TheLiberalParty

Since being elected in 2015,the Liberal party hasestablished a federal carbontax with a clear plan until 2022.The tax slapped a fine of $10per tonne of carbon pollutionemitted. The fine increased by$10 dollars till 2022 to anamount of $50 per tonne. It isunclear if the price will continueto scale past 2022.

The Parliamentary BudgetOffice (PBO) has stated that toabide by the Paris Agreement,Canada would have to doublethe tax to a total of $102 a tonne,unless other drastic actions aretaken alongside the current taxpolicy. The discrepancy hasallowed the Conservatives to putpolitical pressure on thegovernment, accusing them ofintentionally hiding a plan to keepraising taxes to hold up our end ofthe international deal.

This has also led to statements byEnvironment Minister CatherineMcKenna like "We will meet our2030 target through what we arealready doing and new measures,including tackling plasticpollution, doubling the amount ofnature that we are protecting,[and] investments in cleantechand innovation."

These sorts of eco-goodies

were mentioned on the Liberal partyplatform from 2015, Liberal budgetsand throne speeches throughouttheir term, and will undoubtedly getannounced some more in staggeredupdates to the platform to generatepublicity throughout the electoralcampaign. They are vague promisesthat have led to little action in thefirst term (so what would change ina second?), and their projectedimpact on carbon emissions isuncertain even if they were enacted.

To sum up, the Liberals have no clearplan to get to Paris Agreementbenchmarks and a clear record offailure at meeting their climatechange promises, no matter howphotogenically they’re presented.

It seems like the Liberals don’t wantto scare away Conservative-leaningvoters or offend industry by uppingthe tax to effective levels, but stillwant to appeal to progressives withrhetoric and skin-deep change. Thisis a classic Liberal electoral strategyand it may work well for them again.After all, they’re excellent politiciansand terrible climate leaders.

TheConservativePartyAndrew Scheer recently unveiled hisclimate plan. It’s helpfully titled “A RealPlan” so you know it’s serious. In the 33-page booklet, there’s glossy photos of asunkissed Scheer striking poses by acornfield, harbour, waterfall,greenhouse, sunset, beach, and while

planting a tree – at an oil refinery inJamnagar, India, if you can decipher

and believe the small tasteful caption.

This real plan sells the dream: to addressthe problem of climate change “withouttaking money out of Canadians’pockets.” However, the first policyprincipal of the plan is “Greentechnology, not taxes.”

Now when politicians speak vaguely ofinnovation and technology solving theclimate crisis, far too often they speakof interesting ideas that do not yet existor are not yet economically viable.Unfortunately, we have a deadline toget our emissions in check, so leadingwith a science-fiction solution isdisheartening, if not unexpected.

It is worth noting that this real plandoes include some real facts. It

acknowledges thatanthropogenic climatechange is real. It alsoacknowledges the gapbetween the currentcarbon tax plan andwhat would need to bedone to meet ParisA g r e e m e n tb e n c h m a r k s ,

according to thePBO.

However,Scheer’sreal plansets no

T here are major consequences toinaction on climate change thatare already being demonstrated

through natural disasters, economichardship, and ecological harm.

Ever since the ’90s, Canadiangovernments have been all talk and noaction on climate change. The majorpa�ies are talking again about theclimate in this campaign – more thanever – but it’s hard to separate thewheat from the chaff.

To that end, this a�icle offers a criticalsummary of what the major pa�ies arepromising on climate change andtouches on whether they would or couldachieve these goals.

First, let’s quickly remind ourselves of thedire situation we’re facing and theinternational commitments we havemade to try and survive it.

The Crisis Oversimplified

The climate crisis is here. With everyrepo� published by the UnitedNations’ Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC), theominous warnings becomeincreasingly alarming. All sectorsmust immediately and drasticallydecrease greenhouse gasemissions in order to hold globalaverage temperature increases tobelow 2ºC above pre-industriallevels, while effo�s should ultimatelypursue to halt the increase at 1.5ºC.

Signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreementcommitted to a reduction in emissionsthat could meet this target. Yetsignatory countries to various climateagreements in recent decades haveconsistently failed to meet theirtargets, leading to a climate strikerebellion among global youth.Everyday people are increasinglyfrustrated by political and economicelites who consistently stifle effo�s atreducing emissions.

With a federal election looming amidIPCC alarm bells andglobal youth resistance,climate change hasbecome a prominentelection issue like noother time inCanada’s history.What are themajor pa�iessaying theywould doabout it?

goals beyond scrapping the Liberals’inadequate carbon tax andreplacing it with... nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. When theConservatives roll back the carbontax, they will replace it with a new setof vague and less aggressiveincentives and policies. They will setno standards or benchmarks foremission reductions. But they willprovide a green homes tax creditand establish a Green Technologyand Innovation Fund. They will setemissions standards for majoremitters and make them get aGreen Investment StandardsCertification that will make acompany that produces too manyemissions to spend a “proportionateamount in an eligible clean techinvestment.”

Who will set these emissionstandards and proportionateamounts? Who will administer thiscertification? This sounds like anawful lot of regulation andbureaucracy. Here we thoughtConservatives favoured flat taxesand market incentivization – but notwhen it comes to carbon, apparently,or saving humanity and half of thebiosphere from extinction. No, thoseare too important to trust to themagic of market forces.

By now you should be able to see whyGreenpeace strategist Keith Stewarttold the CBC that the Conservativesreal plan to tackle climate change is“a plan only an oil lobbyist could love.It checks all the key boxes on theCanadian Association of PetroleumProducers' wish list and if it everbecame federal policy it woulddeepen the climate crisis.”

NewDemocraticPartyThe NDP’s “Power to Change: A newdeal for climate action and goodjobs” may be the most ambitiousyet concrete climate plan ever putforward by the pa�y. While Singh’sNew Deal would maintain theLiberal price on carbon to 2022, witha few tweaks, overall it includes a450-megatonne reduction by 2030,which equates to about a 37 percent reduction of emissions below2005 levels.

Significantly, the NDP plan has beentouted as the strongest across partyplatforms regarding implementingemissions-reduction accountabilitymechanisms. Targets would belegally-binding under an NDPgovernment, and interim targetsmeasures established and trackedby a Climate Accountability Office.

Further, the NDP promises to spend$15 billion to drive the transitionrequired to meet the Paris mark,including the creation of 300,000jobs within their first mandate.Singh’s New Deal also promises netcarbon-free electricity and all newbuildings net-zero ready by 2030, toreplace diesel use with renewablemicrogrids in Indigenous andnorthern communities, to eliminatefossil fuel subsidies, and to continuecarbon pricing while reducingexemptions for companies.

Now the NDP typically attempts abalancing act in order to woo leftistand more centrist voters. This is atricky and tedious line to tow; whenMulcair’s steered the party to theright in the last election, it resulted inthe party falling flat on its face andallowed the Liberals to capture thevote of many naive progressive-leaning voters.

In 2019, the NDP seems to be edgingleft, deploying the language of the

Green New Deal – U.S. legislationaiming to address climate changeand economic inequality, whileavoiding talk of the ‘socialism’ itsmost prominent Americanproponents happily flaunt – andwhile catering to workers in naturalresource and manufacturing sectors,supported in part by a proposed $3billion Canadian Climate Bank.

Jagmeet Singh’s environmental planis uniquely connected to the role ofIndigenous Peoples, unlike otherparty platforms. Singh promises tomake Indigenous peoples “full andequal partners” in fighting climatechange and to recognize the role ofIndigenous knowledge and theimportance of “uphold(ing)“Indigenous rights to protect lands,waterways, and biodiversity.”

It’s not easy to judge if the NDPwould or could implement all thesemeasures, since they have no historyas a federally governing party to goon. They do have a clear plan tomeet Paris Agreement targets,however. At the moment, thebiggest challenge is simply gettingelected. The party is sitting at 13 percent in the polls as of this writing andCBC’s Poll Tracker doesn’t evenbother presenting their chances ofwinning.

The GreenPartyThe 2019 election could be abreakthrough for the federal GreenParty. Climate change andenvironmental degradation is a toppriority for Canadian voters – a mid-September Ipsos poll assessing voterpriority put climate change thirdbehind health care andaffordability/cost of living and thuseven ahead of the coveted economy.

This gives the Greens room to shineand the party is riding a wave ofmomentum, scoring recentbreakthroughs by electing membersto provincial legislatures in B.C., NewBrunswick, and P.E.I.

The federal Greens are promising a60 per cent reduction in greenhousegas emissions below 2005 levels by2030, touting their plan as “Mission:Possible – The Green ClimateEmergency Action Plan.” This is bothmore specific and more ambitiousthan any other party. (To put it inperspective, that doubles thecurrent Liberal target). The Greensargue that only by taking suchmeasures can the Paris emissions-reduction targets be met.

The Green’s “Mission Possible”includes a 20-point plan that is by farthe most concise yet comprehensivewe've looked at so far. They pledgeto eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies,refuse any new oil drilling or pipelinedevelopments, and ban all fracking.The Greens would set a target of 100per cent renewable electricity by2030 and zero emissions by 2050,saying they would ban internalcombustion engines by 2030.

As reflected in its title, their platformemphasizes that we are in a climateemergency and they would establisha cross-party cabinet “modelled onthe war cabinets of Mackenzie Kingand Winston Churchill” to addressthis emergency.

So what's the catch? Obtainability.Although all 20 of the plan’s goalsare logical responses to thechallenges of sustainability, actuallyfollowing through would involvedrastic action – and the sociallicence and broad political will to dothat does not yet exist, it seems.

The Green Party’s infrastructureplans have also come under fire from

several directions. They aim for akind of national energy self-sufficiency, in the long run through anational electrical grid to transportrenewable energy interprovinciallyand in the short-term by cutting offoil imports and transporting oil fromWestern to Eastern Canada.

Environmental scientist Blair Kingcriticizes this admittedly ambitiousinfrastructure plan as impracticaland overly expensive in a piece forThe Orca; King is also the kind ofself-described “pragmaticenvironmentalist” who suppo�sthe Trans Mountain Pipeline andthe Site C dam.

These plans have also faced criticismfrom within party ranks for nottaking a harder line on tar sandsproduction. Back in May of this year,Quebec Green Alex Tyrrell madeheadlines by publicly condemningElizabeth May’s approach to cuttingoff oil imports and instead relying onCanadian crude – including tar sandsbitumen – until weaning the countryoff fossil fuels by 2050.

Regardless of May’s questionablestance on tar sands production, avote for the Green Party is a vote fora comprehensive emissions-reduction plan that wouldundeniably take commitment, time,and resources to accomplish withany level of success.

BlocQuébécoisThe Bloc Québécois is a unique partyin the federation. It is the only federalparty committed solely to furtheringthe interests of its provincialconstituency. In recent decades theBloc has held significant influence inCanada’s House of Commons. Sinceits first election run in 1993 (when itwon 54 out of 75 seats in Québec), ithas been either the second or thirdlargest party in the House, until itrolled under the NDP’s “orange wave”in 2011.

The Bloc’s platform “Le Québec,c’est nous” outlines that the party issovereigntist and works exclusivelyfor the interests of Québec. Withinthis, the platform outlines eightguiding principles and the first onthe list asserts “souverainetéenvironnementale” (environmentalsovereignty). It promises a billgranting Québec the authority toblock any federal projects in theprovince, including pipelines,airports, and cell towers.

In the Bloc’s environmentalplatform, “L’environnement, c’estnous,” the province is touted as onethat doesn’t produce oil yet hasabundant renewable naturalresources – in stark contrast withCanada, which acts like a petrol-state whose policies cater to bigWestern oil.

Like other parties, the Bloc criticizesthe inadequacies of the Liberalcarbon tax scheme. It then proposesthat Ottawa levy a carbon tax thattargets provinces that have greaterper-capita emissions and that theserevenues be distributed to provinceswith lesser per-capita emissions – agreen equalization payments system.

Regarding greenhouse gasemissions, the Bloc proposesimplementing a law to mandateemissions reductions in line withParis targets. The law would includean accountability mechanismcompelling Ottawa to account for allof its actions, including subsidies.The Bloc underlines that the federalgovernment has never respectedtargets going back to the KyotoProtocol and that accountabilitymeasures are required.

Other environmental commitmentsoutlined by the Bloc include anoutright rejection of the Energy Eastpipeline, an end to fossil fuelsubsidies, rebates for electricvehicles, green renovations, and anet-zero emission law mandatingthat auto dealers sell a minimumnumber of zero-emission vehicles, inline with what California has done.

In Québec, those voters intent oncasting a climate change ballot willhave to consider the Bloc among theGreens and NDP when stepping in tothe poll booth.

People’sPartyof CanadaNo serious voter concerned withclimate change and theenvironment should consider thePeople’s Party. Former ConservativeCabinet member Maxime Bernierleft the party to form the People’sParty, not long after Bernier narrowlylost the leadership race to AndrewScheer. Bernier now leads alibertarian-populist party who drawsits greatest support from thexenophobic demographic ofCanada’s electorate.

While the anti-immigration zeal isworrying, Bernier’s environmentalplatform is more laughable. “GlobalWarming and Environment:Rejecting Alarmism and Focusing onConcrete Improvements” is anexercise in denying the human rolein climate change.

Here’s a select quote or two:

“Until twelve thousand years ago,much of Canada was under ice, andit is thanks to natural climate changethat we can live here today.” Howinsightful!

The platform continues, “There ishowever no scientific consensus onthe theory that CO2 produced byhuman activity is causing dangerousglobal warming today or will in thefuture, and that the world is facingenvironmental catastrophes unlessthese emissions are drasticallyreduced. Many renowned scientistscontinue to challenge this theory.”

There is much more, but we cannotdevote any further space here. Weinvite you to check it out, if you wouldlike to learn how CO2 is “beneficial foragriculture,” how climate changepolicy debate has been “hijacked” tospread fear, and how children arebeing manipulated to protest andpressure their parents.

To summarize, the People’s Partypledges to withdraw from the ParisAccord, abolish the carbon tax, andcut all subsidies for greentechnology.

ConclusionElection season arrives with muchfanfare and each day of thecampaign is greeted with breathlessplay-by-play commentary by mediapundits. Voting is treated like asacred duty, yet by the time electioncomes and gone we tend to feeldeflated. At The Leveller, we knowthat voting can make a difference,but voting itself will not solve climatechange. The climate justicemovement we need may involveelectoral politics (or not), but it willcertainly have to be so much biggerthan that, involving mass socialmovements, protest, public andclandestine direct actions, broadcultural changes, dramatic economicshifts and lifestyle changes, etc.,etc.The fight doesn’t end at theballot box, it begins there.

whILe THEWoRlDBUrnS

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EVALUATING SIXPARTY PLATFORMSFOR CLIMATE ACTIONBY MORGANA ADBY& LEVELLER STAFFILLUSTRATION BYADAM ASHBY GIBBARD