convention’s 2009 summit in Copenhagen and pledged to reduce our GHG emissions by 17 per cent from the 2006 level by 2020. Experts, and most literate Canadians, know that this is poppycock: we’ll be lucky if we get a quarter of the way to achieving that target. Growth in emissions over the next decade from Alberta’s oil sands alone will completely offset the combined impact of federal and provincial climate measures.
• Canada has twice earned the ignominious “Fossil Award” for its inaction on curbing GHG emissions, first at the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in 2009 and again in Cancún the following year. We also hold the “Colossal Fossil” award as the country making the least constructive contribution to UN climate change negotiations. George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian and bestselling author, said, “Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice threaten to do as much damage to your [Canada’s] international standing as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to that of the United States.”
• Canada’s reputation as a “positive influence” in the world took a steep nose dive in 2010 according to a BBC poll, the first time since the broadcaster began tracking international sentiment in 2005. The decline was sharpest among some of Canada’s chief trading partners, notably the United States, China and Britain. The chief reason? Canada’s lackluster environmental policies.

Can it get any worse? Yes it can.

• The federal government is planning to cut the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency by 43.1 percent in 2012-13. That’s on top of a 6.9-percent cut in in 2010-11. Close to 800 meteorologists, chemists, biologists and other scientists stand to lose their jobs and several key environmental monitoring programs will disappear.
• For all the rhetoric about renewable energy, renewable supplies only account for about one per cent of demand in Canada. In contrast, we expect to almost triple Alberta oil sands production by 2025 from the 2008 level, thanks largely to generous tax subsidies. The oil sands extraction process is so energy-consuming and polluting that it makes crude oil production look green. A reputable Canadian organization, Environmental Defence, has called the tar sands development “the most destructive project on earth” and in September 2011 the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu and seven other Nobel Peace Prize recipients added their voices to the growing chorus calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil to US markets.

The McLeod Group believes that our government is taking the country in a direction that is out of step with most Canadians and with the forward march to a sustainable future. Polls consistently show that most Canadians give environmental protection priority over economic growth. A tax on carbon did not stop the Liberal government in British Columbia from getting elected for a third consecutive term in 2009. Ironically, much of Canada’s corporate sector is more progressive on environmental matters than the ruling Conservatives. In 2007, for example, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives called for a Canadian public policy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and pledged their members’ support for action on climate change. The Forest Products Association of Canada claims that its pulp and paper members have reduced GHG emissions by 57 percent since 1990, 10 times Canada’s Kyoto target.
What’s needed to get Canada back on track?

• We need to get serious about climate change and we must be bold. The federal government should put a price on carbon and gradually increase it over the next two decades. Carbon pricing is the key, even though it’s a political minefield. Otherwise companies have little incentive to invest in emission reductions. If Australia can move on a carbon tax, why can’t Canada?
• Our governments should more aggressively regulate vehicle emissions and provide incentives for individuals and businesses alike to make more efficient use of carbon energy and to switch to alternative sources.
• Infrastructure spending in Canadian cities should have higher green content, and should provide stronger support to green transportation – walking, bicycling and public transit.
• Our federal government should reward industry – small and large – to go green and it should engage provincial and municipal governments to do the same. It should take on a larger role in promoting more compact and energy-efficient Canadian cities and use its tax policy and regulatory powers to steer development and consumption choices by industry and individuals.
• Canada needs to get its domestic and foreign policies in line. The federal and Quebec governments should, for example, cease “defending the indefensible” through its shameless support for the export of asbestos products to developing countries while banning their use at home.
• We should restore needed funding to the Department of Environment and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. We should increase support for research and public engagement on the environment.
• We should act on the promises we made to protect biodiversity.
• We should emulate elsewhere the Ontario government’s pledge to plant 50 million trees by 2020 in southern Ontario.
• We should act on what scientists, fishers and Aboriginal Peoples have been telling us for decades about our dwindling fisheries.
• We should no longer make promises at international conferences that we have no intention of keeping.
• Our Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment should phase out subsidies for oil sands development, move to a more sustainable energy strategy, and cease forever the rhetoric that tar sands oil is “ethical oil”.

Canadians enjoy an environment that is the envy of most of the rest of the world. But our international reputation as a principled defender of the environment is in steep decline. The McLeod Group believes that this is unlikely to change over the short term. The best one could hope for is for Canada to refrain from obstructing other governments more willing to lead where Canada once did.
Notes:
1. Keating, M. (2010). Is Canada on a sustainable path? Background paper prepared for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Canada as part of the Second National Conference of the Canadian Sustainability Indicators Network, Toronto, March 3, 2010.
2. Gunton, T. (2005). The Maple Leaf in the OECD: Comparing progress toward sustainability. Vancouver: The David Suzuki Foundation.
3.Simpson, J. “The two faces of Stephen Harper.” The Globe and Mail, January 25, 2010.
4.Reid, P. (2009). “Opportunity in a time of crisis: stimulus packages and the green new deal.” in Canada-Europe Transatlantic Dialogue. Carleton University, August 2009.
5.GlobeScan. (2010). Accessed at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/02/11/bbc-poll-influence.html
6.Minsky, A. “Cuts hit environmental assessments.” Vancouver Sun, July 21, 2011.
7.Keating, M. (2010).
8.Simpson, J. “We are the Ugly Canadians.” The Globe and Mail, June 25, 2011. F9.