The Liberals will this week table their most detailed plan to date for achieving Canada’s climate goals — after years of governments missing their marks.
“Canada has never reached any of its own climate targets,” said Caroline Brouillette, national policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of more than 130 groups.
“This plan is an opportunity to correct this.”
In June 2021, the Liberals passed Canada’s Net Zero Emission Accountability Act (CNZEAA). It states, among other things, that the Canadian government must set regular incremental targets on the road to net-zero by 2050.
The government has agreed already to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent by 2030. It has committed to setting further incremental targets in 2035, 2040 and 2045.
The new act has built in a framework of checkpoints and assessments that include independent oversight. But the basic government reporting measures include tabling emissions reduction plans and regular progress reports.
Canada has had nine climate plans since 1990 and has failed to hit any of the targets in them. Federal Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry V. DeMarco said Canada has been the worst performer among G7 nations on climate targets since the landmark Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015.
“We can’t continue to go from failure to failure. We need action and results, not just more targets and plans,” DeMarco said.
The government hopes this week’s plan changes that trajectory of failure.
A climate plan is a lot like a household budget, said lawyer Julia Croome of Ecojustice, an environmental law charity — if you don’t pay attention to the details, you won’t achieve your goals.
“You need a plan. You need to break it all out — what are my expenses, what do I need to achieve. And without that, you are obviously not going to stay within your budget,” Croome said.
Climate Action Network Canada said this week’s emissions plan should set deadlines and show how much Canada’s climate commitments will cost, how progress will be measured, how data gaps will be closed and which ministers are responsible.
What do opposition parties want?
The Conservatives say they worry the plan could hurt the Canadian economy.
“We’ve got really tough issues with inflation, gas prices, other things. The last thing we need is for the net-zero plan to result in a job-zero plan,” said MP Kyle Seeback, the Conservative environment and climate change critic.
Seeback said Conservatives fear the government will exclude nuclear power and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada’s low-emissions plan, citing the Liberals’ decision to keep nuclear and LNG out of its Green bond purchasing program. He said the party also doesn’t want to see the price on carbon rise to the equivalent of 11 cents on a litre of unleaded gasoline.
The Green Party of Canada said consultations on the plan, which began in December and ended in January, were rushed.
“It is always unreasonable for the government to put forward any consultation and act as though Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s are not a factor in making it harder for citizens to respond,” said MP Elizabeth May, the Greens’ parliamentary leader.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said he was “surprised, if not shocked” to hear the Greens wanted more consultation.
“I would have thought that of all the organizations out there, the Green Party would be one of the first ones to say, ‘Let’s get on with implementation,'” he said.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault speaks to media at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
The NDP, meanwhile, says it wants a transition plan to help workers in Canada’s energy sector get ready for an economy that relies less on fossil fuels.
“[We need to] take into account how we are protecting workers and ensuring that we support communities most impacted and include Indigenous people in the creation of the plans and the implementation,” said MP Laurel Collins, the NDP’s environment and climate change critic.
MP Charlie Angus, the NDP’s natural resources critic, called for an immediate cap on oil and gas emissions to 2019 levels.
“We need to say to the world we are serious,” said.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the oil and gas emissions cap the government is working on won’t be announced until after Ottawa finishes consultations. He said this week’s emissions plan will still address the sector that accounts for most of Canada’s emissions.
“The emissions reduction plan that minister Guilbeault will be bringing forward, and certainly he and I have been working actively and collaboratively together on it, will have projections for each sector, including the oil and gas sector,” Wilkinson said.
COTEAU-DU-LAC, Que. – Quebec provincial police are investigating the death of a five-year-old boy found in a home about 55 kilometres southwest of Montreal.
Police say emergency services were called to the home about 3.a.m. in Coteau-du-Lac, Que.
The boy was found unresponsive and his death was confirmed not long after.
Sgt. Marythé Bolduc says investigators are calling the death suspicious but no arrests have been made.
Two other people inside the home were taken to hospital and will meet with investigators when their health condition permits.
Crime scene technicians were at the home today and investigators are looking to speak with people who had seen the child in the past 24 hours.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
TORONTO – There is less and less space on the lawn for the dozens upon dozens of bright white crosses.
The grass between the fire station and the sidewalks on a downtown corner in Sudbury, Ont., is crowded with markers bearing the names of people lost to the opioid overdose crisis.
Too many more are dying.
What started four years ago as a memorial to a local woman’s son has grown so much in size and in the public consciousness that the city has pledged to find space for a permanent installation.
It’s not the only municipality with such plans in Ontario, where opioid toxicity contributes to an estimated seven deaths a day, or some 1,249 people in the first five months of the year, according to preliminary estimates.
Across the province, data from the Office of the Chief Coroner show rates have been significantly higher since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an average of 130 deaths per month in 2019 to a peak of 238 a month in 2021. Four in five deaths involve fentanyl.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre says his municipality has been struggling to keep up over the past few years, despite “lots of outreach going on.”
“We’re trying to address it, but it’s getting tougher and tougher,” he said in an interview. “We’ve never seen that in our lifetime.”
From January through August, 90 people died from a suspected drug overdose in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts, Public Health Sudbury & Districts reports – about 15 per cent more than in the same period last year. Another 245 people visited emergency departments for confirmed opioid overdoses.
Over the course of 2023, the region saw the highest rate of toxic drug deaths per capita.
Lefebvre said he’s working with the founder of the downtown memorial, called Crosses for Change, to find an appropriate space in the city where residents can come to grieve.
“We need to memorialize what these folks, our friends and family members, have gone through, and their tragic passing in this crisis we’re all facing,” he said.
A similar effort is underway in Guelph, Ont. Though its region’s rates of opioid-related deaths are consistently among the lowest in the province, community members are far from immune to this particular type of grief.
People closely affected by toxic drug use worked with the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy and other community partners to design a “contemplative space” that will be built in a city park, says Jean Hopkins, the strategy’s manager.
The Pathways to Remembering Monument is imagined as a stone podium surrounded by tall grasses, meant to symbolize lost loved ones.
A spokesman for the City of Guelph confirmed the city is looking at options for a site, will fund bench purchases and lead the project implementation. Other costs are being covered by a fundraising effort that Hopkins said began in 2022 and has raised about one-third of a $50,000 goal so far.
“It is so important to have reflective spaces within our community to call attention to this issue, and ensure we are honouring those we have lost to a preventable cause,” Hopkins said in an email. “We hope that the memorial will also address the stigma that is linked to substance use and drug poisoning.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KESWICK, Ont. – York Regional Police say two people are dead after a shooting at a park in the community of Keswick.
Police say officers responded to sounds of gunshots in the area of Bayview and Lowndes Avenue just before 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and two adults were pronounced dead.
The force says its homicide unit is investigating.
Officers are calling the incident isolated, with no threat to the public.
The York Region District School Board says schools in the area are under a hold and secure due to police activity in the area.
Police are looking for witnesses and asking nearby residents to check security footage for any information that might help the investigation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 18, 2024.
