Where the political parties stand on climate change is information crucial for Canadians preparing for a federal election in October.
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| Mitigate Climate Change |
Macleans magazine has gathered the data.
Canadians can expect a heated campaign that pits Justin Trudeau’s Liberals against Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives and Jagmeet Singh’s and New Democrats, as well as Elizabeth May’s Greens. This is Trudeau’s second time on the hustings as a leader, and both Scheer and Singh’s first. May has led her party through three campaigns.
Most parties will release their full election platforms during the campaign itself. But they do release some of their plans in advance; we’ll publish any proposal that can reasonably be considered an election promise. We’ll stick to the four main national parties to start, but reserve the right to add other parties’ proposals.1
The Liberal platform declares a ban “harmful” single-use plastics by as early as 2021 [source]
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| Macleans finds Liberal policy |
The Conservative platform is more verbose.
- Set emissions standards for major emitters that produce more than 40 kilotonnes per year of greenhouse gases, requiring them to invest in private-sector research and development of green technology. [source]
- Establish a green patent credit that will reduce the tax rate to five per cent on income that is generated from green technology developed and patented in Canada. [source]
- Incorporate traditional knowledge of First Nations into efforts to address the impacts of climate change. [source]
- Expand Export Development Canada programs to issue more green bonds that provide financing for the development of emissions-reducing technologies. [source]
- Create a two-year green homes tax credit for homeowners to help pay for energy-saving renovations. [source]
- Create a two-year green homes tax credit for homeowners to help pay for energy-saving renovations. [source]
- Review and update the invasive alien species strategy for Canada, as well as the invasive species action plans. [source]
- Review and modernize air quality standards and regulations, with a focus on urban airsheds. [source]
- Re-establish an advisory panel that gave hunting, angling and conservation groups input on policies and programs on conservation. [source]
- Negotiate regulatory changes that would increase the energy efficiency of cross-border trucking while encouraging research and development in eco-friendly modes of transportation. [source]
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| CPC Real Plan |
The NDP platform offers some plans that resonate with the highest priority directives of the IPCC to (1) stop using coal to generate electricity and (2) stop using gas and diesel in transportation.
- Ban single-use plastics by 2022 as part of broader waste reduction strategy [source]
- Set the target to retrofit all housing stock in Canada by 2050, by providing low-interest loans repayable through energy savings to pay for home upgrades like insulation, windows, heat pumps, and other renewable technologies [source]
- Modernize and expand public transit in communities across Canada and ensure that federal transit funding flows with an emphasis on low-carbon transit projects [source]
- Set a target to power Canada with net carbon-free electricity by 2030 and move to 100% non-emitting electricity by 2050 [source]
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| NDP plans |
The Green platform is most attendant to the emergency nature of the need to mitigate the effects of climate change and meet IPCC goals on emissions.
- Double Canada’s emissions reduction target to 60 per cent by 2030 [source]
- Halt all new fossil fuel development projects [source]
- Implement a nationwide shift toward non-nuclear renewable energy while retrofitting all buildings in Canada over the next 11 years [source]
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| GREEN Plan |
The policies of each of the parties can be assessed by comparison to the template created by Clean Energy Canada.
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| Clean Energy Canada questions |
Recent polls from ABACUS Data show increased concern and willingness to have government act on climate change.
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